Tale-bearer

,—one who gives malicious and ca­lumnious intelligence.—Windham is tale-bearer and lying alarum-bell to the House. In December, 1792, at that extraordinary meeting of Parliament, he basely asserted what he knew to be false. In the violence of his declaration against his enemies, the friends of liberty, he said, “it was notorious that there was a criminal correspondence between the Jacobins of England and the Jacobins of Paris; that there was a regular conspiracy, and that, like the accomplices of Catalin, they were bound to fidelity by the solemnity of a horrid oath (here he was interrupted by some Members who ex­claimed, prove, prove!) The orator then pro­ceeded to state his authority, which, he said, was unquestionable, no less than that of an honourable Member, but “the fact was not of much consequence.”