irst plan for the seizure of the king
was to shoot his carriage horses, then force him out of the carriage,
and carry him off. A second plan was then proposed, viz. that of loading
the Egyptian gun in St James's Park with chain shot, and firing it at
the royal carriage as it passed along.

Lord Nelson and General Sir Alured Clarke were brought as evidence to
character. Lord Nelson said, that he and Colonel Despard had served
together on the Spanish Main in 1799, and that he was then a loyal man
and a brave officer. Lord Ellenborough strongly charged the jury. He
declared that there was no question of law, and that the whole case
resolved itself into a question of fact. The jury, after retiring for
half an hour, brought in a verdict of guilty.

In a few days after, Despard, with six of his accomplices, were executed
in front of the new jail in the Borough. The men were chiefly soldiers
whom this wretched criminal had bribed or bewildered into the commission
of treason. Despard made a speech on the scaffold, declaring himself
innocent, and that he was put to death simply for being a friend to
truth, liberty, and justice. How he could have made this declaration
after the evidence that had been given, is wholly unintelligible except
on the ground of insanity, though of that there was no symptom, except
in the design itself. What prompted the design except narrow
circumstances, bad habits, and the temptations of a revengeful spirit,
was never discovered.

* * * * *

A trial, which exhibited extraordinary talent in the defence, by a
counsel hitherto unknown, has attracted an interest still more general,
though of a less melancholy order. Peltier, an emigrant, and supposed to
be an agent of the French emigrant body, had commenced a periodical
work, entitled _L'Ambigu_; the chief object of which was to attack the
policy, person, and conduct of the First Consul of France. His assaults
were so pointed, that they were complained of by the French government
as libels; and the answer returned was, that the only means which the
ministry possessed of punishing such offences, was by the verdict of a
jury. The Attorney-general, in opening the case, described the paper. On
its frontispiece, was a sphinx with a crown upon its head, the features
closely resembling those of Bonaparte. A portion of the paper was
devoted to a parody of the harangue of Lepidus against Sylla. It asks
the French people, "Why th