Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

England, by making them believe, that they are to be taxed for carrying on a war in Spain, for a purpose which, if it succeed, must be productive of harm to this nation, and to every nation in Europe. It is for you, Mr. Cobbett, to reconcile such conduct with sound policy, and with your former opinions on the subject of the Spanish revolution -But, if the question were whether the Spamards had acted prudently in choosing Ferdinand for their king, it would be no difficult matter, not only to prove the affirmative, but to demonstrate, that it was the only possible measure, which could enable them effectually to resist the power of France. When the jantas of the provinces were called to arms, a people so circumstanced as the people of Spain then were,-suddenly deprived of their king and government,-it was necessary, in order to insure unanimity, to shew to them not only what they were to fight against, but what they were to fight for. To defend the liberties of their country, against the base attempts of a treacherous and perfidious tyrant, was no doubt a cause sufficient of itself, to rouse to armis, a people so brave and so gallant as the Spaniards. Bat to render the rising of the people general; to secure unanimity, and prevent the growth of faction, it was necessary that an ultimate object should be pointed out to them, that the people should know the band destined to sway the sceptre, when their exertions had freed the country from its foreign enemies; and to whom could they so naturally cast their eyes, as to Ferdinand, to whom the people were so unanimously, and so enthusiastically attached? Let it be supposed that the Spanish leaders, illuminated by the same enlightened policy which distinguishes you, Sir, had declared that the royal family had forfeited all right to the crown, and had merely called upon the people to take up arms to repel the invaders of the country; promising when that should be accomplished, to call a national assembly of the people, to choose a constitution, and frame a government for themselves; what, in all probability, would have been the result of so imprudent a step, what, but disunion, ruin, and defeat? The people no doubt would have armed; but one party would have declared for Ferdipand; another for king Charles, and a third for the proposers of the Convention ; and from parties influenced by so different views, and actuated by principles so hostile to each other, could any union in council, or cooperation in action, been expected? Would they have joined, with one consent,

to repel the foreign invaders, when they must have known, that wherever that end was effected, they would have to wage a civil war among themselves, for the settlement of the government? Such a measure would have given rise to a fourth faction in the nation, and that too in favour of Joseph Buonaparte. Prudent people, and such as had estates and property in the country, dreading the anarchy and confusion, which must necessarily ensue on a total dissolution of the government;-calling to mind the awful scenes that have been acted in France, under the government of a Convention; and unwilling to run the risk of bringing similar distress and misery on their country, would have quietly submitted to the usurpation of Buonaparte; and to the happiness of the people, sacrificed their liberties and independence. These evils have all been prevented by adhering to Ferdinand; and in so doing, the Spaniards have followed the prudent example of England in the year 1688. When James the VIIth abdicated the throne, and carried his son along with him, England did not make choice of a new family, but conferred the crown upon the daughters of their late king, and on their demise without issue, the parliament settled it on the nearest protestant, heirs.— You say that to restore the house of Bourbon to the throne of Spain, without any limitations whatever, will do harm to every nation in Europe, and particularly to this nation. But surely you do not mean to say, that it will be productive of equal harm to this country, as the establishment of Joseph Buonaparte on the throne of Spain? We had, therefore, but to choose between these two evils; prudence would surely dictate to us to choose the least. The consequences of the latter to this country, you have so well described in the 4th No. of the present volume of the Political Register, that I cannot do better than give the passage in your words: "Napoleon once in

[ocr errors]

secure possession of Spain, would easily keep us in a state of continual alarm : "all hopes of resistance would be extin"guished upon the continent of Europe, which, united under one head, would, "and must, harrass us in a way that we "could not support, for any number of

