Portland Gazette, And Maine Advertiser

FRUIT OF DESPOTISM.

An article from Paris, dated Sept. 21, gives a singular account of a certain wretched man taken and condemned to death by one of the Bastille Military Commissions--his name, under which he was, we understand, a prisoner for debt for some time in Newgate. For what precise offence he has at last suffered is studiously concealed. His crime is said to have "touched upon high treason;" but nothing of this nature is stated in the account now published. The assumption of other persons'names for purposes of fraud is not treasonable yet, we believe, under any government. There is something still more remarkable than even this in the mode of his conviction ; " the proofs leaving no probability of a defence to the accused or his counsel, carried the horror and conviction of the Judges to the utmost pitch." The conviction of the Judges, then, was made up without hearing the accused ! That was unnecessary, the proofs being so strong! But whence their horror, too, resulting from the contemplation of a crime which is not even mentioned ? What may be meant by this, other than some attempt made or meditated against the life of Bonaparte, we cannot easily devise ; at all events the world may hence form a tolerable idea of the mode in which criminal justice is administered in France. There are eight Bastiles for persons suspected of offences, but for which they cannot be tried ; here is a culprit tried, and convicted without being heard in his defence ; and or a crime which is only said to " touch upon treason," the precise act, committed never being once mentioned.