men waited long for him; and for the gaining him credit, he should tell him two or three particulars, which he charged him never to mention to any person living but to the Duke himself; and he should no sooner hear them, but he would believe all the rest he should say.' And so repeating his threats he left bim.

ney to London, where the Court then was. He was very well known to Sir Ralph Freeman, one of the Masters of Requests, who had married a lady that was nearly allied to the Duke, and was himself well received by him. To him this man went; and though he did not acquaint him with all particulars, he said euough to him to let him see there was somewhat extraordinary in it; and the knowledge he had of the sobriety aud discretion of the man, made the more impression in him. He desired, that, by his means he might be brought to the Duke, to such a place, and in such a manner, as should be thought fit," affirming, "that he had much to say to him and of such a nature as would require much privacy, and some time and patience in the hearing.'

"Sir Ralph promised he would speak first with the Duke of him, aud then he should understand his pleasure.' And accordingly on the first opportunity, he did inform him of the reputation and honesty of the man, and then what he desired, and of all he knew of the matter.

"The Duke, according to his usual openness and condescension, told him, "that he was the next day to hunt with the King; that his horses should attend him at Lambeth-bridge,|| where he would land by five of the clock in the morning; and if the man attended him there at that hour, he would walk, and speak with him, as long as should be necessary."

"Sir Ralph carried the man with him next morning, and presented him to the Duke at landing; who received him courteously, and walked aside in conference near an hour, none but his own servants being at that hour in that place, and they and Sir Ralph at such a dis. tance, that they could not hear a word, though the Duke sometimes spoke, and with

and

"The Duke pursued his purpose of hunting; but was observed to ride all the morning with great pensiveness, and in deep thoughts, with out any delight in the service he was upon, and before the morning was spent, left the field, and alighted at his mother's lodgings in Whitehall, with whom he was shut up for the space of two or three hours; the noise of their discourse frequently reached the ears of those who attended in the next rooms; when the Duke left her his countenance appeared full of trouble, with a mixture of anger; a countenance that was never before observed in him, in any conversation with her, towards whom he had a profound reverence. And the Countess herself (for though she was married to a private gentleman, Sir Thomas Compton, she had been created Countess of Buckingham shortly after her son had assumed that title) was, at the Duke's leaving her, found overwhelmed in tears, and in the greatest agony imaginable. Whatever there was of all this, it is a notorious truth, that when the news of the Duke's murder (which happened within a few months after) was brought to his mother, she seemed not in the least degree surprised; but received it as if she had foreseen it; nor did afterwards express such a degree of sorrow as was expected from such a mother for the loss of such a son."

ASSASSINATION OF THE DUKE, BY FELTON, IN 1628.

"There was one Felton, of a good family, but of an ardent melancholic temper, who had served under the Duke, in the station of Lieu

ing with the Duke, and being of a much lower stature than the Duke, who a little inclined towards him, he took the opportunity of giving the blow over his shoulder.

"He spoke very frankly of what he had done, and bore the reproaches of those who spoke to him, with the temper of a man who thought he had not done amiss. But after he had been in prison some time, where he was treated without any rigour, and with humanity enough, and before and at his trial, which was about four months after, at the King's Bench bar, he behaved himself with great modesty and wonderful 'epentance; being, as he said, convinced in his conscience that he had done wick dly, and asked the pardon of the King and Du hess, and of all the Duke's servants, whom he acknowledged to have offended; and very earnes ly besought the Judges that he might have his hand struck off, with which he bad performed that impious act."

ATTEMPT TO MURDER THE DUKE

OF ORMOND, IN 1671.

"BLOOD, a di banded officer of the Protector's, had been engaged in the conspiracy fo raising an insurrection in Ireland; and on ac count of this crime he himself had been attainted, and some of his accomplices capitally punished. The daring villain meditated reveng upon Ormond, the Lord LieutenantHaving by artific- drawn off the Duke's footmen, be attacked his coach in the night time, as it drove along St. James's-street, in Lowdon; and he made himself master of his per

he was fastened. They were struggling to gether in the mire, when Ormond's servants, whom the alarm had reached, came and saved him. Blood and his companions fired their pistols in a hurry at the Duke, rode uff, and saved themselves by means of darkness."Hume, Vol. I. p. 25.

