to destroy in six weeks the best established journals. These pass away, but institutions still survive. Cæsar, as well as Augustus, did not take notice of libels directed against them, but how did things proceed, some ten or twelve years later? Carmina Bibuli, et Catulli, referta contumeliis Caesarum leguntur. Sed ipse divus Julius, ipse divus Augustus et tulere ista et reliquere; haud facile dixerim moderatione magis an sapientia; namque spreta exsolescunt; si irascare agnita videntur.' But in spite of all this, under Tiberius, Cordus was obliged to kill himself; and as for his works' libros per aediles cremandos censuere patres.'

It is obvious, that with twenty thousand such satellites, under a minister, skilful, bold and enterprising, choosing well his time, and under a Sovereign disposed to support him with all his might, daring attempts might be made against the subject, if even unsucessfully, yet with a great chance of success. This is clear. Why should we then run the risk, and afford any minister possessing other requisite qualities, a temptation of trying a desperate game, by putting into his hands such a dangerous weapon as this new police?

Yet

The present number of policemen, we know, is too insignificant to excite any fear, even were circumstances favourable, and our ministers either so base or so foolish as to attempt anything against the Constitution. But it is against the principle that we contend. We dare say the new police will work well as far as keeping streets quiet, and perhaps even in preventing robberies, all things considered, particularly the attention and powerful assistance which the Administra tion, which created it, will give to it. But if this new police should work thus well, it will be extended to all the rest of the country, and then the danger will be truly great. there is a remedy to all this, and in the hands of the people themselves. If they use it well, the evil will not go further; and we hope ere long to see this embryo of an innovation so unconstitutional, crushed in its birth. Should the new police prosper, the people, and they only, are to be held responsible for the consequences. It is evident that this police will have an interest in shewing itself more diligent and successful than the old popular ones. There is but one remedy-not to be outdone this remedy we implore the people to adopt. We cannot urge its adoption more strongly than in the words of a con temporay journal, hoping to witness the full effects which the following powerful recommendation is intended to produce :

Let, then, the parishes still unafflicted by this unconstitutional novelty take warning, that it is only by taking away all pretext from

the

the minister, they can hope finally to escape the visitation. Let them remodel or strengthen their police force as they may find necessary; and in doing this, let them not hesitate to adopt any change, consistent with constitutional principles, which seems to offer advantages.

'We regret to see that, in all the complaints of the gendarmerie which men are making, they dwell much more upon particular cases of misconduct or neglect than upon the odious principle of espionage, and the terrible weight of irresponsible power which make the establishment an object of dislike and fear to thinking men. This resting on details, when a principle more properly challenges a vigilant resistance, is a common but a fatal error. If we content ourselves with wrangling against the poor three-shilling constables, we shall soon find that we are rather assisting, than preventing, these real dangers?

If the gendarmerie should prove, as doubtless it will, more efficient in preserving peace and order than the watch has been, why should not each parish have its own police force, modelled, if need be, after the gendarmerie, but divested of the two qualities which render that body a just object of dislike and alarm—namely, its enjoined duty of espionage, and its absolute subjection to the minister.

Let the experiment be tried by any one parish, and we doubt not in the least that it will be successful, and may tend to restore to the people a power which they have held since the days of Alfred, aud which has been now wrested from their grasp.

COUNT

COUNT RABY-ABUSES IN HUNGARY.

Justizmord und Reigerungsgreuel in Ungarn und Oestreich, oder actenmässige Geschichte wegen Toleranz und Menschlichkeit in unsern Tagen schrecklich verfolgten Ungrischen Edlen Mann Raby von Raba und Maura. 2 Bände. Strasburg, 1797.

