The National Register. — London, England, 1808-03-13 00:00:00

IiTARCII 13. by the blasting hand of power, and been made, by iron necessity, a common soldier, where is the chance that his incalculable value would not have been lost These are a few, and but a few of the miseries and mis chiefs attending the ballot; our limits will barely permit us to present a scanty specimen. The comparison of en listment fbr life, and enlistment for a limited period, we regard as a matter of much less, indeed, of trifling im portance. It is absurd to say, that enlistment for a limited period does not aftbrd as good and steady an army as en listment for life ; because we have the experience of France, and all the military nations on the continent. On the other hand, as enlistment for life is a voluntary thing, no hard ship is imposvd by it. The only good effect to be expected from enlistment for a limited period, is a facility in r;!eruit ing ; but. in i.he present circumstances of ilk country. that, without other causes to be pros ided, will have little effect. It is good so tar as it goes; but it goes so little a way, that we are not very angry at the contumacy of the Dlinisters, who, to spite their predecessors, have entrenched upon it. REVIEW OF POLITICAL DECLAIMERS. No. AL Tim MORNING PAPERS. There i , something in the state of our Newspaper press, which hiKhly deserves the attention of the philosophical observer. The influence of Newspapers is by no means trifling. The ig norance, and the mental indolence of the greater part of man kind, render them passive materials in the hands of those who daily fashion them. And it unfortunately happens that many of the Newspaper fashioners have motives for shaping their readers deplorably wrong. "The Daily Morning Papers take the lead. The influence un der which those papers are placed from party motives is noto rious. There is scarcely one of theta which is not ranged on one side or the other of the two parties which always divide the Parliament and the Kingdom ; and which does nat. make it a fixed rule to panegyrise whatever the party to which it is attached may perform, whether its measures are favourable or adverse to the interests of the country ; and which holds it nut, on the other hand, an equally sacred duty, to condemn and abuse whatever is proposed or spoken by the opposite Party, be its nature or tendency what it may. The effects of this uniform and strong bias are in the highest degree pernicious. It habituates the public to exaggerations and unfairness—to the selfish passions of party, and shuts out the clear and disinterested view of national good. But there is another species of influence to which the Morning Papers are subject, which escapes common observation, though its conse quences are deep and important. The persons who can affiud to purchase a daily paper, arc, of course, persons in affluence. It is the study, therefore, of the Morning Papers to flatter the prejudices of this class. The effects and nature of this propen sity eminently deserve some explanation. The extraordinary competition amongst Newspapers, to which the passion in this country for that species of reading has given rise, has had an etlect contrary to that which usuaily at tends competition. It has not improved the commodity ; it has greatly spoilt it. The object of the Newspaper-maker being to bell his commodity, all that he studies, is, s hat sy ill bring him customers ; what will induce a greater number of persons to buy his paper. Now it is found, by a very full experience, that our country - men buy Newspapers, not on account of what makes theta wiser and better, but on account of what pleases tAvin ; not On account of what corrects their mistakes, and re moves their prejudices, but that which assures them they have no mistak es an d no pre j ud i ces. It becomes the business, there ,ore, of the neyvswriter not to study truth ; but that which his readers consider to be the truth. Whatever he understands to he their opinion, that he applauds, on that he descants,;that he exert: all the powers of his ingenuity to set in a plausible light. This course he systematically pursues; and whatever may he the.mistakes and prejudices of his readers, all his efforts tenth to strengthen and confirm them. That beneficent exercise, reading, is thus perverted to an end directly the reverse of that to which it naturally leads. Ii Is a fact, in human nature, well ascertained, that every class of luau are liable tu a set of prejudices and mistakes, peculiar tu TILE NATIONAL REGISTER. themselves, and to their circumstances. The inhabitants of the country are subject to one class of prejudice , , the inhabitants of the town are subject to another. It is even remarked, that particular professions have a tendency to engender particular prejudices. Thus lawyers are considered as subject to one set of misapprehensions, and clergymen, for PA am ple, to another. The poor, it is well known, have n►nny prejudices peculiar to themselves, and the rich, it is equally well known, are subject to prejudices of a different description. Now the great anti dote to these prejudices, among all descriptions of persons. 