When the Mes

ATTEMPT TO ASSASSINATE MR. SE CRETARY HARLEY, IN 1710. "GUISCARD, the French partisan, of whom ention has already been made, thought himself very ill requited for his services, with a precarious pension of four hundred pounds, which he enjoyed from the Queen's bounty. He had been renounced by St. John, the former companion of his pleasures; he had in vain attempted to obtain an audience of the Queen, with a view to demand more considerable appointments. Harley was his enemy, and all access to her Majesty was denied. Enraged at these disappointments, he attempted to make his peace with the Court of France, and offered his services in a letter to Moreau, a banker in Paris. This packet, which he endeavoured to transmit by way of Portugal, was intercepted, and a warrant issued to appre hend him for high treason. senger disarmed him in St. James's Park, he exhibited marks of guilty confusion and de spair, and begged that they would kill him directly. Being conveyed to the Cockpit in a sort of phrenzy, he perceived a penknife lying upon a table, and he took it up without being perceived by the attendants. A Committee of Council was immediately summoned, and Guiscard brought before them to be examined. Finding that his correspondence with Moreau was discovered, he desired to speak in private with Secretary St. John, whom, in all proba bility, he had resolved to assassinate. His request being refused, he said, "That's hard; not one word!' St. John being out of his reach, he stepped up to Mr. Harley, and exclaiming, Have at thee then,' stabbed him in the breast with the penknife that he had concealed. The instrument broke upon the bone without penetrating into the cavity, nevertheless he repeated the blow with such force,

THE defence made by this extraordinary man is not the least extraordinary feature in his conduct; it serves to display a mind, not wanting in rational faculties, or apparently distempered, but wrong upon principle, and making deductions and conclusions, which were to serve as rules to justify his conduct, from premises which could not at all warrant or afford them, even in the most brute in. tellect, the colour of justification. Every mind must feel a common sentiment at the horrid and detestable reasoning which he employed to justify the crime. It was the reasoning of a mind which could discern all the tendencies of its acts, and estimate their several qualities, led astray by its passions, and kindled into enthusiasm by an acute sense of supposed injuries. The chain of propositions, arguments, and deductions which he made use of, were such, as with other purposes, a Brutus, or an Ankerstrom, would have employed. He considers himself as a kind of citizen of nature, as the judge of his own cause, the assessor of his own damages, and the vindicator of his own wrong-" ] have sustained an injury from the Russian Government; I have a right to redress-my own country will not attend to my complaint; they dismiss it, either as not understanding it, or as setting their faces against it, therefore Mr. Perceval must be assassinated"-Gool heavens what logic is this? It is not, however, the reasoning, abominable and criminal as it is, of a man without intellect, but of a man without a heart, or at least bearing one

which, in the sense of its own wrongs, real or imagined, had extinguished all perceptions of the duties which it owed to others, and had formed resolutions against the first law of nature.

Again, bis defence proceeds-" I had no resentment to Mr. Perceval-I esteemed him, and lament his loss as much as any of his relatives." Such was the substance of Bellingham's address, when speaking of the man he assassinated.-No passion, no personal resent. ment, no vindictive motive; never, certainly, was a murder more black-blooded, deliberate, more rationally wicked, if we may so expres it, than this.

There was ability, composition, and occasionally even eloquence in his defence.-It was delivered in a manner energetic and even oratorical.-He says he has been unused to public speaking. But it did not appear to be the address of a man who had spoken for the first time He did not address himself wholly to the Jury, but, occasionally, to the Court, the Bench, and the bye-standers.--Confident, as it would seem, in the innocence of his act, and assured of the prevailing weight of his justification, he scarcely seemed to doubt of his acquittal. He appeared to think, that he had at length obtained the harvest of his hopes, and was already compensated in the fruit of his crime. It had made his injuries notorious, and the theme of public discussion. In his language there was no confusion or involution of thought or sentiment; all was clear and unembarrassed, and his mind appeared

affected on such occasions only where he alluded to his wife and children, and the death of Mr. Perceval, whom (as Brutus did towards Cæsar) he honoured, wept, and cherished in his de th, though he thought him the necessary martyr of his cause.