THE unheard of persecutions and sufferings which this patriotic nobleman was doomed to endure during a long and painful succession of years, being calculated to throw a light upon the internal state and administration of Hungary, that terra incognita of civilized Europe, we presume that a short sketch of his eventful public life, extracted from his Memoirs, published at Strasburg in 1796, will not prove uninteresting to our readers. The total lawlessness prevailing, according to his account, in a Christian country, and the striking instances of utter disregard shewn by the Hungarian administration to the best of sovereigns, as revealed in his narrative, are facts so unexampled, that it would be impossible to believe them, were they not substantiated by documents, the authenticity of which has never yet been questioned. When reading the account of his thorny public career, we clearly discover the causes that prevented that enlightened and patriotic emperor, Joseph II., from realizing the plan of reformation which he laboriously attempted. We are made acquainted with a powerful set of nobles and magistrates, who were strongly leagued to uphold a long established system of oppression, and to resist every attempt of their monarch to introduce the dominion of equity and justice, whenever it interfered with their despotism and extortion, and who were not ashamed of the commission of the most flagrant falsehoods, in order to serve their detestable purpose; and readers, living in a country, in which even the lowest subject enjoys the benefit of the protection of the law against the most powerful, will scarcely think it possible that there could have existed in Christian Europe, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, a respectable nation that would have tamely submitted to such heinous excesses of a lawless aristocracy, as are detailed in the subsequent outlines of the Memoirs of Mr. de Raby. But, as the woeful tale of the persecutions which he suffered was published to the world at large, and the dignified monsters, who were the authors of them, unhesitatingly named by him, and publicly branded as peculators and traitors to their king and country, without any one of them having, to the present day, attempted to impeach his veracity, we are constrained to give full credit to his statement.

Mr. de Raby was born at Presburgh in 1752. His family derived its name from the Castle of Raby, situated at a small distance from Prague, in Bohemia. The miseries, attending the civil wars in that country had induced his ancestors to emigrate to Hungary, whose kings bestowed upon them considerable domains. Mr. de Raby being educated in one of the public institutions at Vienna, the emperor, Joseph II., took particular notice of him on a public visitation, and being highly pleased with his person, talents and acquirements, appointed him, in 1773, a clerk of the Hungarian exchequer. When the young de Raby waited upon that prince to thank him for his appointment, he was informed by him, that he would soon discover abuses of the most flagitious nature, and strongly enjoined to report them to his majesty. Mr. de Raby wanted very little penetration to find in a very short time, that he was associated with a set of public functionaries, who were not ashamed of robbing the treasury, purloining the public money, and

oppressing

oppressing the subjects in the most barbarous and merciless manner. He reported these crying disorders to the emperor, as by his oath he was bound to do. The consequence of this denunciation was a severe reproof from Joseph, who threatened the infliction of the most exemplary punishment, if the shameful abuses of which he had been informed were not instantly discontinued. The members of the Hungarian Exchequer, totally unused as they were to the control of superior authority, determined to seize the first occasion that should offer, for being revenged upon the informer, who soon discovered more flagrant instances of the delinquency of these public officers. Going one day at an unusual hour, attended by a servant, to the office, to search for some papers, he unexpectedly found the director of the department for the expedition of the rescripts issued by the treasury, busily employed in the store-room, where the writing materials of the office were kept, in packing up a variety of articles, which a couple of servants were to carry off in a handbarrow. These articles consisted of whole reams of writing-paper, sealing-wax, quills, wax-candles, sheets of parchment, &c., &c. What business have you here at this late hour of the day? snarled the director at the unwelcome intruder. I am here on duty,' Mr. de Raby replied, But you, sir, do not seem to be here for any honourable purpose, the proofs of which are here before my eyes,' pointing at a large linen sheet, in which the servants had tied up the stolen articles. The director, as it afterwards appeared, had been carrying on this pilfering trade for a long time, having sent the stolen goods to the jews at a markettown in the vicinity of Presburg, where they sold them publicly. Mr. de Raby thought himself bound in duty to give information of his discovery to Baron Orczy, the vice-president of the exchequer. But this denunciation proved more fatal to himself, than to the delinquent. His chamber in the exchequer was, in his absence, opened by means of a master-key; a large quantity of writing-paper belonging to the office was smuggled into it, and himself, in his turn, charged with having robbed the store-room. Without trial he was deprived of his appointment; and when he complained to Baron Pfeffershofen, who had presided at the inquiry into the business, of the illegality of the proceeding, that nobleman had the coolness to reply: You are served justly, for it was no business of yours to inform against the director; the stolen effects not having been your property, you have rendered yourself guilty of a glaring act of insubordination, and are not fit to serve any longer in our office.' When Mr. de Raby declared he had done no more than conformed to his oath, he was told To go to the d-l with his oath, and be more discreet in future. Finding it impossible to obtain justice at Presburg, notwithstanding the notorious delinquency of his superiors, and his own equally well known innocence, he went to Vienna, to appeal in person to the Empress-queen Maria Theresa. Joseph II., recommending his case particularly to his august mother, an imperial decree was issued in 1779, to the Hungarian Exchequer, requiring that department to answer to its illegal and despotic proceeding.

