half-past seven, Wilson was at Hutchinson's door with his cabriolet, in which the fugitive was soon seated, Hutchinson accompanying them on horseback, and they passed the barrier of Clichy with little observation. Lavalette having very marked features, some alarm was excited at La Chapelle, where they changed horses, by four gendarmes, who hovered about them; but Hutchinson gave answers to their questions which satisfied them. They passed other gendarmes who had bills containing a description of Lavalette, which had been dispersed throughout France. Some grey hairs appearing from under his brown wig as they were approaching Compeigne, Wilson with a pair of scissars acted as his friseur. In that town they were conducted to a retired quarter, where they waited till the carriage from Paris arrived with Elliston. Wilson caused the lamps to be lighted, that they might appear without apprehensions, and having taken leave of their friends, they set out well armed; prepared to resist in case they should experience any obstacle. Though much questioned at the stations for relays, they were not detained, till they reached Cambray, when they were kept three hours at the gate through the fault of the English guard. In passing Valenciennes they were three times strictly examined; and underwent another and last examination at some distance from that garrison. They safely reached Mons to dinner; and after Sir R. Wilson had made all suitable arrangements for the fugitive's further journey, he took his leave, and returned by a different route to Paris, after an absence of sixty hours. From the official account published by the French government, it appears, that the first proposal of assisting in saving Lavalette was made to Mr. Bruce on January 2d or 3d, when a person brought him an anonymous letter, acquainting him that Lavalette was still in Paris, saying that he (Bruce) alone could save him, and requesting an answer on the subject. This was sent; and of all that followed, Sir R. Wilson was entirely ignorant, till he was informed of the matter by Bruce, who prevailed upon tim to contribute his efforts to effect the escape of Lavalette. Captain Hutchinson was associated in the same project. These gentlemen were influenced partly by commiseration of the unfortunate individual, and partly by their political sentiments. Of those of Wilson, conclusions were drawn from the correspondence between himself and his brother Edward in London, of which the French government obtained possession. The letter to Lord Grey, from which the preceding narrative is drawn, being intercepted by the police, occasioned the arrest of the three gentlemen who are the subjects of this trial. Sir Charles Stuart, the British ambassador, being informed of this circumstance, wrote a note on the same day, January 13th, to the Duke de Richelieu, intimating, that as he had repeatedly manifested his determination to extend his protection to no person whose conduct endangered the safety of that government, he should have been flattered flattered by a communication of the motives for such a proceeding against the individuals in question. The Duke, on the same day, not as an answer, wrote a note to Sir Charles Stuart, enclosing a letter from the minister of police, which stated that Sir R. Wilson, Mr. Bruce, and another person, were accused of having favoured the escape of Lavalette; adding, that their trial was going to commence, but that they would fully enjoy all the facilities afforded by the French laws for their justification. On that and four subsequent days Sir Robert Wilson was submitted to interrogatories from commissioners of the police, which he refused to answer, and on the 17th he was removed to the prison of la Force. Interrogatories were also put to Messrs. Bruce and Hutchinson, who were removed to the same prison. In the subsequent examinations, the share taken by these gentlemen in the escape of Lavalette from France was freely admitted, as indeed it was rendered undeniable by Sir R. Wilson's intercepted letter to Lord Grey; but the charge of conspiring against the French government, which was deduced from expressions in this letter and other seized papers, was strenuously disavowed and refuted The prisoners having demanded to be released on bail, an ordonnance of the chamber of council was made on January 30th, which pronounced that there was no ground at present for determining upon the said demand. This produced a memorial from these gentlemen, in which an ap peal is maintained against the ordonnance on the legal argument that the title of the accusation indicated only correctional and not criminal penalties, and therefore did not exclude bail. Of this no notice was taken. They afterward's made an application for the communication to their counsel of the papers connected with the trial, which was refused in conformity with the law; and they were transferred to the Conciergerie. The result of the examinations and inquiries was, that the Tribunal of First Instance charged Wilson with a plot directed generally against the political system of Europe, with the particular object of changing the French government, and exciting the people to take up arms against the king's authority; also with effecting the escape of Lavalette. Hutchinson and Bruce were charged only with being his accomplices in the latter action. The Court, entitled the Chamber of Accusation, after its deliberations, published an arret, in which it was declared that upon due consideration of the documents produced, it not appearing that sufficient evidence existed against the three persons accused, of a plot against the French government and the royal authority, there was no ground of accusation in that respect; but that there resulted from the documents a sufficient charge of their being accessary to the concealment and escape of Lavalette. In consequence, the chamber committed to the Court of Assize of the Department of the Seine the trial of the prisoners for these offences. Some Frenchmen were implica ted ted in the same charge; but their trial does not belong to the present narrative. It may, however, be remarked, that the wife of Lavalette was entirely discharged from prosecution. The Assize Court sat on April 22, when the trial of the three English prisoners, which attracted a very numerous auditory, among whom were many English gentlemen and ladies, commenced at eleven o'clock. The president was M. Romain de Seze, son of the person honourably distinguished by his defence of Louis XVI. M. Hua, advocate-general, acted as public prosecutor. The advocite for the prisoners was M. Dupin. Sir R. Wilson appeared in grand uniform, decorated with seven or eight orders of different European States, one of which was the cordon of the Russian order of St. Anne. Capt. Hutchinson wore the uniform of his military rank. When the accused were called upon to give their names, and qualities, Mr. Bruce said with energy, “I am an English citizen." The president observed, that though relying on their correct knowledge of the French language, they did not ask for an interpreter, yet the 1w of France willed that the accused should not be deprived of any means of facilitating their justification, even when unclaime; M. Robert was accordingly nuned and sworn to that office. Mr. Bruce, speaking in French, then said, that although he and his countrymen had submitted to the law of France, they had not lost he privilege of invoking the law of nations. Its principle was