There was one argument of a singlar na ture, which he put in his defence.-" Where," he demands triumphantly, is the malice prepense in this imputed murder, and which as my Lords will tell the Jury, is the constituent of guilt?—I had no malice premeditated against Mr. Perceval,-no resentment, no hatred.-Can you therefore say, Gentlemen, that I murdered a man with malice aforethought."

That a man who should argue thus subtlely (however mistaken his judgment), could for a moment be deemed insane, is inconceiveable.

With respcet to the plea of insanity, Bellingham himself disclaimed it as an unworthy refuge which the indiscretion of his Counsel had taken, and which (expressing his gratitude to the Attorney-General) the ability of the Counsel for the prosecution bad effectually disposed of. The whole volume of his life, as far as it was known, seemed consistent and coherent no one appeared, who made out even a specious case of insanity-all was regular aud natural, and, excepting that the crime carried its defence within itself, as not being imputable, from its monstrous ini quity to a sane and sound being, there was no accompanying evidence of insanity-with respect to this plea altogether, it is admirably explained in the speech of the Attorney-Ge. neral. Did he know if murder were an innocent or prohibited act? whether it was lawful or unlawful to take a fellow-creature's life; whether right was wrong, and wrong right? or, on ordinary occasions, did he mistake good for evil, and evil for good; thus confounding the very elements of moral things, and not knowing those differences of human actions which God and nature have engraven upon the tables of the heart? It was evident that Bellingham was not a creature of this kind. He had prosecuted redress, and revenge, as coupled with it in case of failure for four years. He had all along acted with design

and deliberation. The singular circumstance of bespeaking the breast-pocket for the coat, wherein to lodge his pistols, unsuspiciously, bespeaks this too plainly-Never in a Court of Justice was so clear a case of guilt, and of obligation to answer it, from the total absence of all moral or natural excuse.

What then shall be said of this man-was his act rational?-We answer, that, unfor tunately, human nature itself is consistent with the greatest guilt, the most unacountable, unintelligible, and extravagant wickedness. Nothing can more effectually corrupt and deprave itself than human reason; it wants not the assistance of madness to contrive and execute the most abominable crimes.

In a word, the experience of the world proves, that it is no evidence of an act being done by any irrational creature (and we sce the frequent cases of suicide) that it contradicts the light of nature, and the plainest dictates of reason; that it is without a motive, and without a possible benefit.

The conviction of Bellingham was due to the justice of his country.

BELLINGHAM'S LETTER TO HIS WIFE.

On the Sunday night before his execution, Bellingham wrote a letter to his wife, of which the following is a literal copy:

"MY BLESSED MARY,-It rejoices me beyond measure to hear you are likely to be well provided for. I am sure the public at large will participate in, and mitigate your sorrows. I assure you, my love, my sincerest endeavours have been directed to your welfare. As we shall not meet any more in this world, I sincerely hope we shall do so in the world to come.

"My blessing to the boys, with kind remembrance to Miss Stevens, for whom I have the greatest regard in consequence of her uniform affection for them. With the purest of inten tions, it has always been my misfortune to be thwarted, misrepresented, and ill-used in life; but, however, we feel a happy prospect of compensation, in a speedy translation to life eternal. It's not possible to be more calm or placid than I feel, and nine hours more will waft me to those happy shores where bliss is without alloy. "Your's, ever affectionate, "JOHN BELLINGHAM." "Sunday Night, Eleven o'clock."

"Dr. Ford will forward you my watch, prayerbook, with a guinea and a note-Once more, God be with you, my sweet Mary. The public sympathize much for me, but I have been called upon to play an anxious card in life."