[ocr errors]

years." If this, Sir, be your real opinion of the fatal consequences that must ensue to this country from the subjugation of Spain, let us hear no more of the harm to every nation in Europe, and to this nation in particular, which the restoration of the ancient government of Spain must occasion,--refrain from declaiming on the

folly and absurdity of England, spending | intercourse will be the object of the go

her blood and treasure, to carry on a war in Spain for the restoration of the Bourbons ;-and try not to damp the ardour of the people of England, in behalf of the Spanish patriots, when our assistance is of so great importance to them, in the glorious cause for which they have taken up arm and when the consequences of their want of success must be so fatal to England. -I do not believe, nor do you believe, if we can judge from what you have formerly written on the subject. that the ancient go. vernment with all its defects will be restored by the enthronement of Ferdinand the Vith. But even if it should, if Spain succeeds in driving out the French, the advantages to this country, political as well as commercial, will be very great. The influence which France has so long retained over the government of Spain will be destroyed, and Spain will be thrown into the arms of England. The family compact, which had existed so long to the disadvantage of Eng. land as well as of Spain, was annihilated by the expulsion of the Bourbons from France. It is true, that the influence of France still continued to operate, even down to the day that Ferdinand arrived at Bayonne, but that was occasioned by the terror, with which the power of France inspired a weak and cowardly government. But if Spain succeed in defeating the attempts of Napoleon, and securing her independence, the dread of the power of France will no longer operate on the Spanish government; Spain will have become conscious of her own strength, and will no longer submit to be the tool of France, or sacrifice her dearest interests to the views and caprices of Buonaparte. Gratitude to England, and hatred of France, which the present perfidious attempts of the latter must inspire, will naturally occasion a close -connexion betwixt Spain and England. It is well known that there is a great similarity of character between the two nations; and that the people of Spain have always been remarked for a strong predilection in favour of England. The peculiar wants of each other, and their mutual ability to supply those wants, would promote a commercial intercourse equally beneficial to both nations. Such an intercourse has been long earnestly wished for in Spain, as appears by their well known adage : "Con todo el mundo guerra, y paz con Ynglatterra"-"Peace with England, and war with all the world?" and to establish such an

[ocr errors]

vernment, as well as the wish of the people of Spain. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obliged humble servant,-SEMPRONIUS. Forth-Bank, 24th of August, 1808.

---

N. B. This letter has been mislaid, or it should have appeared long ago.—W. C.

OFFICIAL PAPERS.

HOLLAND. · Dutch Commercial Decree, dated 18th October, 1808. (Concluded from page 800.)

The

They are further authorised to correspond direct with ourselves, in such Cases where they have any information of great importance to communicate to us, and particularly to acquaint ns with any instances of neglect or backwardness on the part of the civil or military agents. The naval and military force shall also be at their disposal, in all that relates to the watching of the coasts and ports. telegraphs are likewise placed immediately under their orders.-Art. IV. Fishing-boats shall be compelled to return to the havens from which they sailed. They shall, upon no consideration, be admitted elsewhere, not even under the pretext of having suffer ed damage; and wherever any trace shall be discovered of a communication having taken place with the enemy, such as persons being found on beard, not belonging to the crew, or the smallest package of merchandize, letters, or newspapers, the boat shall become the property of the civil or military authorities who shall have contributed to her seizure, as soon as a decree of seizure is pronounced by the judges, which shall be wiithin 14 days at the farthest. — Art. V. All nations or foreign merchantmen entering any of our havens or roads of any description shall be warned by a boat to keep off, and that if they do not they will be fired st. No excuses can be admitted, letters received or any intercourse entered into with them. Ships of war and those of friendly nations, are alone excepted.-Art. VI. All decrees, regulations, and other dispositions, heretotore adopted, relative to the shutting of the havens, and the prevention of communica tion with the enemy, shall remain in full force. Art. VII. Our members of finance, marine, colonies, justice, and police, are each in his respective department, charged with the execution of the present decree.Given at our Palace at Utrecht, 18th October, 1808, in the third year of our reign. -(Signed) LODEWYK.

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

VOL. XIV. No. 22.] LONDON, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1509. [PRICE 10d.

