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VOL. XIV. No. 25.] LONDON, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1808. [PRICE 100.

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46 .......of rascals, who gloss over their treasons to their country by high-sounding declarations ; raising one hand with energetic enthusiasm, vowing their eternal vengeance on the French tyrant; while "the other is actively employed in rummaging the Public Pocket."-POOR WATCHMAKER'S LETTER.

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SUMMARY OF POLITICS.

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SPAIN have, for some time past, left off the title, Spanish Revolution," because I perceived, that nothing worthy of the name of revolution was intended. I do not say, that the reverses, which the SpaBiards have experienced, have proceeded wholly from their new Junta having discotered no disposition to suffer any change to take place in the form or system of the government, or to cause a radical reform of abuses; but, it cannot be denied, that it was, by many persons besides myself, feared, that, unless the people of Spain were let completely loose; unless they were convinced, that the war was for themselves, and not for any single person or single family, they would not make much exertion against the French. The example of other nations was added to the reason of the case, in order to convince the public, that such would be the effect of obstinately adhering to a war in the name of Ferd nand VII; but, the hirelings of the press vociferated; the London merchants and the king's ministers dined and toasted; and the fatal measure was resolved on, to make war for the king of Spain.-I shall be told, perhaps, that it was the choice of the people of Spain to fight for Ferdinand. In answer to this I say; that, when the Spaniards first took up arms, their declarations against France were little less vehement than their declarations against their "late infamous government," and against the numerous abuses, that it,engendered and maintained. While the people were in this mind, Spanish deputies came to England, and, soon after, at a public feast given to them, the king's minister for foreign affairs gave, in the way of toast, "His most Catholic Majesty Ferdinand VII," which, as I remarked at the time, amounted, considering from whom it came, to a declaration, that, if we gave any aid to the Spanish cause, it would be upon the condition of that cause being the cause of kings in general, and of the king of Spain in particular. That

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or something very much like this was the language of the Deputies, or whatever else they might be called, who were sent to Spain, with a view of offering thef people assistance, there can be little

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| doubt; and, when our king came formally to appoint a representative of himself to go to Spain, that representative was appointed, not to the Spanish nation, or to the Junta'; Oh, no! to nothing short of " His Most "Catholic Majesty, Ferdinand the VIIth." It does, and it did at the time, appear clearly to me, as, I think, it must have appeared to the public in general, that all this amounted to a declaration, on our part, that, unless the war was a war for the king, we would have nothing to do with it; and, that we would, by no means, have any hand in aiding and abetting a democratical revolution. The reader will judge, whether our conduct and language did amount to this; that may be a question; but, if it did, there can be no question, that we were principally instrumental in making the canse a kingly instead of a popular one. --The proclamations of the Junta are now styled "Royal Proclamations." They breathe no longer that popular enthu siasm, which characterized the Addresses of the several separate Juntas. They talk of little, but the ill-treatment and the rights of that "beloved sovereign Ferdinand VII." whom to restore to the throne appears to be the principal object of the persons in power. They declare, in one of these “Royal Pro"clamations," that they never will make peace with Napoleon, until their "beloved

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Sovereign Ferdinand be restored to the "throne," than which, I think the reader will allow, nothing could, at such a crisis, be more impolitic; that is to say, supposing long continued despotism not to have totally deprived the people of their senses; for, with what heart could they possibly go to the war, if they were never to have peace but upon conditions, which, however beaten by them, Buonaparte, unless they conquered France itself, might refuse them? Tue people of Spain, when they took up arms against the French, while they were engaged in expelling the French, declared against their "late infamous government;" and, was it to be supposed, that they would be urged to sned their blood by a declaration, on the part of those who now manage the affairs of the nation, that the object, the ultimate object, of their toils and dangers is to restore that government ?

