tunately for the world, the ministers of England interposed a decided negative. The language used by Mr. Canning in his correspondence with the Prince de Polignac, amounted in substance to this: ·- We claim and enjoy free commerce with the trans-atlantic provinces: we are willing to allow Old Spain the grace and advantage of being the first to acknowledge their independent sovereignty; but should she hesitate, our recognition can in no case be delayed long; that recognition and alliance, too, would be immediately consequent upon any attempt on the part of the mother country to regain possession of the separated states by the aid of foreign arms: neither will we pay the slightest regard to any attempts on the part of Spain to revive the obsolete interdiction of intercourse with countries, over which she has no longer any actual dominion.

The duke of Belluno was minister of war during the continuance of military operations. His dismissal, however, had been expected for some time; for it was believed that Villèle distrusted him, and that the duke of Angoulême disliked him. On the 19th of October he was removed from his situation, and was replaced by the Baron de Damas. The displaced minister was, by way of consolation, appointed ambassador at Vienna; but that court refused to receive him under a title derived from a place within the Austrian dominions.

On the 23rd of December a most unexpected creation of peers took place. Several of the most vehement of the ultra-royalists were included in this promotion;

• The following were the individuals

which gratified them and their party, at the same time that it removed them from an assembly, where, in consequence of their intemperate zeal, they were sometimes dangerous friends, and enabled Villèle to replace them by more tractable auxiliaries.

On the 24th of December an ordinance was published, dissolving the Chamber of Deputies, and ordering the electoral colleges of the departments to meet on the 6th of March, and those of the districts (arrondissements) and of departments having but one college, on the 25th of February. The opening of the session of the chambers of 1824 was fixed for the 23rd of March.

The public attention in Pari (and Paris is France) was, in November and December, more attracted by three trials, which came on before the Court of Assizes, than by the public concerns of Europe. The first was that of a physician, Dr. Castaing. The in

Frère de Villefrancon, archbishop of elevated to the French peerage:-count Besançon; count de Vich, bishop of Autun; baron de Glandèves, brigadiergeneral; count de Puy-Segur (Gaspard); viscount Dode de la Brunerie, idem; count de Mesnard, idem; count brigadier-general; viscount d'Agoult, de Bourbon Busset, idem; marquis de Juigne; viscount Gabriel Dubouchage; chevalier de Charette; marquis de Croislin; count de Tournon, counsellor of state, formerly prefect of the Rhone; count de Breteuil, prefect of the Gironde; count de Bethisy, member of the Chamber of Deputies; count Chabrol de Crouzol, idem; count d'Orglandes, idem; count de Chastellux, idem; marquis de Villefranche, idem; Laine, minister of State, idem; viscount de Bonald, idem; count de Vogue, idem; count de Marcellus, idem; count de Rastignac, idem; count de Courtavel Kergorlay (Florian), idem; marquis de (Peze), idem; count d'Ambrugeac, idem.

dictment charged him with three crimes 1st, with having administered poison to his young friend, Hippolyte Ballet, about the end of October, 1822; 2ndly, with having, in conjunction with the surviving brother, Auguste Ballet, destroyed the will of the deceased, to convert his property to their joint use; and 3rdly, with having, in the end of May, 1823, made his accomplice his victim, after he had secured the spoil by having induced Auguste to bequeath it to him by testamentary instruments. The poison said to have been employed in both cases, was of a vegetable kind, called acetate of morphine; and it was alleged to have been administered in the last case in a tavern at St. Cloud, where Ballet and Castaing had gone to pass some days of pleasure or relaxation in the confidence of friendship.

There was evidence that Castaing had acetate of morphine in his possession; but there was not the slightest proof that either of the Ballets died of poison, or that any thing obnoxious was administered by Castaing. Many of the witnesses for the prosecution fell into gross contradictions. How ever, after a trial which lasted several days, [See Law Cases p. 1*] the unfortunate physician was found guilty by the voices of only seven to five, and the court, adding its own numbers to the jury, and thereby constituting a legal majority, condemned him to death, besides heavy damages for having destroyed the will. The proceeding exhibited a curious specimen of French justice. Hearsay-evidence in the third and fourth degree was admitted without scruple: when a difficulty arose, the prisoner was

called upon to explain it, in order. to assist in his own conviction; and lastly, when five out of twelve jurors acquitted him, the Court, instead of giving the prisoner the benefit of a benefit of a doubt which had weighed with five men out of twelve, joined itself to the scanty majority, in order to award the penalty of death!

The second trial was that of a Madame Boursier and her paramour for the murder of her hus band. Boursier, one of the richest grocers in Paris, died two or three months before in terrible agonies, attended with circumstances of strong suspicion. It was proposed, on his death, to open the body. His widow, however, opposed the proposal, and he was interred in the cemetry of Père La Chaise. The widow's grief dried up as soon as her husband's remains were interred; and she received the visits of Kostolo her Greek lover, whom her husband had forbidden the house. The suspicions of the family could no longer be suppresscd. Boursier's brother procured an order from the proper authorities to disinter the body, and to examine the servant: and a great quantity of arsenic was detected in the contents of the stomach. The proof of death by poison was complete: but there was no evidence to show, how, or by whom, the poison was administered. Both the lady and her friend were ac quitted. [See Law Cases, &c. p. 19*.]

The third trial was in some re spects more extraordinary than either of the others. The accused were two persons, mother and son, of the name of Lecouffe. The murder was committed on Madame Jerome, a beggar, in the Faubourg du Roule. The crime was con