cal refugees; that our asylum could not be
infringed, and that we adhered to certain principles on that subject
which were so old and so sacred that they could not be touched;"[308]
adding, however, at the same time an assurance that the Attorney-general
was already, at his request, examining our law of conspiracy, to see
whether it was sufficiently comprehensive or stringent. The purport of
this answer was all that could have been desired; but there was a very
general impression that the omission to reply by a written despatch was
a sacrifice of the national dignity, if not an unworthy submission to
scarcely disguised menace; though at the same time there was also a
feeling among both parties in Parliament that our laws with respect to
the conduct of foreigners residing among us were, perhaps, susceptible
of improvement. On the very first night of the session, in allusion to
the attack on the French Emperor, Lord Derby had said that "he could
wish to hear the opinion of the ministers whether the existing laws of
this country were adequate to afford security for the lives of foreign
princes against plots contrived in this country; and, if they were not,
whether they might not be amended, so as to meet the case of such crimes
as had recently been perpetrated, which were so heinous and revolting to
every feeling of humanity." And even before that speech the ministers
had applied themselves to frame a measure to amend the law, which in the
second week of February the Prime-minister himself introduced to the
House of Commons.

It was read a first time, though not without some opposition; but before
it arrived at the second reading, though only a week afterward, the
feeling of the country, reflected in this instance by the House, had
become so inflamed, that the measure was not discussed on its own
merits, but on the point whether, since no other answer had been given
to the French despatch, this must not be regarded as the ministerial
answer, and therefore whether it were such an answer as it befitted
England to send. Had it been examined on its own merits solely, it could
hardly have provoked much adverse criticism. It was entitled, "A bill to
amend the law with relation to the crime of conspiracy to commit
murder," and it merely proposed to establish in England a law which had
long existed in Ireland. Hitherto, as Lord Palmerston explained the
matter, England had treated conspiracy to murder as a misdemeanor,
punishable w