11. Fiction, deceit, and chicanery, ought not to be endured in the construction and administration of the laws. The object of all good legislation is to discourage these bad qualities, and to support truth, sincerity, and honesty; words and expressions therefore ought to be construed according to their received meaning with the generality of mankind, and no exception or plea allowed which is inconsistent with good sense and plain dealing.

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12. In defining the boundaries of offences, care should be taken to set out the exact limits, the whole of the limits, and nothing beyond the limits. While comprehensiveness is aimed at, let not the arm of the law extend so far as to include the innocent in its grasp; for when this is done, the quiet of the people, and also their safety, are exposed to the attacks of vindictive and corrupt men. Certainty is so essential to a law, (says the great Lord Bacon,) that a law without it cannot be just. A law ought to give warning before it strikes, and it is a true maxim, that the best laws leave least to the breast of the Judge." The same authority adds in another place, "That may be esteemed a good law which is, 1st. clear and certain in its sense; 2nd. just in its command; 3rd. commodious in the execution; 4th. agreeable to the form of government; and 5th. productive of virtue in the subject."

13. Small offences ought to be vigilantly noticed and promptly punished, they are the first steps toward great crimes: by arresting these effectually, crimes are checked ab initio. It is much better to prevent men from becoming criminals, than to endeavour to reform them after they have been suffered to become so. Lord Bacon says, "In courts of Justice, let the first overtures and intermediate parts of all great offences be punished, though the end were not accomplished. And this should be the principal use of such courts, for it is the part of discipline to punish the first buddings of offence, and the part of clemency to punish the intermediate actions and prevent them taking effect." Doctrine of Government, p. 248.

14. The measure of punishment due to different offences, ought to be ascertained and laid down by the law, as nearly as possible; so that the citizen may distinctly see the punishment he will incur upon misconduct; that that important part of a law, its penalty, may not be subject to the favor or aversion of a Judge, and that the Judge may be relieved from the pain, trouble, and responsibility of determining the amount of penalty.

[To be continued.]

ON

THE DISSOLUTION,

&c. &c.

IT is said that the Dissolution of the Chamber of Deputies has at length been resolved upon. I congratulate France upon it. An opportunity is offered to her to pronounce herself upon her destiny. If henceforth she is not free, she may thank herself for her slavery. She will have spontaneously sanctioned it; she will have given herself up to it of her own free will; and, whatever may be the yoke imposed upon her, she will have no right to complain.

No doubt the career which the determination of the Government will present to her will be beset with many difficulties, and probably strewed with some snares.

Opinion, which when a popular election is the subject, ought, more than in any other circumstances, to enjoy an entire independence, has no means of making itself known, no organ to announce itself.

The persons of all the citizens are by law at the mercy of Ministers. I do not enquire if the Ministers abuse this power:

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When a law exists, obedience to that law becomes a duty, and I should be always the first to exhort citizens to obedience; but at the same time that we obey we are allowed to ask what a law is; and those, above all others, have not the right of imposing silence upon us, who whilst the ancient law of elections was in force, heaped contempt, blame, and invective, upon it. I am not, therefore, afraid of overstepping the bounds of legal liberty by saying, that every law of exception directed against the legal liberty of individuals, is in opposition to all the principles guaranteed by the Charter, to every principle invoked by France before the Revolution in 1789, and which that Revolution has caused to be forgotten. When the Parliament of Paris, in a decree of the 3rd May, 1788, declared “That the right of each citizen, a right without which all others are useless, was, not to be arrested by any order whatever, without being immediately brought before the

they possess it, and that is sufficient for all liberty to be suspended. This is not all-private correspondence, the object of respect in all free nations, has been seen taken by force from the legitimate possessors. Agents without legal authority have been seen penetrating the sanctuary of their domicile. The police has been seen giving orders and instructions to agents, which it has disavowed, and after having assumed the place of justice for its acts, has shielded itself behind justice for impunity."

competent judge," certainly the nation, who applauded this declaration of its Magistrates, did not expect that in 1820 every citizen could be arrested by the order of three Ministers without being brought before any judge.

I have informed the Public, by the publication of authentic documents, to what degree all forms had been violated in the domiciliary visits, and the carrying away papers, performed by order of M. Mounier, amongst the citizens of the Department of "la Sarthe." The Director General of the Police attempted to reply to the facts I have alleged. It will be seen how far he has succeeded.

He says, through the Moniteur, that the agent he sent was not the bearer of any order from him. It has been proved that the only authority of this agent was an order signed Mounier.