In the midst of all the melancholy re

lations that are daily reaching us from Spain; while we see Buonaparte, like the destroying angel, sweeping away armies and spreading desolation over the land, and while we are trembling for fear that the next mail may bring us the sad assurance, that the bodies of some of our own countrymen, friends, and relations, have been trampled beneath the hoofs of his horses: in the midst of these tidings, is it not enough to sting one to madness to be gravely informed, that, on the 14th of November," his ex"cellency DoN JUAN HOOKHAM FRERE," upon being introduced to the Central Junta, delivered a speech, in which he stated "the extraordinary complacency and flat"tering satisfaction, which he felt in the "honour granted him by the king, his "master, in appointing him his representa"tive near the august person of his most Ca"tholic Majesty, Ferdinand VII?" It really makes one's feet and fingers itch; it sets one all in a twitter, to read this, at a time

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like the present. "Near the august per"son," indeed! Why, what more could we do, were we to study for years how we should furnish food for ridicule in the French newspapers?Of a piece with these proceedings was the proclamation to check "the licentiousness of the press," of which proclamation it is by no means difficult to guess the origin. It was so exactly according to the taste of certain people; it was so like them; it was the very thing one would have expected from them. Keep the people down. Keep their tongues and pens in order.

Don't let them talk too much. Well, according to all appearances, the Junta may now issue as many proclamations as they please against "the licentiousness " of the press :" for, it is to be feared, that they will soon have little else to do.--My decided opinion is, that the present disasters in Spain have chiefly, if not wholly, proceeded, from the change of feeling in the people, produced by the change of language in their leaders. It was always obvious, to those who reflected upon the matter, that Spain, to avoid the embraces of the Buonapartes, must be thrown into a state of revolution; revolution or King Joseph appeared to be the only choice for the nation; and, unfortunately, those who obtained the lead, resolved not, at any rate, to have a revolution. They resolved not to suffer "the li*centiousness of the press." I, for my part, shall always think of that. I know what sort of folks those are, who talk about "the licentiousness of the press" in this country and in America; and upon this knowledge I do, and must, form my judg

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As to the conduct of our ministers, in their military arrangements, I am not disposed to find fault with it. The Morning Chronicle does, indeed, use some very powerful arguments to show, that they might have acted more for the benefit of the Spanish cause; but, the worst of it is, these arguments come after the event. It was all along quite clear, that we could do nothing, unless the Spaniards themselves were in great force, as to numbers at least; but, it would now seem, that the French have the superiority even in that respect. Therefore, the accounts, which we before received, about their numbers, were false, or those numbers have, of late, diminished, which diminution, if that be the case, must, I think, be attributed to the change, which, by the altered language of the Junta, has been produced in the minds of the people. The blame, due to the ministers, appears to me to be that of having royalized, if I may use the word, the Spanish cause. This is a subject well worth the serious attention of Parliament; but, as to the military part of their measures, it will be very difficult, I imagine, to make any blame stick to them.I could not help observing, in the Courier newspaper of Saturday last, a letter, said to come from one of our officers in Sir David Baird's army, who, after complaining of the lukewarmness of the Spanish people, and their backwardness to make exertions against the enemy, says, "this is a miserable people, the French must "do them good." I really did wonder to meet with a sentiment like this last, in a ministerial newspaper. You see, how things strike even our officers. This gentleman seems to have a high opinion of the benefits of French fraternization. Is it any wonder, then, if great numbers of the Spaniards are of the same opinion? No, no: say what we will, it does not necessarily follow, that the French must be hated by the Spaniards, because we wish it to be so.I do not yet give up the Spanish cause as lost, because the great dangers of the country may rouze the people; a truly revolutionary spirit may arise, and, in that case, the French may be defeated; but, it a king at all, there is, I think, but little doubt, that Joseph Napoleon will be that king.

