nchman must receive
his chains? was it to crown a traitor that France had punished her
kings? In another, a libel, which traced the rise of Bonaparte, and
charged him with the intention of assuming imperial power, concluded in
these words:--"Carried on the shield, let him be elected emperor;
finally, (and Romulus recalls the thing to mind,) I wish that on the
morrow he may have his 'apotheosis.'" This the Attorney-general
certainly, with every appearance of reason, pronounced to be a palpable
suggestion to put the First Consul to death; as history tells us that
Romulus was assassinated.

The defence by Mackintosh was a bold and eloquent performance. He
commenced by a spirited animadversion on the Attorney's speech, and then
extended his subject into a general defence of the liberty of the press,
which he pronounced to be the true object of attack on the part of the
First Consul. He followed the history of its suppression through all the
states under French influence, and then came to the attempt at its
suppression here. He then invoked the jury to regard themselves as the
protectors of the freedom of speech on earth, and to rescue his client
from the severity of an oppression which threatened the universal
slavery of mankind.

This speech has been strongly criticised as one in which the advocate
defended himself and his party, while he neglected his client. But the
obvious truth is, that unless the suggestion of assassination is
defensible, there could be no defence, and unless the laws of nations
justify the most violent charges on the character of foreign sovereigns,
there could be no justification for the language of the whole paper.
Mackintosh evidently took the best course for his cause. He made out of
bad materials a showy speech; he turned the public eye from the guilt of
the libel to the popular value of the press; where others would have
given a dull pleading, he gave a stately romance; where the jury, in
feebler hands, would have been suffered to see the facts in their savage
nudity, he exhibited them clothed in classic draperies, and dazzled the
eye with the lofty features and heroic attitudes of ancient love of
country. All the skill of man could not have saved Peltier from a
verdict of guilty; but the genius of the orator invested his sentence
with something of the glory of martyrdom. The breaking out of the war
relieved Peltier from the consequences of the verdict. But there can be
no question that, if h