The National Register. — London, England, 1817-12-08 00:00:00

br it ation Ist I 'llk toil t No. 511.—VoL. X. POLITICAL DISQUISITION. ON THE INJUSTICE OF BRITISH INTERFERENCE (BETWEEN SPAIN AND HER COLONIES. Ws ha►e on several occasions expressed our opinion on the nature of the contest now unhappily existing in South America, and our readers are aware that our sentiments are by no means so favourable to the cause of what are usually called the Independents, as those of many of our cotemporaries. As, however, we do not consider the war between Spain and her Colonies of that vital importance to this country which many enthusiasts do, we had resolved in future to notice its events no farther than by giving a faithfid report of the proceedings of each party, as they arc from time to time detailed in the Journals of the United States, and West India Islands, the pompous bulletins of the Insurgents, and the no less boastfid columns of the Madrid Gazette. A circumstance has, however, occurred. within these few days, which has drawn the attention of the public so forcibly toward; the Revolutionary War, that we ass compelled once more to advert to the subject. Our readers are sufficiently aware that many enter prising spirits amongst us, whose valour was rusting in these " piping times of peace," bad determined to seek a new field of glory beyond the Atlantic, and, that many of them had actually sailed for the destined scene of scticn ; others were embarked, and many more were preparing to follow. To prevent the farther =crease of • practice which could not fail to embroil us with a friendly power, Government have thought it right to issue a Proclamation, "Prohibiting his Majesty's Natu ral born Subjects from serving, or enlisting, or entering tbanwelves to serve in the Military Forces or Ships of War, raised or set forth by the Persons exercising or as suming to exercise the Powers of Government in certain Provinces and Pares of Provinces in Spanish America,'• and that they should not be charged with entertaining an unfair prejudice to either party, the same Proclama tion equally prohibits them from serving "in the Mili tary Forces of his Catholic Majesty employed in Spanish America, or in his said Majesty's Ships of War." This State document, as might be expected, has created great diappointment among those persons who had made preparation for their departure, and it has renewed the :Jackal& fire of some of our journal ism, whose day-dreams of liberty were somewhat broken by the hourly details of dissentions amongst the champions of freedom, sudiciunt to convince the mist sceptical, that, with them, individual, is para raoutlt to national considerations. These writers almost despairing of success in a cause where " every man's hand was against his brother," looked to the accession of British talent as the means of giving a more dig.. ulfed character to the contest. The superior virtue of Englishmen, they thought, would be equal to the task of contnouling the licentiousness of the revolted, and their superior skill and perseverance would insure success to the cause of their darling liberty ; forgetting that English virtue is not incapable of corruption, and that vicious example has too often subdued its in tegrity The Buccaneers, whose attrocities have handed down their execrated names to all posterity, arc examples of this; and we much fear that the same scenes will be revived on the same stage, the catastro phe of which will be as calamitous as the events are bloody. Those who had anticipated such beneficial results from the ! , ecession of British talent, cannot conceal their chagrin at this Prohibition of the Government; but we cannot see upon what just grounds either they or the adventurers themselves can complain. From the first, is was known that Government was unfavour able to t:,e spirit of adventure which animated them, and variius appiicatio: , nude to the office of the Cout mander-in-Cl,Li on subject, were wholly (111S11e.• eessful. Did the adventurers, then, suppose that the Britizb. Government pewssed so little virtue, that it Our Iting, Concitituttoi 'ant 1 abaci. MONDAY, DECEMBE: 8, 1817. would wink at those acts of aggression in its subjects which it hail not openly disavowed If knowing as they did, that their conduct was - offensive to their government, they still persisted in their course, until • positive mandate forbade them, have they, whose diso bedience called forth this mandate, or tIK government whose patience they had abused, most right to com plain ? " If," says Vattel (B. c. c. 6r " a Sovereign who might keep his subjects within the rules of justice and peace, suffers them to injure a foreit• nation either in its body or its members, he does no less injury to that nation than if he injured it himself: : In short, the safety of the State, and that of human s k ciety, requires this attention from every Sovereign. If let loose the reins to your subjects against foreign nations, these will behave in the same manner to you ; %nd, instead of that friendly intercourse which nature has established between all men, we shall see nothing but one vast and dreadful scene of plunder between nation and na tion." Here is the clear and equitable principle upon which the British Government has acted, and that it might be rigidly just, it extends its prohibition to both parties. Thus far we have considered the question merely asit respects ourselves, but thearguments againstour in terference are infinitely stronger if v e look to the nature of the contest between Spain and America.