DAVISON has, at last, been tried. He has been found guilty. Well, this is something; and now, I hope, that refunding will follow, that the poor abused and cheated people may obtain, from this proceeding. a little, at least, towards, defraying the expences of the Boards of Commissioners,

which have been created for the purpose of detecting and bringing to light such frauds upon the public purse. Without refunding, I think little of the prosecution, or the verdict. Squeeze the purse, that's the way to make them feel. I squeeze you,

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"sponge, and you are dry again."shall be very anxious to hear the result of these proceedings. If I were a member of parliament, I would never rest, 'till I had the pounds-shillings-and-pence picture of the whole affair clearly before the public.

-DAVISON is, however, a person, after all, it seems, of a most excellent character. His sponsors, upon this occasion, were numerous. I marvel that he did not bring his corps of "Loyal North British Volunteers," who inhabit about St. James's Square. He is famed for his loyalty; and, really, little frauds upon the public, if committed by so loyal a man, might meet with a lenient construction. Who knows but that he might have been tempted to add now and then a pound to the price of his articles, for the sake of acquiring the means of raising Volunteers, in order to keep out the French, and to keep down the wicked and seditious at home? We are told, indeed, by the disaffected, that the detected peculators are all famous for their loyalty; for their attachment to " regular government, social order, and our holy religion." But, while the truth of this is, and must be, confessed, it may be answered, that loyalty, like every other lofty virtue, subjects the possessor, or, more properly speaking, the professor, to the charge of some petty vices. Besides, who is to be loyal for nothing? Godliness, we are told, is great guin; and, is there to be no gain attached to loyalty? Is a man to be loyal, while others are disloyal, or while others are said to be so, which answers his purpose well, if not better, and is he to get nothing at all by it? The loyalty of my little friend, THOMAS FITZGERALD, the small-beer poet, is almost proverbial. He has written more verses against Buonaparte than any man living. If the Corsican's carcass had been assailable by doggerel, he would have been killed long ago by my little friend, whose attacks upon him have been truly bloodyminded. Accordingly, little Thomas has a pension of one hundred and fifty pounds a year, duly paid him out of the fruits of the people's labour. The disaffected may say, that the pay ought to have followed the service, and that Thomas's pension should not have begun, 'till after he had killed Buonaparte; but, with their leave, this is not fair. Soldiers are not paid thus. What

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is to support the loyal man, while his work is going on? Mr. Dallas is an able lawyer, I have heard; but, he did not, I think, sufficiently dwell upon the uncommon loyalty of his client.- -The newspapers state that Sir Andrew S. HAMMOND, Sir Evan NEPEAN, Mr. HUSKISSON, the Right Honourable Charles LONG, the Honourable WELLESLEY POLE, and LORD MOIRA, gave evidence to Davison's character, and, I dare say, not without quite sufficient reason. Why, under the late ministry, Lord Moira made him Treasurer of the Ordnance; and, now I think of it, I was threatened with a prosecution for a libel, because one of my correspondents inveighed most bitterly against the project, then much talked of, of making him a baronet. "Sir Alexander Davison

and the heirs male of his body lawfully "and loyally begotten!" I am in tribulation for his corps of Volunteers. They will now be just like sheep that have lost their shepherd. Aye, the disaffected may sneer; but, St. James's Square may yet rue the day when loyalty thus suffered in the person of one of its most famous champions. About the time, just mentioned; that is to say, the time of the baronet project, I remember some pompous accounts, that were published of "grand Dinners," given by Mr. Davison, to very distinguished personages. It would be curious to ascertain the probable cost of one of those "Grand Dinners," the motive of giving them being too obvious to become a subject of inquiry with any one at all acquainted with the movement of the wheels of the political machine. I never hear of one of those festivals, without reflecting on the distress and misery, which they occasion. Oh! how many wretched families have spent their winter evenings supper-less and fire-less to furnish the means of carouzing at "Mr. Alexander Davison's hospita"ble board," as the paid-for paragraphs in the newspapers termed it!" Hospitable

