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successful, he cries: "Nothing is done hilst any thing remains to be done;" and stantly his troops march on to farther connest and take rest only when their enemy utterly annihilated. We, on the contrary, ways take time to surfeit ourselves with joy d congratulations; the enemy is always tive, and after a due portion of expectation ad conjecture the public is astonished with e information that our first success not aving been followed up, it has been either ounterbalanced by some success of the eney, or tarnished by some want of proper xertion on our own part.-You, Sir, were mongst those who approved of our proceedgs last year towards Denmark. It was atmpted by men of high political consideraon in this country, to maintain that those roceedings alienated from us the affections

with Portugal, I entertained the hope that he would not abandon the sentiments of esteem and friendship which he had always manifested towards me. But when I perceived that his troops advanced towards my capital, I felt the urgency there was for collecting my army round my person, to present myself before my august ally in a manner worthy of the king of Spain. I should have removed all his doubts, and have secured my best interests. I gave orders to my troops to leave Portugal and Madrid, and I united them in various parts of my monarchy; not to abandon my subjects, but honourably to support the glory of my throne. Besides, my extensive experience convinced me that the emperor of the French might very well entertain wishes conforma. ble to his particular interest, and to the po

f the continent. Sir, it was no such thing.licy of the vast system of the Continent,

The politicians on the continent, many even ho did not wish well to this country, were nanimous in exclaiming: "At last the Enish are roused from their lethargy; at last ey assume the tone and attitude that beomes them; we shall now see, at least in e north of Europe, something like a counrpoise to Buonaparte's overbearing ambion." They admired the wisdom of our lan, and would have admired the energy f the execution, if they had not seen s in the month of September drawing n our horns, and hiding ourselves within ur shells as if afraid of the cold of October nd November. They then thought that we ad put ourselves to a great expence, made n amazing uproar in Europe, and subjected our moral character as a nation, at least to ome sort of imputation, without obtaining iny object adequate to so much risk. If the Conventions, and the inquiry that is to be instituted concerning them, should lead to a correction of this most capital defect in our system of foreign policy, I shall think that the disgrace, which they have otherwise brought upon us, is not without its countervailing advantage.-I am, yours, &c.—AN ENGLISHMAN.-Oct. 18, 1803.

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EXPOSITION OF THE PRACTICES AND MA

CHINATIONS WHICH LED TO THE USURPATION OF THE CROWN OF SPAIN, AND THE MEANS ADOPTED BY THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH TO CARRY IT INTO EXECUTION: BY DON PEDRO CEVALLOS, FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE AND DISPATCHES TO HIS CATHOLIC MAJESTY, FERDINAND VII. (Continued from p. 640.) While these occupied the right bank of the Ebro, and appeared to have for their bject the maintaining the communication

but which might be inconsistent with the interests of my house. What was, in such circumstances, your conduct? You intro. duced disorder into my palace, and infused a spirit of mutiny into my body guard, against my person. Your father was your prisoner; my prime minister, whom I had appointed and adopted into my family, covered with blood, was driven from one danger to another. You dishonoured my grey hairsyou despoiled me of the crown, possessed with glory by my ancestors, which they had preserved without a stain. You seated your self upon my throne, and placed yourself at the disposal of the people of Madrid, and of foreign troops, who were then entering the capital.-The conspiracy of the Escurial had already accomplished its purposes. The acts of my administration were brought into public contempt. Old, and oppressed by infirmity, I was not able to surmount this new misfortune. I resorted to the emperor of the French, not as a king at the head of my troops, surrounded by the pomp of royalty; but as an unhappy and abandoned prince. I have found refuge and protection in the midst of his camp. I owe to him my own life, that of the queen. and that of the prime minister. I have arrived at last at Bayonne, and you have so conducted this negociation, that every thing depends upon the mediation and protection of this great prince. The idea of resorting to popular agitation would tend to the ruin of Spain, and expose yourself, my kingdom, my subjects, and my family, to the most horrible catastrophes. My heart has been fully unfolded to the emperor; he knows all the injuries I have received, and the violence that has been done to me; he has declared to me, that you shall never be acknowledged

