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Perhaps the borders of royalty may become sacred, as well as the borders of treason criminal; and as every placeman, pensioner, and minister, may be said to border on the court, a kind of sanctity may be communicated to his character, and he that lampoons or opposes him, may border upon treason.
They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who is disagreeable to the Bonapartes, their favourites, or the mistresses of their favourites; who has displeased Fouche, or offended some other placeman; any who have refused to part with their property for the recovery of their liberty, are all precipitated into these artificial abysses there to be forgotten; or worse, to be starved to death, if they have not been fortunate enough to break their necks and be killed by the fall.
It was a positive grievance, and indeed it was a partial destruction of the constitution, at the instance of a placeman. There was one good thing in the Act. The power of commuting the seigniorial or feudal tenure into free and common soccage was given to the censitaire in transactions with the crown. This rude assault upon the Commons of Lower Canada came at an unfortunate period.
They are covered with trap-doors, and any person whom the rack has mutilated, or not obliged to speak out; whose return to society is thought dangerous, or whose discretion is suspected; who has been imprisoned by mistake, or discovered to be innocent; who is disagreeable to the Bonapartes, their favourites, or the mistresses of their favourites; who has displeased Fouche, or offended some other placeman; any who have refused to part with their property for the recovery of their liberty, are all precipitated into these artificial abysses there to be forgotten; or worse, to be starved to death, if they have not been fortunate enough to break their necks and be killed by the fall.
Every man had his double; the heels of every placeman were dogged by friendly rivals ready to trip them up. There were even two cabinets; the one that met in council, and the one that met in cabal. The consequence of destroying the legitimate Opposition of the country was, that a moiety of the supporters of Government had to discharge the duties of Opposition.
An ejected placeman goes down to his county or his borough, tells his friends of his inability to serve them, and his constituents of the corruption of the government. His friends readily understand that he who can get nothing, will have nothing to give.
And, if a man be made a placeman or pensioner after he be chosen, he must vacate his seat, and return to his constituents to be re-elected before he can sit again; if they reject him he cannot sit, and if they re-choose him, who else has any thing to do with the matter?
He might have been Lord Chancellor, with a comfortable seat on the Woolsack and £10,000 a year, and he chose instead to sit in the House of Commons every day to be the target of every disappointed placeman. Ah, you say, but look at the glory. Well, look at it. I would, as Danton said, rather keep sheep on the hillside than meddle with the government of men.
"But," said Leonard, wishing kindly to arouse his noble friend from a revery which he felt was mournful, though he did not divine its true cause, "but you have not yet told me the name of the signorina's suitor. May I know?" "Probably one you never heard of. Randal Leslie, a placeman. You refused a place; you were right." "Randal Leslie?
They found the old ground too thickly settled for them; they therefore resolved to get new ground of their own; and they chose Sir Samuel Romilly, because he was at once likely to be a placeman, and was a man of a good deal of deserved popularity. They, if he were elected, would say as Falstaff did of the moon: "the chaste Diana, under whose influence we steal."
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