which has been, for the worst purposes, distorted into an accusation of having been an active member of the Jacobin Club, will be best explained by quoting his words; and no apology need be made for inserting here an extract from a Speech which has been before referred to, and which he made at Liverpool in 1823, when the part which he had taken in the early scenes of the French Revolution was candidly stated and manfully avowed:

"The honourable gentleman seems to insinuate that, at the commencement of the French Revolution, I was a zealous advocate for the principles of that revolution, and I am sure that the terms in which he alluded to that part of my conduct do not call from me any complaint. I might have been all which he stated, without having done any thing unworthy of an Englishman. In the early period of my life, when I was about nineteen, I was in France; and if I should then have been misled by a mistaken admiration of, what I now think, the errors of that revolution, I trust that the ardour of youth would be no discreditable excuse, and would not injure me in your estimation. But my thanks are due to the honourable gentleman for having afforded me an opportunity of stating, openly and publicly, what my conduct was at that period, and under those circumstances. I am the more thankful for it, because I know that, in whispers and insinuations, that conduct has been imputed to me as disgraceful.

"I am aware, Gentlemen, that, among other calumnies under which I have sometimes suffered, it has been stated, that I was once an active member of the Jacobin Club. I deny that I ever belonged to that club, or to any club of that name and description, and I challenge any man to

prove it. I never was but once in the Jacobin Club. I went there, by their permission, as other Englishmen did, to satisfy my own curiosity. I recollect that the late Mr. Windham was one of the party who went the same evening; and, if my memory does not, at this distance of time, deceive me, another was a friend of mine, a baronet belonging to a neighbouring county, the present Sir John Stanley. But I own that I was a member of another club which was then formed in Paris, and which took the name of the "Club of 1789." The principles of that Society were to support the monarchy, as settled and limited by the King's acceptance of the constitution in that year. That club was set up in opposition to the anarchical doctrines and daring endeavours of the Jacobins to destroy the monarchy, and in the hopes of proving a rallying point to those who, whilst they were anxious, on the one hand, to counteract such criminal projects, were not less desirous, on the other, to prevent the return of the absolute power and abuses of the former system; neither supporting the pretensions of the old royalists, who would admit of no limitation or restraint upon the power of the Throne, nor the excesses of those who in fact, though not, perhaps, in intention, their best allies. The one party were struggling to restore arbitrary power: the other pursuing a course which was sure to lead, as it ultimately did lead, through spoliation and misery, and oceans of blood, to a military despotism. Possibly it may have been an act of indiscretion in an Englishman to have belonged to any political society in France at that period. But I am not ashamed to avow, that I was anxious to see a rational system of liberty established in that fine country; which, while it increased the happiness of the People, should limit the extravagant power of the Crown, and prevent it from plunging the country, for purposes of caprice or ambition, in unjust and iniquitous wars. I seldom attended, and never but once

were,

took part in the proceedings of the Club to which I have alluded; and it was for the purpose of offering my opinion against the creation of that Paper Money, which was the foundation of all the subversion of property which followed; which gave to the Jacobins the command of the resources of France; and which led, first, to the overthrow of the monarchy, and, in succession, to the subjugation of Flanders, Holland, and Italy. When the plan of issuing Assignats was determined on by the Legislature, I withdrew even from that Society, and never took any further part in their discussions.

"If, Gentlemen, it be a crime to have thought too sanguinely of mankind at the age of nineteen, and to have believed it not impossible that liberty might be sustained against despotism, without becoming the victim of anarchy, to that crime I plead guilty. That guilt I share in common with many great and good men. I did entertain a hope, that such would be the result of the change which had then taken place in the institutions of France. That the sagacity of the great minister who at that time (1790) was at the head of affairs in England, did not foresee any danger to the peace of other states from that change, may be inferred from all his measures, even up to the year 1792, when, on the meeting of Parliament, the Speech from the Throne stated the most sanguine opinion, that there was nothing in the state of Europe which threatened to involve this country in hostilities.

"I am sorry, Gentlemen, to have detained you so long; but the charges brought against me to-day having been often insinuated in a less direct manner, I have only to express my satisfaction, that the honourable gentleman has afforded me an opportunity of vindicating myself from any suspicion of having been guilty of conduct unworthy of an Englishman and a friend to rational liberty, and, once

more, to thank you all for the patience and attention with which you have listened to my vindication.”

Such, when stripped of its exaggerated colouring, is the foundation for all the charges and all the insinuations of " Jacobin" and " Jacobinism," which have been so unsparingly advanced against the early conduct of Mr. Huskisson.

It can

scarcely be necessary to remark, that had the arguments or sentiments avowed and employed in this Speech been considered as tinctured with a jacobinical spirit, or had the general principles of its Author been so understood, he would not, so shortly afterwards as was the case, have received an offer of becoming Secretary to the British Ambassador at the court of the Tuileries. Often as it has been referred to, it has never, to our knowledge, been published in this country. After a long search, a copy of it has been found in the British Museum among the proceedings of the Society of 1789, and it will be found, together with a Prospectus of the "Société,"* in the Appendix at the end of the third volume of this work, under the title by which it was originally published at Paris,-" Discours prononcé par M. Huskisson, Anglois et Membre de la Société de 1789, à la Séance de cette Société, le 29 Août 1790." The

• Were any thing further than a perusal of the Speech itself required, to prove how grossly this circumstance of the early life of Mr. Huskisson has been misunderstood, we might refer to the prospectus

new finance operation to which it refers, was an issue of two milliards of assignats; that is, about eighty-four millions sterling of paper currency, to be paid to the national creditors, and to be taken by the government in payment for the sales of the national lands; there being already at the time assignats in circulation to a limited

amount.

Mr. Huskisson argues therefore,-" You had better exchange your land for your existing government securities, which do not circulate; so that your acres may extinguish your debt. Whereas, if you put this enormous amount of paper-money into circulation, all the effect of it will be, that your prices in paper will go to any amount your gold and silver will rise in paper price, like all other things, and you will have to pay a thousand livres in paper, for as much wheat as you now have for two hundred in silver."

Mr. Huskisson was even then aware of the truth of the maxim in political economy, that the amount of dead stock possessed is what can never be made to circulate as currency. In fact, he saw and felt the fundamental error of the system of Law, who had acted on the presumption, that a house could be put into circulation instead of the rent of the house

of the "Société de 1789," to shew. that, though it has here, in conformity with his own words, been termed a Club, it had, in fact, no more the character of one, than any of the Scientific societies in this country-the Agricultural, Geological, &c.