as king, and that the enemy of his father can never acquire the confidence of foreign states. He has, in addition to this, shewn me letters written with your own hand. which clearly shew your aversion to France, -Things being thus situated, my rights are clear, and my duties are much more so. It is incumbent on me to prevent the shedding of the blood of my subjects, to do nothing at the conclusion of my career, which shall curry fire and sword into every part of Spain, and reduce it to the most horrible misery. Certainly, if faithful to your primary obligations, and to the feelings of nature, you had rejected those perfidious counsels, and placed yourself constantly at my side, for the defence of your father, you had waited the regular course of nature, which would have clevated you in a few years to the rank of royalty I should have been able to conciliate the policy and interests of Spain, with that of all. For six months, no doubt, matters have been in a critical situation; but notwithstanding such difficulties, I should have obtained the support of my subjects; I should have availed myself of the weak means which yet remained to me, of the moral aid which I should have acquired, meeting always my ally with suitable dignity, to whom I never gave cause of complaint; and an arrangement would have been made which would have accommodated the interests of my subjects to those of my family. But in tearing from my head the crown, you have not preserved it for yourself; you have taken from it all that is august and sacred in the eyes of mankind. Your behaviour with respect to me, your intercepted letters, have put a brazen barrier between yourself and the throne of Spain, and it is neither your own interest nor that of the country that you should reign in it. Avoid lighting a fire which will unavoidably cause your complete ruin, and the degradation of Spain-I am king by the right given me by my forefathers: my abdication was the result of force and violence; I have nothing to receive from you; nor can I consent to the convocation of the cortes, an additional absurdity, suggested by the inexperienced persons who attend you.-I have reigne for the happiness of my subjects, and I do not wish to bequeath them civil war, mutiny, popular juntas, and revolution. Every thing should be done for the people, and nothing by the people: to forget this maxim, were to become the accomplice of all the crimes that must follow

its neglect. I have sacrificed the whole of my life to my people; and in the advanced age to which I have arrived, I shall do no thing in opposition to their religion, their tranquillity, and their happiness. I have reigned for them; I will constantly occupy myself for their sakes; I will forget all my sacrifices; and when at last I shall be convinced that the religion of Spain, the inte grity of her provinces, her independence, and her privileges are preserved, I shall descend to the tomb, forgiving those who have embittered the last years of my life.-Dated from the imperial palace of Bayonne, called the Government Palace, May 2, 1803. No. IX.-Letter written by King Ferdinand VII. to his august Father, in answer the preceding.

My honoured Father and Lord; —I received the letter that your majesty conde scended to write to me, dated yesterday, and I will endeavour to answer all the particu lars with that moderation and respect which is due to your majesty.-Your majesty speaks, in the first place, with respect the alteration in your political conduct to wards France, after the peace of Basle; and, in truth, I believe there is no individual in Spain who has complained of it; rather al were unanimous in praising your majesty for your confidence in, and fidelity to the prin ciples you had adopted. Mine, in partion lar. were entirely similar to your own; and I have given irrefragabie proofs of it from the moment when your majesty abdicated the throne in my favour.-Had the affair the Escurial, which your majesty states, o ginated in the hatred with which my wits inspired me against France, your ministers, my beloved mother, and your royal set, been examined with all the legal forms, it would have evidently proved the contrary, Notwithstanding I had not the least influence, and no liberty beyond the shew of it,-guarded, as I was, by domestics whon you put round me, yet the eleven counsel lors chosen by your majesty were unani mously of opinion, that there was no ground for the accusation, and that the supposed criminals were innocent.-Your majesty talks of the distrust created by the entrance of so many foreign troops into Spain; an! that if your majesty recalled from Portug! your troops, and united those that were a Madrid, at Aranjuez, and its neighbourhood, it was not to abandon your subjects, but to support the glory of the throne. (To be continued.)

