THE LATE SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH. 509 



in these particulars, in my judgment, its merit in others surpassed the 

 powers of any other advocate. Monsieur Peltier was convicted ; but 

 the war which soon followed, rescued him from punishment. 



During the continuance of the peace, Mr. Mackintosh visited Paris. 

 His reception there, and his success in society, was as remarkable as in 

 England. The First Consul expressed a strong desire to see him : he 

 was accordingly introduced ; but, by some accident, Buonaparte had mis- 

 taken for him Mr. W. Frankland, and had paid that gentlemen many 

 compliments upon his reputation as a writer, and particularly as the 

 author of the ' Vindicise Gallicse.' Mr. W. Frankland, not being much 

 accustomed to speak French, found it impossible to undeceive him, and 

 was obliged to accept the civilities intended for Mr. Mackintosh, whose 

 conversation with the great captain was confined to such trifling questions 

 as are necessarily current at all courts. One of those questions which 

 I believe was proposed to him, as well as to Mr. Erskine, was, whether 

 he had ever been Lord Mayor of London. The mistake was afterwards 

 a subject of much pleasantry with both the gentlemen who had been the 

 subjects of it. 



The administration of Mr. Addington, and the hollow truce, miscalled 

 a peace, which accompanied it, had to a certain extent, and for a certain 

 time, softened the asperity of political parties in England. During this 

 period the office of Recorder at Bombay was proposed to Mr. Mackintosh 

 by the minister in the most flattering terms. Those of his friends who 

 were most attached to him viewed with regret his determination to accept 

 it. They deplored deeply the loss of his society, and entertained a hope 

 that a splendid career awaited him in his own country. They felt it as 

 a reproach to Great Britain that so distinguished a man should be ban- 

 ished from her shores to seek the means of honourable subsistence for 

 himself and his family in any other land. They could not however pre- 

 sume to judge of the circumstances which made this step a measure of 

 prudence on his part, and they fully acknowledged that to accept a ju- 

 dicial station, in which he could only serve his country with integrity and 

 advantage when perfectly impartial and unbiassed by political faction, 

 was perfectly consistent with his honour, and with the allegiance due to 

 that party with whom he was most connected by private attachment 

 and common objects of public pursuit. They thought it higly honour- 

 able to the minister to make such an offer to a gentleman who professed 

 no attachment to him or his party, upon the undisputed grounds of fit- 

 ness for the office, and they were convinced that he could accept it with 

 a conscience equally free from the apprehension of political feeling on 

 the bench and from the reproach of violating any principle of duty. 

 Others who professed a great attachment to him and an equal interest in 

 his reputation, could not pardon him for what they were pleased to in- 

 sinuate was an apostacy from party. It is the justice of political factions 

 to be more rigorous in exacting sacrifices from their adherents than 

 generous in rewarding them. Mackintosh, however, was not openly 

 attacked. The means taken to wound his reputation were by occasional 

 sneers, and by the circulation of calumnies grounded upon a distorted 

 view of facts. It is needless to specify or allude to these, as he obtained 

 ample amends for the mischief that was aimed at him by the full conces- 

 sion of those who had been most engaged in propagating reports to 

 which they who knew him best had never given the slightest credit. 



