A meeting was held on Wednesday, at the Crown and
Anchor Tavern, to petition the House of Commons to take measures for the release of Dr. Arthur James Beaumont, an English subject, impri- soned in France on a charge of conspiring against the Government of Louis Philip. Mr. O'Connell was chairman. The meeting was very numerously attended ; but the only Members of Parliament except the Chairman were Colonel Thompson and Mr. Buckingham.
Air. O'Connell opened the business of the meeting, by stating the case of Dr. Beaumont; whom he described as a British subject, born in America of British parents. Dr. Beaumont, after living some time in America, went to reside in France; and became a member of a
society in Paris for maintaining the rights of the working classes—the Society of the Rights of Man.
"Dr. Beaumont belonged to that society ; and for being a member of it lie was im- prisoned. Be was, with every aggravating circumsiance of cruelty, dragged to gaol.
What is the excuse for this execrable conduct ? He is a member of that society. That is all his crime. The excuse in France is, that Frenchmen are treated in the same way. Tice very worst excise that could ever be given to Englishmen. This excuse is one of the features of the absolute despotism that prevails in Fiance at this moment. He was sailed fur trial. lie was brought before the Chamber of Peers. Ile refused to submit to their jui isdiel ion. No witness was called against him. lie maintained he had no business to be tried by them. What did the Peers of France, those great people. do?
It just shows us that the French Peers are not a bit better than our own. I Is. was lit their bar ; lie disclaimed their authority ; they heard hint disclaim it ; they heard
several witnesses examinees; not one mentioned the name of Dr. Beaumont ; where- upon they determined to convict him. If he were guilty, they diet not think it neces- sary to prove it. They supposed him guilty ; and the only mistake they made was in bringing foi ward no circumstances to show that he was guilty. Against the innocent
you may call witnesses, but guilt requires no ss ittiesses at OD With the utmost solemnity, that Chamber Of Peers. over which a certain Baron Pasquier presided, pro- nounced a sentence of guilty against 1)r. Beaumont, when no witnesses were called against him. This Baron Pasquier has been exceedingly well described in a carica- ture. Ile is placed in the Chamber of Peers, and there is before him a prisoner at the bar, in whose mouth there is a gag ; the prisoner has his hands tied, and on each side of him a well-dressed grenadier. The Baron is just addressing the prisoner. Ile says that in France every man is entitled to a fair and full trial ; he is to have the best and most full means of defence : speak now, and the Court will hear you.' By this process you may guess what a bad speech the poor fellow at the bar will make. At the time that Dr. Beaumont was arrested, the Court of Peers was not in power. The worst of France is this—her horrible assassinations. Them appeared the vilest of all possible monsters in human shape, Fieschi—he who fired amongst men, women. and children—who slaughtered forty on the chance of killing one. The reaction of crime never can be a indication—it never can be an excuse. At that time the crime was used as an excuse for thing power to the Peers. But let it be remembered that Dr. Beaumont was at that time in prison for the fact of which he was accused. At that time there was no such law in existeuce as that lie could be tried by the Chamber or Peers. Nothing, then, could be mole tyrannical than to try hint under a law w hick was not in existence at the time at which he was originally accused. I r I were able to speak the French language with sufficient flueney, I would have atterded at the Cham- ber of Peers and defended him. He did me the honour of requestiug me to be his advocate. It was no shriuking upon my part—no vs to decline what I felt to he a duty ; but it was the impossibility of my defending him from having to translate my ideas into another. language, that prevented my being his advocate. here, however. you can understand my dialect. even though you may not like the accent. here 1 run appeal to you on behalf of an Englishman ; for what I say to you here will reach the extremity of Europe—it will he read in America, where the language is a kindred one —from this place freemen shall hear of the atrocities committed by the t y rant monarch of France. To the remotest parts of the globe they shall hear how the t y rant has coo. ducted himself: they shall hear of him n ho has waded to the throne through the blood of a brave people, and the moment lie found his bleed-stained lout fixed there, turned round to crush the people whose best blood hail placed him them"
He would then read them an article from the Code Civile, which was originally the Code Napoleon, to prove how the law had been vio- lated in the case of Dr. Beaumont-