Printed by Cox and Baylis, Great Queen Street; published by R. Bagshaw, Brydges Street, CeventGarden, where former Numbers may be had: sold also by J. Budd, Crown and Mitre, Pall-Malle

VOL. XIV. No 19.] "That it is the RIGHT o. the subject to petition the king........ And they (the people of England) a do claim, demand, and insist upon, all and singular the premises (the right of petitioning being only a part), “ as their undoubted rights (od liberties; and that no declarations, judgments, doings, or proceedings, "to the prejudice of the people in any of the said premises, ought in any wise to be drawn hereafter into ❝ consequence or example."- -BILL OF RIGHTS.

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 29, 1803. [PRICE IOD.

673]

TO THE FREEHOLDERS AND OTHER INHABITANTS OF HAMPSHIRE.

GENTLEMEN,

It is with great pleasure, and with some d-gree of pride, that I have seen, in the public papers, a notification, that, on Wednesday, the 2d of November, a meeting of the Nobility, Gentry, Clergy, Freeholders and other Inhabitants of this county, is to be held at the city of Winchester, for the purpose of taking into consideration the Propriety of a petition to the king for an nquiry into the causes of the Convention, ately entered into by cur generals in PorFugal. That this meeting will be well atended as to numbers, and that there will e present gentlemen able and willing to oint out what ought to be done, there can e no doubt; but, as it appears to me, that few previous remarks, with respect to the bjects of the meeting, may tend towards

lucing unanimity, and thereby adding orce to the decision, I beg leave to offer you ny sentiments upon the subject.

Gentlemen, the sorrow and indignation the Convention in Portugal have been, id are, more general than any feeling ever as been known to be in this country, withthe memory of the oldest man living, ith the sole exception, perhaps, of the row which was felt at the death of LORD ELSON. That this sorrow and indignation ere not founded in reason no one has atinpted to shew us. There have been atupts made, amongst the parties concerned the transaction, to shift the blame from me to the other; there have been attempts de to make us believe that the Convention ..not altogether so bad as we thought it; st, there has been no man bold enough to and forward and asért, that we were a ation of fools, who had all joined in confarming that which had in it nothing worthy E condemnation.

It is clear, then, that the thing itself, the red which we so universally lament, is a oper subject of lamentation. It is clear, at our sorrow and our indignation are well aded, But, if these feelings of ours are - produce no effect upon the conduct of

[674 those who are invested with the care and superintendance of our rights and interests; if our feelings are to be stifled; it we have not the right, or, which is the same thing, if we are deterred from exercising the right, of demanding justice to be done upon those who have been the cause of what we complain of; if this be the case, there is nothing in our situation which distinguishes it from that of slaves. For, Gentlemen, what is the great characteristic of slavery? It is this; that though the slave feel loss and vexation, he dares not openly complain. We are in the daily habit of speaking of Buonaparte as a despot, and of the people of France as his slaves; and, in so doing, we are not, I am convinced, guilty of injustice. But, what are the proo,s, which we possess, or pretend to possess, of the despotism of Buonaparte and of the slavery of the French propoz What are these ptos? For, if we assert, without proof wherewith to support our assertions, we are guilty of falsebood; and falsehood is not less falsehood, merely because it is uttered against an enemy. What are these proofs, then? Not that he has no parliament, for he has a legislative assembly as well as we; not that, in his legislative assembly, his ministers have always a decided majority, tor, you know well, that our king's ministers have the same; not that he can do what he pleases with his army, appointing, promoting, and cashiering the officers at his pleasure, for, you know, that our king hos precisely the same power, and that, when, upon ล late occasion, an attempt was made to abr that power, nt was stigmatized as an actoch

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tives of the crown; not bee of rance are not represented in their les gislative assembly, for, there are elections in France as well as in England, and, perhaps, it would be very difficult to prove, that be tween those elections and ours there is any material difference. Well, then, Gentle men, what is the ground, upon which we charge the people of France with beig slaves, and what is the proof which we possess of the fact? The ground is imply

