spatch a little less nakedly and audaciously; or even if, at the eleventh hour, Lord Palmerston had prolonged the debate to another evening, and then closed it with a speech showing the tact and conciliatory language which he can always command when he desires, it is almost certain that the result of the division would have been very different. But, in truth, the defeat of the Government had been long preparing, and was preceded by a considerable period of gradually increasing discredit. The incomprehensible indifference and inaction of both Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon in the case of the English engineers, so cruelly confined in the Neapolitan dungeons, had greatly shaken the trust of all advanced Liberals in the reliability of either where a spirited policy towards despots was in question; and the unwarrantable insolence with which both Mr. Stirling and Mr. Griffith were treated by the former, for asking very natural and perhaps necessary questions in a very fitting manner, roused the indignation of all who held opinions at all similar to those of the interrogators. The introduction of the India Bill also created many antagonists. It was extensively believed that Lord Palmerston had decided the matter in an ignorant hurry, and without due deliberation; the East India Company and their friends were of course very indignant at the aim and purport of the measure, and felt that they had been treated most uncourteously both by the silence and the correspondence of the Premier; while every one who listened to the speech in which he proposed so great a change in the government of an empire felt that, to use the mildest phrase, it was far below the occasion.

It was the appointments recently made by Lord Palmerston, however, which were the real ultimate cause,-the causa sine quá non, if not actually the causa causans,-of his defeat. The nomination of Mr. Howard as Distributor of Stamps in Manchester, and that of Mr. Tollemache to the post of Treasurer in a County Court, created the widest dissatisfaction; for though both the nominees were men of irreproachable respectability, yet the Liberal constituencies throughout the country were offended at seeing two of the very few good posts which had hitherto been considered to belong to the middle-classes given away to scions of that aristocracy which already monopolises nearly all the lucrative and desirable places in the land. The appointment of Lord Mulgrave as Governor of Nova Scotia, too, was felt to be in every way indefensible,—as one based upon no personal claim whatever, and by no means courteous to an important and loyal colony. There were some minor nominations, also, which showed too plainly the reckless direction that patronage was taking. But when, to crown the

whole, Lord Clanricarde was made Lord Privy Seal and brought into the Cabinet, the whole Liberal party, in and out of Parliament, groaned aloud and stood aghast. It was universally felt that public opinion had been deliberately affronted, and the character of the party gratuitously injured. Without offering any judgment as to the fact or the degree of Lord Clanricarde's delinquency in a scandalous case wherein he maintains his entire innocence, it is enough to state that, right or wrong, the entire Whig political connection scarcely included so damaged a reputation; and that neither in debating skill, in administrative ability, nor in parliamentary influence, could he bring to the Government any assistance sufficient to, in the least degree, compensate for the evil influence of his appointment. It is no secret, that several members voted against Lord Palmerston on Mr. Milner Gibson's motion in order to avoid having to vote against him on the one threatened by Mr. Wise.

We have more than once had occasion to observe with what "curious felicity" the House of Commons usually represents the exact feeling of the country-whenever the country has a strongly-defined feeling-although scarcely sharing the sentiment itself. This was never more remarkable than on the late occasion. There can be no doubt that the vote which displaced the late ministry faithfully expressed the popular and prevailing sentiment on the subject of our French relations. We believe it is equally certain that it did not express the private sentiments of the majority of the members of the House; and it certainly did not coincide with the views of the most influential organs of the press. Many who swelled the majority on that occasion in no degree sympathised with the indignation of the country; but, on the contrary, thought the spirit which had been aroused somewhat exaggerated or misplaced. Some, however, had been irritated past endurance by the Premier's manner to his questioners. Some were indignant at his behaviour in the Naples case. Some were ready to upset him on any pretext, in order to prevent him from carrying the India Bill to a successful issue. A few, perhaps, were not sorry to aid in a catastrophe which would stave off a Reform Bill. Others, again, thought that Lord Palmerston ought to be punished for his appointments, but were not desirous to come to issue with him ostensibly upon such unpleasant questions. And there may have been some also who felt that a dissolution and reconstruction of the Liberal Government had become almost a moral necessity. All these complicated motives, when combined, contrived exactly, and, as it were, unconsciously, to embody the judgment of the nation, in which was no complexity at all.

Since writing the above, certain documents have appeared relating to the differences which have arisen between this country and France, of which it behoves us to take cognisance. The first of these is an elaborate pamphlet, bearing the title of L'Empereur Napoléon III et l'Angleterre, written by M. de la Guerronnière, under the direct inspiration of Louis Napoleon, and designed to explain to England and to Europe the reasons for the irritation of the French people at the alleged inefficacy of our law to prevent conspiracies and plots, and the grounds for the demand of the French government that this law should be strengthened and amended. The tone of the production is singularly calm, moderate, and cautious; and the allegations are drawn up and marshalled in a manner to produce considerable effect on continental readers, few of whom will hear our side of the question, and fewer still will be able to comprehend the gist or spirit of our answer. That answer, however, seems to us very simple and sufficing, and shall be very brief.