He said, that his agent had no further direction than to assist the competent Magistrate, whose duty it was, by the 87th and 90th articles of the Code of criminal instruction, to read the papers. It is proved, that his agent himself examined and read these papers, the Magistrate present taking no part therein, and that he marked them. There is no one of these acts which is not a usurpation of power.

M. Mounier said, through the Moniteur, that the instructions of the police had no other object than to further the ends of justice. It is proved that the police put itself in the place of justice-that justice was merely a spectator-that every thing was begun, executed, and concluded, by the police, in contempt of the law.

M. Mounier says, in the Moniteur, that no letters were unsealed or intercepted, that only open letters were seized. It is proved that sealed letters were sent back by the post-office clerks to the Magistrates, whom M. Mounier's agent had in his train.

He says, in the Moniteur, that all the papers were in the hands of Justice. It is proved that his wish was, that they should be in the hands of his agent. It is proved that it is not his fault if this fresh illegality was not committed; for he gave orders to that effect. It is proved in fact, that the sending these papers to the Minister of Justice was but another irregularity. This Minister has no right to constitute himself the depositary of any paper which might give rise to criminal instructions. This is the intention of article 3rd of the law of the 10th Vendemiaire, year 4th, and of article 81st of the Senatus-Consultum of the 16th Thermidor, in the year 10.

It must not be thought that the illegalities committed or ordered by M. Mounier are confined to la Sarthe, whose Deputies are perhaps obnoxious. to him, and whose papers appear to him proper to be seized. The Director General of the police did not treat with more respect, the Departments which had not the same claims to his dislike.

The papers reported at the same time, that towards the end of last June, the Civil Authority thought they had discovered at M. Tirel's, a manufac turer at Vire, a depôt of uniforms which might serve to disguise the malevoeat characters concerned in some conspiracy, and that on examination it

Thus by the very confession of the Ministry, it is under the

turned out that these uniforms were the clothes of the workmen belonging to M. Tirel's manufactory, many of which were for boys of eight or nine years old. But in relating the fact, every one after his own way, the papers have omitted many other things.

At the time of the visit made to M. Tirel's, on the 21st June, who was then at Paris, the Magistrates, who were accompanied by many police agents armed with sticks, refused to show him any written authority proving either their mission or their character.

For the purpose of introducing themselves to M. Tirel's apartment, this troop forced a woman (the gate-keeper) to go with them half naked, and one of the agents replied to the complaints which decency forced from this woman, notwithstanding her fright, we know all about a woman.

This visit was extended to the other lodgers in the same house, some of whom, attracted towards M. Tirel's apartment by the noise, were ransacked by the police agents, others had their doors forced without notice or judicial authority, and many were in fact kept prisoners and prevented from going out about their business, some a longer, some a shorter time.

It was neither the Judge of Instruction, nor the King's Attorney General, who took charge exclusively, as they ought to have done agreeably to the 87th article of the Code of Instruction, of the examination of the merchant's papers whose habitation they had ransacked. The papers, thrown into confusion, taken away by force, and distributed at hazard to whomsoever might think proper to seize them, were given up to the inspection of all the police agents indiscriminately.

As the Sieur Pascal had done, at Mans, these agents reduced the magistrates to perform the part of mere passive spectators. In the presence of the Judge of Instruction, and the King's Attorney General, a Commissary of the Police was the most active investigator and the most minute questioner. Armed with discoveries which he thought resulted from documents which he ought not to have examined, he put questions to M. Tirel which he ought not to have done in the presence of the Judges, whose business it was to have interrupted him. Discovering, for example, that this merchant had formerly made deposits of money at Lafitte's, the Commissary took upon himself to ask the object of those deposits.

It was this same Commissary who examined letters found in the apart ment of a neighbour of M. Tirel's, whose door was broke open.

It was also he who, when a friend of M. Tirel's went to him to learn the cause of these strange proceedings, made this stranger undergo fresh interrogatories.

Another Commissary of the Police went to a merchant, to whom M. Tirel sent his cloth, and furnished with an order from the Judge of Instruction, proceeded to interrogate a man of whom he had no right to ask a question; for the order itself was illegal, as the Judge of Instruction has no authority to delegate his power.

What was done at Paris was also done at Vire, with this difference however, that they read to M. Tirel, the father, the requisition of M. Bellart, authorising the search, examination, and seizure, of the account books, correspondence, family documents, and title deeds. I shall not recite alĺ the detail; it is not a memorial for M. Tirel, I am writing. It is sufficient for me to prove, that in the department of the Seine, as in that of Calvados; in Calvados as in Sarthe, the police always acted, in order to shelter itself at length behind justice, which ought to have acted by itself; for M. Mounier informs M. Tirel, as well as M. Goyet, in answer to their applications,