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this, that they dare not go to their sovereign with complaints; and, the only proof that we possess of this fact, is. that they do not go to him with complaints. If, therefore, we do not complain to the king, when it is notorious to the world, that we have so bitterly complained to one another, will not that world conclude, that we dare not complain; and, upon the same ground that we call the French people slaves, will not the world justly impute slavery to us? No matter what be the cause, by which we are restrained from complaining; whether it be the bayonet in the hands of a soldier, or the means of corruption in the hands of a minister; whether it be the dread of death from the hands of the executioner or from the cravings of hunger. The cause matters not, so that the effect be the same; so that we are slaves, it matters not whether we are held in slavery by the force of steel or by that of gold.

Those who wish to prevent the people from petitioning the king upon this occasion, tell us, that we are not competent judges of the matter, upon which we have taken it upon us to decide. That we are not all soldiers is certain, and that very few of us, comparatively speaking, would be able to conduct battles and sieges is obvious; but, all of us, who are not absolute ideots, know, that when an army is sent abroad at a vast expence, the people who pay that expence, have a right to expect some services from that army; we know, that when one army is double the force of another, and when the latter has been beaten by a third part of the force of the former, that it is reasonable to expect, that the weaker army ought, very soon, to become captives to the stronger. There does not require any military science to enable us to speak with confidence as to these points. If we must be generals, or admirals, in order to be able to form correct opinions, in every case relating to military and naval affairs, it is plain, that we must, in future, hold our tongues; and that we have nothing to do with such affairs, but to pay the expences attending them. Upon the same principle, we could never, with propriety, complain of any measure of the government, however disgraceful or oppressive it might be. If a treaty were made giving up the Isle of Wight to France, we might be told to hold our peace, seeing that we are not plenipotentiaries and secretaries of state; the chancelfor of the exchequer might, upon the same principle, bid us be silent upon the subject of taxation; and so on, till we were reduced to the state of mere Hewers of wood

and drawers of water. In the present case, those who do pretend to understand military affairs have not attempted to defend the transaction of which we complain; while some of those persons, who are most active in opposition to our petitioning the king, have asserted, that one of the generals protested against the Convention. But, what are their opinions to us? It is sufficient, that the thing appears to us to be matter for complaint. That is all that is required to justify our complaining; unless we be content to see and hear only through the eyes and ears of those, who appear to think that they have a right to treat us as their slaves, merely because they wallow in luxury upon the fruit of our labour. When, but a very few months ago, it was thought useful to those in power to obtain addresses to the king in praise of his speech about Spain and Portugal, and of the military measures to intended to adopt with regard to those coun tries; then you were not thought to be quite so unfit judges of matters of this sert; then you were called upon to give your opi« nions of measures even before they had been put into execution. And now, by the very same persons, who then so called upon you, you are told that military operations and making Conventions are matters above your capacity. So that, though you are very good judges as long as you are disposed t praise, you are not fit to judge at all, whe you are disposed to condemn; and, in short, you are to be well-broken dogs in the servic of the ministers of the day, at whose com mand you are to dash on, come in, stand back, give tongue, run mute, creep, cringe, or lie, dead as a stone, at their feet. expedition to Portugal, the intention of undertaking which you were, by the agents of the ministers, called upon to praise, hai cost England as much as the whole amort of one year's poor-rates; that it has dore harm to England instead of good no man ha the assurance to deny; and yet you are told, that you ought not to call for inquiry into the conduct of those who have caused a this injury, because you are not competer judges of the matter. This insolence may show you in what contempt you are held by the persons to whom I have so frequently alluded; and, if you now suffer yourselves to be bullied or wheedled into silence, you will convince the world that you are worthy of that contempt.