19 reading. This habituates their minds to general s s hieh comprehend all classes of men. This engenders reflection, which loosen the bands that tie then ► as it were, into distinct and separate parcels. The competition of the newspapers, fatally, and lamentably, counteracts this happy energy. The rich and the affluent, as we have already s iid, are that class whom it is the interest of the Morning Papers to please. Their prejudices and mistakes, therefore, are the objects of per petual panegyric in these paper►:; and the intlueuc.•-of their misapprehensions is thus prodigiously extended. In pub lic transactions, for esample. the prejudices of the rich and alluent, all tend to the encouragement of aristocratical mea sures. Towards the rapid growth, accordingly, of aristocrati cal power, in t!►is country, t!►ere cannot be a douht, that our Daily Papers have largely and unfortunately contribute.l. This mthappy effect of competition among Newspaper, in do. terinratlng their quality, meets with a curious parallel and illus tration in the case of dissenting preaching It has been remark ed. that the einct of the interested zeal of Ow e teachers of religion, whose emoluments depend upon pleasing their hearers, is not to render the docrine more rational and iatproving, quite the contrary ; it is to render it absurd and useless. With the great proportion of such teachers, it is the main enquiry what opinions Is ill be most palatable to those whom they address. They study their prejudices. Th••se they flatter, by represent ing them as principles of the greatest certainty and importance. They blow up the fanatical and superstitious fires of their hear ers ; and pervert the salutary influence of preacuing, as the Newspapers that of reading, to the confirmation rather than the removal of error, to Cu: corruption rather than the in4:rove meat of the people. We bad intended to present our Readers, in this Number, with a short character of the four principal Morning Papers; but the general reflections which we have here presented, ap peared to us of great importance, and have precluded the exe cution of this design, w hich we must, therefore, postpone till another opportunity. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. 163 PROM THI3 FRENCH, DUTCH, GNRM.IN, H4IIBURGM, Ml* 01.5 . 11 4ND D.INISEI FRANCE. PARIS, FEB. 11.—In virtue of a decree issued from the 1 1 31aCe of the Thuillerie:, (in the 7th inst. 60,00 t) conscripts will be taken from the 80.000 called into service by authority of the Senotos ConBrell oar of the 4 .21 q of kit January ; the remaining 20,000 will form the reserve of 1609. I'Ea. IF.—On the lith inst. tue Danish East India ship the Spitzharg, arrived at Pairn'iceltf. Oa the 29tli of Januar.; it foil iii .z ith a French srpiwiran of ave ships of the line and . 0111 . 9 frigates. off the Cape do Vcrd I-I:inds. We tiot.ht last, that al. i, th e . N . j , 1 0 ; . 0n vchir:ll st.iled front Rochefort under the command of Rear-Admiral Allmolai. It had previously been reported that the Rachel/At squadron had arrived at Toulon. Fr . ..a. 18.-- Ishe Jotirtri! of the Empire contains the following article from Madrid, of the lot of February :—" Since the liberation of tho Ilritire of _A...ludas, a enmmission has been calued :'or the unrpose of inv , .•itigatinj the charges relative to the authors of the conspiracy entt!red into a;:tinst his laical. This commission has now laid their report before the ki n g ; and In consequence of it the Doke of Infartado, and certain other Lordi, have been banished for a cortai!t.ntiteber of veari l and a Bishop has received orders to retire to a convent assigned t r !tiara MA acts I.—it is certain that the Neapn:itnn troop: 1 UvO taken possession of Reggio on the Strait of Aletsiiia. 'I tie r..na. nna taken there will serve to plant on the batteries aloof: the coast, and for prosecuting the siege of :the fortress of Scylla, which has already been stronglybomharded. This rock, which lies opposite to Charybdis, is the Only pornt-whicn the Sialiutts and tho En il4l now possess in I tai;. La,tbeciitensorable earth• j.