533]

"Yes, while I live, no rich, or noble knave,
"Shall walk the world, in honour to his grave."- -POPE.

HAMPSHIRE MEETING,

For the nomination of a member to serve in Parliament, in the room of Sir Henry Mildmay, Baronet, deceased; which meetrg was held at Winchester, on the 23d of November, 1808, in consequence of the ollowing Requisition and Notification.

To the High Sheriff of the County of "Southampton.

"Vinchester, Nov. 15, 1803. "SIR-The much lamented death of Sir HENRY PAULET ST. JOHN MILDMAY, Bart. having occasioned a vacancy in the representation of this county, we earnestly intreat you to call a mee ing of the gentlemen, clergy, and freeholders, to consider of a proper person to be put in nomination to succeed to him as early as convenient.

H. Drummond, L. B. Wither,

Wm. Heathcote,

P. Williams, John Garnett, John Blackburn,

William Garrett, Wm. Deacon, George Garrett, James Deacon, David Lance, Wm. Fitzhugh, J W. S. Gardiner, S. Harrison. "In compliance with the above requeat, I do hereby appoint a meeting of the gentlemen, clergy, and freeholders of the county of Southampton, to be holden at the castle of Winchester, in the said county, on Wednesday next, at twelve o'clock at noon, for the purpose above-mentioned.-G. H. MITCHELL, Sheriff.Titchfield Lodge, Nov. 17, 1808."

At twelve o'clock, the sheriff opened the business, having adjourned from the Court. house (which was considered as too small to hold the Freeholders assembled upon the occasion) to the Grand Jury Chamber, into which persons, who wished to take an active part in the proceedings, were admitted, while the assemblage of Freeholders remained in the Castle-yard, and were addressed from the windows.

The Sheriff having read the requisition, and stated his intention finally to take the sense of the meeting by the shew of hands, Sir THOMAS MILLER, Baronet, came forward, and recommended, as a proper person to represent the county, the Hon. WILLIAM HERBERT, which was seconded by Sir CHARLES MILL, Bart. Then Sir

[S34

JOHN POLLEN, Bart. recommended THOS FREEMAN HEATHCOTE, Fq. a son of Sir WILLIAM HEATHCOTE, which recommendation was seconded by Sir NATHANIEL HOL

LAND.

These formalities having, in the course of a few minutes, been gone through, Mr. POR TAL, a friend of Mr. Herbert, came forward, and began an address to the freeholders, with observing upon the unfairness of the conduct, which, upon this particular occasion, the Sheriff had been induced, from the party purposes of those who signed the re quisition and others connected with them, to pursue. He said, that the notice to the freeholders was so short, that it was impossible, supposing every one of them to see the newspapers in due course of their publication, all the freeholders could have been apprized of this day's meeting; because, the provincial papers do not bear date till the Monday; ar: not, in fact, delivered till the Monday, except in places locally favoured in this respect; are not delivered in many parts of the county till the Wednesday morning; and, therefore, it was very probable, and, indced, almost certain, that there were many of the freeholders at home, reading the notification for the holding of this meeting, at the very moment that the meeting was holding. He appealed to all who heard him, whether such a notice was not unprecedented; whether any meeting, of this sort, had, by any Sheriff, ever been before called, without, at least, two weeks notice; and, be expressed his hope, that no Sherif would hereafter, from any motives whatever, and especially from motives such as those which had evidently prevailed in this instance, be induced to do what had now been done Mr. Portal then called the attention of the meeting to the perilous situation of Europe in general, and of Spain and Portugal in particular. He said, that the question was now to be decided, and that there appeared to be little time left for the decision, whether the brave, the generous, and the noble Spaniards were to be delivered from the grasp of the unpripled, vesparing and ferocious tyranny of the spot of France, or whether they were Opensh

