Before sentence the court passed on to the consideration of a second libel, published by Lord George Gordon in the ‘Public Advertizer.’ This was an account of his visit to the French embassy accompanied by the notorious Count Cagliostro, whose cause, like that of the Newgate prisoners, Lord George had warmly espoused. The article enlarged upon the merits and sufferings of the count, and reflected severely upon Marie Antoinette, at that time Queen of France, the French ambassador, and the secretary of the embassy. The defence of the diplomatic body, no less than of that of a royal personage, was undertaken by the Government. Lord George attempted to justify all that he had written. Count Cagliostro, he averred, had been persecuted by a faction in Paris, of which the queen was the head; and although acquitted by the Parliament of Paris, Count d’Adhemar, the French ambassador, had continued to vilify him by inserting infamous paragraphs about him in the ‘Courrier de l’Europe,’ a French paper published in London. “Count d’Adhemar,” said Lord George, “was a low man of no family; but being plausible and clever, had pushed himself forward to the notice of men in authority; in short, what Jenkinson was in Britain, d’Adhemar was in France.” This allusion to Lord Hawkesbury[199] caused a great laugh in the court. Lord George went on to indulge in very scurrilous abuse of Marie Antoinette. He said he was charged with libelling the Queen of France, whereas that was impossible, as her character was well known in every street in Paris. He could only compare her to Catherine of Russia. “He was proceeding in this strain,” says the report of the trial, “when the court was compelled to interfere, and the Attorney-General told him he was a disgrace to the name of Briton.”