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board," indeed! Are entertainments like these; entertainments furnished from such means; given from such motives; and received upon such implied conditions: these worthy of the heart-cheering name of hospitality? Where is the sycophant; where is the loyalty-affecting hypocrite; where is even the hired editor or reviewer, who is bold enough to stand forward, and justify this abominable perversion of the use of words? For the last three years, the daily press has teemed with paragraphs, praising this now-convicted man. The topics of praise have been of great variety; but, all the paragraphs have had for their

ident object the causing it to be generally believed, that Mr. Davison was a most liberal and loyal and benevolent man. Το exhibit all the marks of liberality, loyalty, and benevolence, having such means in his hands, was very easy; and, if the people, in every part of the country, could see to the bottoni of things, they would find, that no small part of what they term liberality and charity, is little more than a trifling per-centage of what is derived from their labour and privations. Even the praises, the nauseous printed flatteries of this man Davison, have, in fact, been paid for by the people; by the very people, whom they were written and published to deceive.-Take this man's wealth; see the amount of it; and then consider how many of those, who now live in misery, it would, if added to their present means; make comfortable. How many hungry bellies the interest of it would fill for ever; in how many families it would change water into beer; in how many fire-less hearths it would make a chearful blaze; in how many cottages it would eke out the scanty day-light of winter. This is the true way, in which to view the effect of these accumulations of the public means, in the hands of individuals; for, disguise the thing how we may, it is luxury, which is the great cause of misery. When the few destroy, by themselves and their idle retinue, a great portion of the products of the earth, there must be less than sufficient for the many. That there must, and ought to be, gradations in society we all know. They are necessary to the very existence of society; but, is it, therefore, necessary or right, that one man should, by the means of taxes raised upon the labour of the community, be enabled to consume the fruit of the abour of thousands, and that, too, without any corresponding services rendered to that community? Let us suppose, for instance, that Davison has a fortune of twenty thou sand pounds a year, which may be about the mark, and that this fortune has come out of the taxes. This twenty thousand pounds a year is so much taken from the means of enjoyment in the community at large. View it as taken from a hundred gentlemen; each of these have so much the Jess to use himself, and, of course, £0 much the less wherewith to give unto them who need. I shall be told, perhaps, that the power of giving and the act of giving, in such cases, only change hands; but, besides that such a change is injurious to the former possessors, the objects of benevolence are also changed. The superfluities of fortune, instead of being used for the relief of

unfortunate merit, go to support the idle and the vicious; and, of course, to foster and perpetuate vice.The splendour of the metropolis, the increase of houses, of carriages, of scenes of amusement, of expences and luxuries of all sorts, in that all-devouring place, have their rise, princi pally, in causes such as we have now been contemplating. The wealth of the whole kingdom; that part of the fruit of all its Jabour and industry and ingenuity; that part of these, which ought to go to the providing of assistance to the unfortunate, and to the procuring of a small portion of general convenience and pleasure; all that part, is drawn up to the metropolis, through the channel of taxation. One such man as Davison takes away the conveniences and the pleasures and the voluntary alms of several parishes. This is the scourge, under which we smart, and under which we shall smart, till a constitutional reformation in the Parliament take place, till those, whose office it is to take care of the people's money, be no longer suffered to receive from the king's servants a part of that same money.I know very well, that the ge neral herd, in imitation of that of the forest, will now stand aloof from Davison; will now disclaim him and swear they never tasted of his dinners. But, the people ought to be upon their guard against this: they ought to look upon him as one only amongst the numerous herd; they ought not to join in any cry against this particular man; they ought to be fully aware, that, however great and numerous the frauds that he may have committed, those franes, all put together, do not amount to a fraud so great and so wicked as the single fraud, now attempted by those, who would make the uninformed part of the people believe, that he is the only, or the greatest, peculator: they ought to look upon Davison as a sample, rather than a singularity, and to bear in mind the old saying : "" as is the sample so "is the sack."