This

But, there is another objection to ot petit oning the king, at this time, which objection is worthy of your particular ntice, and, I trust you will think, of ye marked reprobation. It is this: iba,

nce the promulgation of the king's answer

the city of London, any further petitions" r inquiry are unnecessary, seeing that e therein declared his intention to institute inquiry, after which further petitions, esides being useless, may seem to imply a Onbt of his sincerity.Gentlemen, the tition of the city of London was expressdin terms as humble as it is possible for my description of human creatures to make se of towards any earthly being; and the nswer they received contained as sharp a reuke as any king of England ever gave to is subjects. The king told them, that it as "inconsistent with the principles of British justice to pronounce judgment without previous investigation ;" and that, the interposition of the city of London could not be necessary for inducing him to direct due inquiry to be made."low. Gentlemen, there was no judgment ronounced on any one by the petition ofthe oor cringing Londoners. They only praydhat an inquiry might be ordered; they id, what the whole nation had said, that e Convention was disgraceful and injurions the country; they expressed their sorrow hat so many English lives and so much aglish money should have been lost and xpended in vain; and they humbly imlored the king to institute an inquiry into he cause of such a calamity, and to bring be offenders to justice; but, they judged o one; they marked out no one for unishment; they preten led not to say, hether the blame lay with the ministers the generals; they, with the rest of the ation, were convinced that blame lay somehere, and they prayed, in a most humble yle, that an inquiry might take place. Vas there, in this, Gentlemen, any thing inconsistent with the principles of British istice?" Why, is not this the mode of roceeding in all our courts? The man, ho thinks himself aggrieved by another an, comes into court, in his own person by his attorney, and demands that the iledged offender be put uporr his trial. The emand cannot be refused; it often hapens, that the party accused is found to be inocent; but, no one attempts to say, that le demand is inconsistent with the priniples of British justice; no judge, when pplied to for a warrant, a writ, an attachment, or citation, ever tells the plaintiff hat he is come to " pronounce judgment." When any of us apply for a warrant or ammons against a thief, or a poacher, we ssert that the person has been guilty of bieving or poaching; yet, the justices ne

r send us away with the rebuke, that we

are "pronouncing judgment without previ

ous investigation." It would be an insult to your understandings to pursue the illustration; for there is not a man of you, who will not clearly perceive, that the ap plication of the poor humble citizens of London was strictly consistent, not only with the principles of British justice, but, as nearly as the case would permit, with the forms of legal proceedings.--As to the necessity of this application, the king alluded to the trial of General Whitelocke, and told the poor citizens, that he should have hoped, that his conduct in that case would have convinced them, that their interposition was not necessary to induce him. to institute inquiry in this case. But, Gentlemen, pray mark the distinction. In both cases the transaction was reprobated by the nation at large; in both cases the NATION complained of disgrace and inquiry; but, not so with the MINISTRY, who, in the former case, gave, at once, evident signs of their agreement in feeling and opinion with the nation; whereas, in the latter, case, they gave signs as evident, that they disagreed in feeling and opinion with the nation, and that, though they might not. openly justify the Convention, their intention was not to put upon their trial any of the persons, who had framed or ratified it.. Upon the arrival of the intelligence, or, at least, when the intelligence could no longer be kept from the public, they made a short and equivocal communication of it to the Mayor of London; they caused the guns of the Park and Tower to be fired, which, as you well know, is the token of joyful tidings; they caused an illumination to be made at all the offices and buildings under their controul; they put us to the expence of candles, coloured lamps, and flambeaux, for the celebration of the erent; and, in short, they did, upon this occasion, exhibit: all those marks of joy that were by them exhibited at the intelligence of the battle of Trafalgar.Well, then, Gentlemen, what similarity is there in the two cases? and, why were the poor citizens of London to be rebuked, because they seemed to suspect that Wellesley and his associates would not be brought to trial, without a direct appli cation of the people to the king? Were they, because Whitelocke was tried for an act which the ministers openly lamented, to conclude that Wellesley would be tried for an act at which these same ministers openly rejoiced? Poor creatures, how is it possible, that they could have drawn such a conclu sion? There were, moreover, Gentlemen, other circumstances to justify this interposi

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