under that grasp, and with them the last remaining hope of the deliverance of Europe, He said, that we had sent out a numerous and gallant army; that the nation, with an unanimous voice, prayed for their success; but, that, numerous and brave as our armies and our fleets were known to be, still there was need of a directing mind at home; need of able men, and men of habits of business, in the House of Commons. He said, that, since the proceedings with regard to the Convention of Cintra, it became more than ever necessary to provide a check upon the conduct of the ministry, who had shown, in a manner almost unequivocal, that they meant to screen those, whom the people, of all ranks and degrees, had, with an unanimous voice, accused of having injured and disgraced the country. Mr. Herbert, he said, had, during the short time that he had the honour to represent the county, fully proved, by his constant attention to his duty; by his independent conduct; and by the great talents he displayed, that he was a proper person again to be chosen for the county, under the present awful circumstances; and that, therefore, not only because he thought Mr. Herbert to be, for several reasons, the fittest person of the two, but, also because the other candidate was already (though they might never have heard of it) a member of I parliament, he strongly recommended to the Freeholders of the county to show, by a decided majority in the show of hands, that the sense of the county was in his favour.

---

MR. COBBETT, who stood at another window, then spoke as follows:-“ Gentlemen, we have just been reminded of the necessity there is of our making exertions for the deliverance of Europe. The little, with which I shall take the liberty to trouble you, will be of an humbler cast, having for its principal object, to effect, in time, and in some small degree, at least, the deliverance of Hampshire. - In certain nations, where the great body of the people were slaves, it was a custom with the slaveholders, to give them, at certain fixed periods, a holiday, and to ply them plentifully with drink; one of the principal purposes of which appears to have been, that the children of the slave-holders, from witnessing the beastly behaviour, the senseless noise, uproar, and confusion, that seldom failed to prevail amongst the degraded wretches, upon these occasions, might, at an early age, contract a deep-rooted abhorrence of the odious vice of drunkenness. Too nearly resembling the means, but with an end in

view somewhat different, are the

means generally employed by those, who, as yet, condescend to designate us, for one week in seven years, by the flattering name of "gentlemen," but who, unless we now make a stand for our rights and liberties, will, all the year round, and dur ing all the seven years, bestow upon us the better-merited appellation of slaves. But, Gentlemen, I am not without hope, that the result of this day's proceedings, notwithstand ing the unusual and unprecedented and unjustifiable shortness of the notice for assembling; a notice grown out of a requisition, signed by those who called the honourable baronet lately deceased, by the endearing name of friend, and who have now hastene to seek for some one to fill his place before his corpse was scarcely cold; a requisitica from persons who call themselves gentlemen! of "liberal education and generous habits, though it is impossible to form an idea of any proceeding more illiberal, more ungenerous, discovering a more complete want of all just and gentleman-like feeling; in spite, I say, of the shortness of the notice to the freeholders in general, while secret means hae been long using to procure and insure a pa tial attendance, I do hope, Gentlemen, that the result of this day's proceedings w convince those, who have been the imme diate cause of our assembling, and, indeed, which is of much more importance, the nation at large, that, though the freeholdes of Hampshire, bave, in common with the rest of their countrymen, fost much of that rights and liberties, yet, at any rate, th they have sense enough remaining to know what those rights and liberties are.Before I have done, Gentlemen, it is my intention to submit to you a proposition, respecting a PLEDGE, which I deem it my duty to obtain from one or the other of the candidates, before I give my vote for either; and, if I should succeed in convincing you, that to require this pledge is reasonable, fair, and conformable to the principles of the constitution, I shall, of course, hope, that you will, in this respect, follow my ex ample. There is a doubt, Gentlemen, upes the question, whether, after a member returned to parliament, he is bound to abide by the subsequent instructions of bis consti tuents; but, I take it, there can be to doubt at all, that before we elect a member, we have not only a right to ascertain, but that it is our bounden duty to ascertain, that his intentions are to act agreeably to these leading principles, the adhering to which may, in our opinion, be essential to the well-being of our country.- -The purpose, for which we are met, Gentlemen, a