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MAJOR HOGAN'S APPEAL.- In another part of this sheet will be found a letter from Major Hogan's publisher, from which it appears, that the Major himself is in America, whither he went some time after his pamphlet was published, and whence he is expected to return, in the space of twa or three months. This circumstance of the Major's being in America does, indeed, alter the case. It totally does away the ground of that reasoning, whence I drew the conclusion, that his relation, as far as belonged to the Bank Notes,. was false. Before we come to such a conclusion, upon such ground,

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female in a dashing barouche," it is hard to say what is, or what is not, probable amongst such persons. But while the improbability has been urged, on this side, it has always appeared very odd to me, that nothing has been said of the improbability, on the other side. As to the fact of the strumpet's going to the newspaper office and to Frank's Hotel, there can be no doubt, and, indeed, no such doubt has been started. This fact being admitted, we have to inquire, whether it be probable, that such a woman was employed so to act by Major Hogan? In the first place, what motive could he have for taking so much trouble and running so great a risk? Not to recover his rank in the army, which he had quitted, and from re-entering which he might be well assured, that such a device would, for ever prevent him. There appears to have been no possible motive of gain, which could have actuated him. Revenge, then; sheer revenge must have been the motive, if he really did commit the act. Revenge is a very powerful feeling; it will carry a man very far; some nien much farther than gain will carry them; indig nation, rage at what the party conceives to have been gross ill-treatment from irresistible power, will, I allow, be very apt to set a man's wits to work to find out the means of vengeance, and will greatly tend to make him set risks of all sorts at defiance. But, after all, I cannot see, for my life, how the Major could hope to gratify his vengeance from this scheme. I cannot see, why he should have hoped to do, with this scheme, what might be left undone by the other part of his narrative. Granting, however, that revenge did set him to work, it must be allowed, that he took time to reflect about it; it must be allowed, that there was much of craft and invention in his conduct. Well, then, would such a man readily commit himself to the hands of a strumpet, who, the very day after she had received a reward from him, night, and, in all probability would, betray him for a much greater reward? Was the strumpet his own mistress? Such persons are not famed for their fidelity, es

pecially to gallant men, who are bound across the Atlantic ocean. Besides, there was the "dashing barouche" to hire; there were a coachman and a footman to engage to secrecy, a sort of gentry who are not very apt to hold their tongues for a trife, when they become possessed of saleable knowledge. Major Hogan must have been nearly a stranger in London. Was it not a difficult thing for him to set to work and produce this equipage of barouche, lady, and servants? It is, I am told, very easy to trace handred pound bank notes; but, would it not have been much easier; nay, is it not much easier now, to trace the barouche, lady, and servants? The waiter at the hotel took in the letter. He says he took it from such a person, with such an equipage; and, if he was bribed to tell a lie, can it be believed, that, especially now when the Major is gone abroad, he could not be induced to tell the truth? Let it be observed, too, that, if a sham lady and servants, it was to such people, that the Major had confided his four hundred pounds, Is it probable, that he would have done this? Is it probable, that a man, capable of such a deep-laid scheme, would have entrusted four hundred pounds to such keeping? But, the great thing of all is; the striking fact is, that the lady, barouche, and servants have not been found ou', in a town where there is such a police as now exists in London. It is notorious, that the most artful and experienced swindlers cannot, for any length of time, escape this police, the officers of which, when once laid upon the trail, however cold the scent, however stale the haunt, do, ninety-nine times out of every hundred, discover and hunt down their prey. To me, tharefore, it is matter of great astonishment, and so, I think, it must be to the reader, that the lady and her equipage have not been yet discovered; that is to say, upon the supposition, that they were hired by Major Hogan. There appears to have been, upon this occasion, as strong motives for the vigilance of the police, as ever existed upon any occasion. No one will doubt of the power of the parties interested to set the police at work. The detection and exposure of the imposture, f it was one, would have been worth fifty millions of the paragraphs of hireling writers, in newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and reviews. Yet, has the police not stirred, that we have heard of; yet, has there been no endeavour, that I have perceived, is a public offer of reward to "the lady or serto come forward and make the discovery. This cannot fail to have great weight

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