" By the llth article of the Code Cis ile it is declared, that ' Every foreigner in that country is entitled to the sante privileges and rights as are accorded to Frenchmen by that foreigner's country.'—that is. if you are Englishmen and go to France, you are to base the same rights that a Frenchman has in ysur country. W sit then is the right of a Frenchman here? He Isould not be twenty-four hours in custody without having the crime with which he was charged specified ;—he would not he imprisoned, if his a ffence were a bailable one, without having the opportunity or giving bail. There is na imprisonment in private—no imprisonment in secret ;---evei y one who had business wit It him could have access to hint at all times; Lad abuse ,:It. he would be entitled to have it jury of half freigners. halved. I never yet knew the neeigner who had not good sense enough to let his twelve jurymen be Englishmen. Ile has those rights here ; bat if he retnains in this military, and it he said to him. ' I will make a new tribunal, and sett, a Frenchman, shall be tried Lty it-- 1 will make a new tribunal in Eitel:Intl, nisi that shall be one got up after the offence is committed- ! will :mike that new tribunal, and by that alone shall you be tried,'—would not, if this happened, the Freuch Gmtonuielt here a right to exelaim against Englishmen doing this tr■ ing a Frenchman by an car po:r filets less? It is admitted that no such law was in esktence when the supposed, effence was i tatimitted. The law was made agabist Frenchmen, and he is to stiffir from it as au Eustis:lotion. a is admit. ted it was an car past Jinto law ; and therefore it follows, of inevitable nece,sity. that to Arthur James Beaumont an injustice was dsne, as au Enslislana it, by exposing him to the operation of all e.e post facto law-."
The British Government had interfered to protect Mr. Churchill, who was maltreated by the Turks at Constantinople ; and would it he said that they were afraid to interfere in behalf of British subjects in France, because Louis Philip had 400,000 or 600,000 soldiers ?
O'Connell then read the defence of the accusation of Dr. Beaumont, which the Duke de Broglie had given to Lord Granville ; flout which it appeared, that the offence of Dr. Beaumont was that of tieing trea- surer to the Society of the Rights of Man—no other illegal act having been proved against him. After remarking on the futility of the accu- sation against Dr. Beaumont, Mr. O'Connell proceeded to animadvert on the conduct of Louis Philip and his tools- " The history of the present King is a short one. Charles the Tenth, whose inten- tions were said. to be good—what signify his intentions?—he put tint li pruumhttnatious —they call them ordittauces—intertering with the rights of the people. Ilse people would not bear it : they set up barriers—they fought the troops -they, uustimed, fought the best troops of France, man to man, hand to Laud ; they drove them from street to street, and at tomtit expelled them from Paris, and hurled a dynasty which bad been for twelve or fourteen emit tales on the throne for ever from it. This was a glorious opportunity for establishing liberty upon a firm and secure basis. The change was unmarked by vices or excesses. It was at this moment that lands Philip stepped in. He had obtained a character of churchwarden political piety. He had fought in the early days of the Republic —in fact, under the three-rolusired sockade; and he claimed to have the formation of the best of all peosibke Republics —one which would combine with it a Constitutional Mouaru lty. lie got the com- mand of the army, and then of the treasury. lie found ready to his !anal a paltry Ministry—those high Jacobins, those extreme Republicans in principles, of whom long since prophesied, the moment they tasted of the honey of office, they would be• come the meekest, the gentlest of mice that creep around the steps of the throne. In- stead of liberty, tyranny was established. Ile has passed a law to present combinations. In France men cannot meet, In France there is no constitutional liberty lea—there is but the uame of representation. It is only one iu ten thousand who votes ; and there are places for all the Deputies. According to the old form of managing the Govern- ment here, there were two or three Members put into one place—they were put • three in a bed: But in France there are two beds for every Oa/Innen. The consequence is that of the Constituent Assembly, the great majority have their hands and their pock- ets filled with bribes. Thus it is that they pass any law that Louis Philip pleases. The most hideous atrocities have been committed upon the people; mail the odious Baron Pasquier declared upon the trial of some Lyonese prisoners, w hen a spy was examined before him, that it was necessary for a regular Government to employ agents of that description. It is at this moment, then, peculiarly necessary for is to speak out, as the hideous principle of assassination is extending. Another miscreant has been
found guilty of it, and has by this time deservedly forfeited his Assassination is the most horrible of all crimes. There is no nation that practises it that is not de- based. Let us, then, take care that Englishmen do not commit such a crime in P. aloe."
Colonel Thompson, Mr. Buckingham, and Dr. Wade, spoke. A petition to Parliament, for inquiry into the case of Dr. Beaumont, was adopted, and the meeting separated.
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