After numerous consultations, a most calumnious report was at length returned to the sovereign ; but Mr. de Raby proved his innocence so clearly, that a peremptory order was at length sent to Piesburg, that he should, without delay, be reinstated in his former situation. This order was, however, so totally disregarded, that he was again obliged to repair to Vienna, and implore the protection of his sovereign. Joseph II. again advocated his cause with her Imperial Majesty, who made him a present of a gold snuffbox containing fifty ducats, and a valuable watch set with brilliants, telling him, My son, I am fully sensible of the loyal zeal with which you have endeavoured to perform your duty, and give you this, as an acknowledgment

of

of my approbation of your conduct. I have declared you to be capable of serving me again, and, in order to deliver you from any further connexion with those detestable officers of the Hungarian Exchequer, I give you leave to apply for a vacant place in my residence.' But Mr. de Raby, being fully aware how impossible it was for her majesty effectually to shield him against the future cabals and machinations of her Hungarian servants, returned to Hungary, firmly resolved to confine himself to the cultivation of his estate in that country. Shortly after his arrival, he was applied to by a widow lady of the name of Tanka, owing him a considerable sum of money, to protect her against the oppression of her brother-in-law, who, immediately after the decease of her husband, had entered her house with an armed force, whilst she was absent from home, broken open her chests and drawers, demolished her furniture, and carried off every valuable which he could find, and, amongst others, all her family papers. She was even in hourly danger of being driven by him from her family seat. Mr. de Raby advocated her cause at Vienna with great success, and eventually compelled her rapacious relative to make a complete restitution to her, an event which was unheard of in Hungary, and greatly increased the number of his enemies. Notwithstanding the personal interference of Joseph II., he was less successful in his defence of another widow, who, with her orphan children, was stripped of all she possessed, and reduced to absolute beggary. The character of Mr. de Raby had been so grossly traduced by the judges of his unfortunate client, in the course of the lawsuit, that it was impossible for him to suffer matters to rest there. He went, therefore, to Vienna to obtain from the emperor an order for a new trial before an impartial court. The sovereign exhorted him to patience, pledging himself, however, that he would see justice done to his protegée, charging him, at the same time, with a commission that could not but render his enemies more inveterate. Going to his house at Tirna for some documents, he found, to his utter amazement, that it had been broken open by the local authorities, in virtue of a forged order from the emperor. Mr. de Raby prosecuted them for this daring and flagrant breach of the most sacred laws, but could obtain no satisfaction, notwithstanding the repeated commands of the emperor, urging the strictest inquiry into the particulars of that heinous offence, and was at last obliged to stay all further legal proceedings, having been robbed of a large chest containing the documents on which they were founded.

The high opinion entertained by Joseph II. of Mr. de Raby's talents, patriotism, and incorruptible loyalty, unfortunately became the main source of all the subsequent persecutions which repeatedly reduced him to the brink of despair. The inhabitants of St. André, a market-town appertaining to the royal domains of the king of Hungary, had complained to the emperor of the vexations and trying exactions which they had to suffer from their magistrates, and petitioned that their public accounts for the last twenty-five years might be examined. The emperor commissioned Mr. de Raby to inquire into the truth of their complaints. Previously to entering into a detail of this investigation, he gives an account of the political and ecclesiastical state of Hungary, of which we shall select the following striking particulars:-Hungary, though commonly considered a monarchy, is, in fact, an aristocracy, under a head of a very limited power. The king is the greatest landowner in the country; there is not, however, a single nobleman more grossly imposed upon and cheated than he. Even of the produce of the regalia, exclusively belonging to him, one half only, at most, finds its way into his treasury. The great number of inferior officers renders it extremely difficult to detect the frauds, which they commit the more impudently, as they cannot be ignorant of the robberies of which their superiors are guilty. The

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