The _Times_ followed with an elaborate leader, undertaking to correct statements of law and fact, dwelling especially on the allegation, that, without the concession of belligerent rights, the supply of munitions of war to rebels would have been a violation of English law. Here Mr. Sumner had the authority of the English Law Lords in Parliament, openly declaring that without such concession the building of a Rebel ship in England would have been under the penalties of piracy, and it is difficult to see why a corresponding penalty would not have followed the supply of munitions of war. In each case the article is supplied for offence against a friendly power. Sir George Cornewall Lewis, remarkable for learning and good sense, has said: “The law of England recognizes the principle of protecting a foreign government by its own municipal regulations”[169]; and he refers to the trials for libels on foreign sovereigns, and also to the proceedings in 1858 against Simon Bernard, the Frenchman, indicted for a plot to assassinate the Emperor Louis Napoleon, in supplying the grenades used by Orsini in his attempt. In the latter case, Lord Chief Justice Campbell said to the jury: “If you believe that he, as there is strong evidence to show, being acquainted with Allsop’s views, and knowing that Allsop had got these grenades, _assisted in having them, transported to Brussels,--if you believe that he bought in this country the materials for making the fulminating powder with which these grenades were charged_,--if you believe, that, living in this country, and owing a temporary allegiance to the sovereign of this country, _he sent over the revolvers_ with the view that they should be used in the plot against the Emperor of the French, … it will be a fair inference, I think, to draw, that he had a guilty knowledge of that plot.”[170] Though this judgment was in the case of a conspiracy to take the life of a foreign sovereign, it is not easy to see why the same principle is not applicable to a conspiracy against a friendly power. To this case may be added the authority of Lord Lyndhurst, who laid it down in debate, with the concurrence of other Law Lords, that a conspiracy in the United Kingdom, either by native subjects or aliens, to do any act, either at home or abroad, tending to embroil the Government with that of any foreign country, is a misdemeanor.[171] Is a rebellion without belligerent rights different from a conspiracy? Its nature was changed by the Queen’s Proclamation, which not only helped the Rebels, but created a new set of customers. The character of the leader in the _Times_ appears in its conclusion:--