reciprocity; and as in England French culprits enjoyed the right of demanding a jury composed of half foreigners, it appeared to them that the same right, or favour, could not be refused to them in France. The decision of several eminent lawyers of their own nation had strengthened them in this opinion; but the justice which had been rendered them by the Chamber of Accusation, in acquitting them of one charge, had determined them to renounce this right, and they abandoned themselves without reserve to a jury entirely composed of Frenchmen. That, however, no precedent might be drawn from their case against such of their countrymen who might hereafter be in the same situation, they had made a special declaration of the purpose of their renunciation. M. Dupin moving the court that this declaration might be entered on the record, the Advocategeneral expressed his astonishment at a claim in France, for an offence committed in France, of the p ivneges of a foreign legislature, and opposed entering the declaration. After some arguing on the subject, the court pronounced the following decision:" "Because every offence committed in a territory is an object of jurisdiction, and because the exception demanded by the prisoners is not allowed by any construction of the criminal code of France, the court declares that there is no ground for recording, at the request of the English prisoners, the declaration now made by them; the court therefore orders the trial to proceed." The arret of the act of accusation drawn up by the procureurgeneral was then read, which took took up more than two hours. The Advocate-general then briefly recapitulated the facts in the indictment, distinguishing them as they applied to the different prisoners; and remarked that the chamber had remitted to the three Englishmen the charge of having conspired against the legitimate government of France. After the interrogatories of some of the other prisoners, the president addressed himself to Mr. Bruce. To the question, whether it was not to him that the first overture was made of the plan of transporting Lavalette out of France; he replied, "If possible I would have effected his escape alone; for could not repulse a man who had put his life into my hands. I, however, obtained his consent to confide his secret to one of my friends. I spoke to one friend, who gave me a charge to another. I will not name these friends; they will name themselves." Captain Hutchinson then declared it was himself who received Lavalette at his house previously to his escape, and escorted him on horseback; and Sir R. Wilson took upon himself the whole measures adopted for his escape, and acknowledged all the facts related in the act of accusation. This open confession rendered superfluous with respect to them the testimony of any witnesses; the appearance of Madame Lavalette was, however, too interesting to be passed over. At her entrance a general murmur of feeling or ouriosity was heard, and the three gentlemen saluted her with a profound bow. Overpowered by her emotions, she was scarcely able to articulate; at length, being told by the president that she was summoned only on account of some of the accused, who had invoked her testimony, she said, "I declare that the persons who have cal ed me contributed in no respect to the escape of M. Lavalette (meaning from prison): no one was in my confidence; I alone did the whole." Being desired to say whether she had ever seen or known the English gentlemen, she looked at them for a moment, and declared that she had never known nor before seen them. After the examination of the witnesses, the advocate-general made his address to the court. When he came to the agency of the three Englishmen in the offence which was the subject of the trial, he particularly directed the attention of his auditors to the point of the asylum given to the culprit before his departure from Paris, and that given upon the road, in a house at Compeigne, which, in the language of the laws, constituted what is called a recelé. The simple fact, said he, of concealing a condemned criminal is of itself a crime: and he quoted Blackstone to shew that it is regarded as such not less in England than in France. This authority, however, he cited only in the cha racter of written reason, for it was sufficiently understood that there are no other laws in exercise regarding crimes committed in France, than French laws. On this idea he somewhat enlarged by way of stricture upon Sir R. Wilson's reference to the judicial forшus forms of England. Touching upon the head of accusation, by which the three culprits were charged with being accomplices in concealing Lavalette knowing that he was condemned to die, and as a consequence, that they facilitated and consummated his escape, he said, he must here anticipate a dispute about words. It would be alleged, that the escape was the act of issuing from prison, which was consummated when he was on the outside of the gates; wherefore it was false to charge them with facilitating and consummating a thing already done. But the fact constituting the crime was the concealment, and it did not signify whether it did or did not aid the escape; for had he been retaken in the place which served as his asylum, the person who had procured it for him would not have been the less guilty. Art. 248 of the penal code declares guilty those who have concealed or caused to be concealed. The na. ture of the facts in this case was such, that there was a moral certainty, that those who concerted to get Lavalette out of France, also came to an understanding as to the mode of its accomplishment the moment his escape from prison took place. It has not been asserted that they had any communication with the first asylum in which he was secreted; it was sufficient that they provided him with an intermediate asylum; and by his passing the night there, this became the place of concealment. A person may conceal a man either in his own house, or in that of another; hence the law speaks of concealing or causing to be concealed. He who procures the asylum, who has made arrangements for procuring it, who facilitates his entrance into it, are all abettors and accomplices in this species of crime. The advocate-general then applied these principles to the facts acknowledged by the three prisoners, and endeavoured to include them all equally in the crime of concealment, (le recelé), which was the essence of the accusation. On a subsequent audience, April 24th, M. Dupin opened his defence of the English gentlemen. In the exordium, taking notice of Sir R. Wilson's resistance to the first interrogatories, he imputed it solely to ignorance of the French laws. But (said he) the moment he had communicated with his ambassador, what frankness, what good faith, in all that was personal to himself! and his two friends acted a similar part." He proceeded to remark on some serious errors, which had crept into the translation of Wilson's and his brother's letters, and which had called forth severe animadversions from the advocate-general; and the interpreter was directed by the president to amend the translation, when the advocate-general declared that he abandoned all the deductions which might be drawn from this correspondence. M. Dupin then made some apologetical observations on the political sentiments disclosed in the letters; and proceeded to a panegyrical explanation of those hieroglyphics of honour which Sir R. Wilson wore on his breast, in |