[ocr errors]

stated in the requisition, and as sanctioned by the Sheriff, is this: "to con"sider of a proper person to be put in "nomination" to serve the county as a member of parliament. Now, Gentlemen, this is a serious and solemn occasion, and so, I hope, you will consider it. We are not met for the vile purpose of hallooing and hooting at the holding up of the finger of a party leader; we are not met to degrade ourselves beneath the beasts that perish, but to exercise our judgment; to decide upon an important question, agreeably to the dictates of reason and of conscience. Apparently, all those, whom I have the honour of addressing, are the friends, some of one of the candidates and some of the other; and, I can assure you, that I am the enemy of neither. They are both gentlemen of fortune and of respectable family; and, of such members of parliament ought to consist. I am for choosing neither vagabonds nor upstarts, who, in general, when possessed of power, prove the worst tyrants. I object to neither of these gentlemen; but, before I give my vote, I must have an assurance, that the person for whom I vote will do, upon certain great points, that which I think is essential to the public good; and, in order that you may see the reasonableness of the assurance that I require, I will, with your indulgence, now state to you what the constitution says respecting the points which I have more immediately in view. First, then, Gentlemen, the constitution declares, that "the election of "members to serve in parliament shall be "free"; thereby meaning, that no undue influence of any sort shall be made use of to bias the minds, or obtain the votes of the electors; and next, which is what I more particularly wish you to attend to, it declares, "that no person, holding an office, or place of profit, under the king, or having a pension from the crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the "House of Commons." And, Gentlemen, if you consider the duties, which members of parliament have to perform, you will see the justice and reasonableness of this excellent rule of the Constitution, of all which duties, the first and greatest is, to see that the people's money is not improperly granted, and, when granted, not improperly expended. The House of Commons are called the guardians of the public treasure; and, sometimes, still more emphatically, the holders of the national purse-strings. Now only Now only think, Gentlemen,,of the great importance of this office. How long would each of you deliberate; what scrutinizing inquiries would

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Let

you make; what solemn promises would you exact, before you would intrust any one with the absolute care and management of your purse. Would you not be quite certain, that he was possessed of integrity enough to secure it from the light fingers of the pick-pocket, and of resolution more than sufficient to defend the open assaults of the highway robber? Yes; and how many years of probation, would you require, before you ventured to conside to bit the taking out of the perse just a hat be pleased? Besides, Gentlemen, we we to consider what is the company, amongst whom we are about to send either Mr. Herbert or Mr. Heathcote; for, unfurnished with that knowledge, it is next to impossible that we should be able to judge which of them is best calculated for the duty we are about to impose upon one or the other. It is a rule in common life to fit the person, or the animal, to the service: we use a dog and not a sheep for the driving of cattle. us see, then, what sort of company that is, into which we are going to send one of the two gentlemen, who have been this day presented to us, as proper to be entrusted with the holding of the strings of our purse. And, here, Gentlemen, I must, with your leave, refer to a written memorandum of names and sums. The House of Commons, which now consists of 658 members, ntains persons, who enjoy the emoluments of 112 places and pensions. But, before I proceed further, suffer me to state to you upon what authority I am about to lay before you these interesting facts.-They are drawn from a Report presented to the House of Commons, in consequence of a motion, made by that intelligent, upright, disinterested, and valiant nobleman, LORD COCHRANE, who, having so often defeated the enemies of England at sea, appears to have wished to contribute towards defeating its more dangerous enemies on shore. His lordship's motion, which would have brought into view all the placed and pensioned relations of the members, was, in a great measure defeated; but, we have, at any rate, got some information from it. The list, even of the members themselves, is very incom plete. It is acknowledged to be incomplete by those who make the Report. Many of the offices, out of mere modesty, I suppose, have not the amount of the emoluments placed against them; and, there are several placemen and pensioners, owing to the want of the returns from the department whence their emoluments arise, who are not mentioned at all, in any part of the Report. But, even from this Report, imperfect as it is, it

« AnteriorContinuar »