1. The author arrays against us a formidable list of no less than eight plots, inchoate or actually carried out, to destroy the government and person of the Emperor, which have been discovered within the last six years; the concoctors of all of which, he affirms, contrived their schemes in England, and came thence to execute them, or went thither after their escape from justice. The evidence of this assertion is in some cases of the slightest, and would satisfy no English court, being confined to a connection, real or supposed, of the offenders with Ledru Rollin, Mazzini, and other refugees who have sought shelter here and habitually reside among us. But let that pass. We will assume that the fact is as stated. What does the circumstance of so many attempts at assassination having been planned against the Emperor prove, except that he has made many enemies, and that they are sanguinary and relentless? No one doubted the fact, and the mode in which he seized supreme power is a sufficient explanation. And as to the fact that these enemies reside in England, and here brood over their wrongs, and hence set forth to avenge them, what does this prove, but that England is the only country where political fugitives can find shelter and safety? It is not by our wish, nor by our act, that these desperate men are here. They are here because Louis Napoleon and his predecessors have driven them forth; they are here because scarcely any other land dare give them refuge, and because no other is powerful enough to protect them at all risks. We did not invite them; as a rule we do not like them; we even feel that we have a ground of complaint against France and the French police, which are perpetually expelling or frightening away scores of foreign ruffians, and landing them

on our shores. The fact, then, that Louis Napoleon's bitterest foes dwell in England is his doing rather than ours; and if M. de la Guerronnière's list of instances point to any conclusion at all, it is to the conclusion that Louis Napoleon's enemies ought to live nowhere.

2. The second ground alleged for the impression said to prevail in France-and, we must add, sedulously encouraged by the Emperor's government-of English indifference to these ferocious and murderous conspiracies, is that we take no notice of the violent language and exciting publications of these refugees. We are told that there is a coffee-house near Temple Bar, where the propriety of regicide under certain circumstances has been openly discussed in a debating forum; that at the Wylde reading-rooms, at a French club which meets there, Simon Bernard held forth against the Emperor and his ministers in the most violent and savage language; that a pamphlet in defence of assassination has just been published in London by some foreign Socialists; and finally, that ten thousand people a while ago listened to an inflammatory funeral oration pronounced over a French refugee. Is the government of the Emperor really sunk so low as to take cognisance of such contemptible manifestations as these, and actually to fear them? And can it expect us to elevate them into consequence by deigning to take notice of them? If it really desired this, it was at any time open to it to denounce them to our Ministers, who would have directed Sir Richard Mayne to watch them, and the Attorney-general to prosecute them. But Englishmen find it as difficult to comprehend the temper and position of a government which thinks it necessary even to give attention to such obscure meetings and such absurd bombast, as Frenchmen do to understand why we treat such proceedings with neglect and scorn, and leave them in their natural harmlessness and obscurity. Who among our readers ever heard of the low coffee-house at Temple Bar, or the dingy French club in Leicester Square? Who would dream of doing any thing but laugh, or sigh, at the inflated rhetoric of wretched and disappointed refugees? As to the question "Whether regicide is ever justifiable?"-why it is, and has been for generations, one of the stock subjects of all debating-societies in England; few schoolboys or collegians have not discussed it in their time, and decided in the affirmative;-nay, we have little doubt that half our soberest statesmen have ere now written theses or made orations on the question, "Was Brutus justified in stabbing Cæsar?"-ay, and have taken the anti-imperial side of the argument. As to the seditious and inflammatory pamphlet spoken of, it has been prosecuted as soon as ever the French govern

ment called the attention of our authorities to its publication, and to the exaggerated importance they attached to it. As to the funeral oration pronounced over a French refugee, we remember the circumstance perfectly; but it excited scarcely any notice at the time, except among the foreigners resident among us; we had never before heard the name of the deceased; and the crowd that attended at the grave, and heard the obnoxious harangue, was nearer one thousand than ten.

The truth is, we are so much in the habit of allowing the wretched, the feeble, and the angry, to say what they like, and to be wholly indifferent to what they do say, that we can scarcely believe in the want of dignity, the panic fear, or the sense of insecurity, which would condescend to notice violent language, whether written or spoken. Nor should our neighbours blame us for this, when they consider what amenities of this sort we ourselves bear, laugh at, and pass by, every day of our lives. Does M. Walewski ever read the Irish newspapers? If he does, he must know that some of them even now abound in malignities and falsehoods, and provocatives to sedition and violence, quite as bad as those vented by their brother Celts across the water. Yet who here would ever deign to honour them with notice in a state-paper, or even in an indictment? We loathe the writers, it is true; but we heed them no more than we should the sweep who calls out filthy language after us in the streets. Does M. Walewski remember how long we bore with Mr. O'Connell's sedition, and with Smith O'Brien's; and that the authorities never interfered till the latter created an actual insurrection, and till the monster meetings of the former undeniably endangered the public peace? If he does, he may understand our amazement at the thin-skinned susceptibility of himself and his associates, who can shrink from and dread the thunder of the rhetoricians and funeral orators of Fleet Street and Leicester Square, and who can seriously believe that fanatics who are prepared to forfeit their lives by actual attempts to assassinate an Emperor will be fools enough to spout at clubs, or to be influenced and inspired by those who do.

3. To what conclusions do the representations of this pamphlet point, as the wishes and expectations of the Emperor? If to a prompt notice and a vigorous prosecution of these writers and haranguers in obscure alleys and upper-rooms, in seedy and disreputable squares, our Government would not refuse to put the law in force at the requisition of the Emperor; warning him at the same time of the possible difficulty of obtaining evidence clear enough to secure a conviction, of the mischief which might follow failure, and of the folly of elevat