— Nothing like a substantial argument has been urged in favour of the insurgent cause. Al.4e Pradt, " who writes on all things, but on nothing well," has repre sented the South Americans as the most virtuous, and the most oppressed people in the world ; but his state ments being notoriously flilse, the reasonings which he builds upon them necessarily fall to the ground; all his love of liberty, moreover, (his love of I:berty !) is to be traced to the never-dying; hope of all Buonaparte's creatures, that the yoke of England will be broken, no matter by what means. Amongst ourselves the writer who has been most indefatigable in upholding 'he cause of the Insurgents, is the Editor of the Aluinin o i Car ti nkle, but he, even, has never ventured to argue the justice of their cause upon broad grow. Is, he always reasons like a shop-keeper, and in the cc:.templation of pounds shillings and pence, forgets that there is such a thing as National Honour.—lie enters into long and minute statements to prove that the freedom of South America would increase our trade. The Times bad very justly observed, that by espous ing the cause of the rebels, we should lusr the trade of Old Spain, through which country we ,epplied South America. The Chronicle with a bold less -thich to do him justice, never leaves him, be he right or wrung, asserts, " that this trade never amounted to a million and a half per annum, whereas our trade with Buenos Ayres alone, which arose altogether out of this ruinous indepridence, amounts to more than ten millionsdol lars per annum." But will this writer tell us what that trade would have been, had Buenos Ayres conti nued subject to the ravages of the remorseless Artigas ? had nut the government of Brazil interfered to put a stop to the devastation of contending parties, where would have been the flourishing trade of Buenos Ayres? But this is the illusory mode in which this writer rea sons in the vain hope of deceiving his readers. But the most considerable person who has come forward in this contest is the Quarterly Reviewer, and from the high respect which we entertain for him, we regret extremely the part he has taken. He erects to.steer a middle course between the two conflicting parties, yet he enumerates various oppressions and pri vations which the South Americans indure as an apo logy for their revolt. " The education of the lower or ders (says he) has been totally neglected, and though instructed in some of the ritual observances of their re 10.on, this instruction is seldom carried beyond the ad oration of the Virgin and the making of the sign of the cross, while in the Indian villages their ancient idola try is frequently indulged to them by their Casirptes " We may justly exclaim, "He that is faultless let him cast the first stone." Until very lately what was the state of education in our East India Settlements? and if we talk of idolatry, let us look at the idolatry of Jagger naut, which we not only indulge to the natives but from which we derive a revenue ! Thus it ever is when we attempt to be unjust to others, we then become unjust to ourselves, our own ar guments recoil upon our heads. Between .- •aain and her colonies we have no right to interfere, *Ti I, unless we reason through the ixxiict, like the .Vo sing clinmicie, we must say, that if we were compelled to take a decided part, even-handed justice would point out the , atuse of the mother country as that which we should espouse. Pain 94d. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. -...m....- FRANCE. Pants, Nev. 29.—The general table of pensions distal/v. ted among the Members of the Chamber of Deputies con tains 196,105 pensioners, and the total amount of the pen sions is 63,595,003 francs, conformably with the arrangement made on the list Sept. 1817. The amount of the pensions on Ate in of January last (1817) was only 22,268,362 francs. The present augmentation is not a charge apon the Treasury. It arises from military perrlions previously paid upon the - credit of ithe 'Minister at War, ender the title of half pay, and the inscription of which at the Treasury has been d► reciA by the law of Vic 25th Match, 1817. The pensioners comprised in the table are ell tn-sfe isting the Ist of September, 1817, upon the list of pensions of the Royal Treasury: those whirl' shall be ulteriorly in" scribed will be drawn out in a like state, as is provided and directed by article 34 of the law of tle.: 25th of March, 1017. The number and amount of each o urs of pensions is di. vided as follows : Persons, Francs. •• Civil Pensions 7,7n1 2.294.61/e Military sad Widows 132.915 49,540,484 licelesiastica 196,395 63,3.59,13 These sinus are comprised in those that ere ;panted by the law of the Budget of the year vsl7, and which cannot Its exceeded. There still remains for the Civil Pensions a di s p osa bl e suns . . of 705,318 fr. to meet the fund of three millions which is appointed for them by law, and in which will be inscribed the pensions of the different departments of the Ministry. Fur the military petisions they must retrench from the 3.Q21,b53 fr. remaiiiing from the credit of 51,762,317 fr. the Slllll. of 1,577,899 fr. which his Excellency tisc Minister of War thinks ought to be employed for the pay of provisional retiring pensions. There is in consequence a latitude of 1,/i43,951 fr. for the military pensions to be ultimately in. scribed. The amongst of the eelesiastial pensions now inscribed is far below the credit for 15 millions. granted fur tiny class of pen sions by the Budget of let?. They are susceptibie only of diminution; the produce of the extinguished pensions I* surpassing w h at remains to be liquidated. ITA.L t 7. Roams, Nov. S.—Lucien Buonaparte and his family rr turned to Hume suddenly this morning from litsifinylla, hu C1)11110) wail, near Frestati. The following was the occasion ut this in/expected movement :—Yesterday afternoon, about 4 o'clock, Monseigitor Calico, auditor ut Roma, a counexion of the Itriunaparte family, who was on a visit to Lucien at Rtifiticila, took a walk in the direction of Tusculmn, to in spect the excavatious going on tittle, when ou a sudden ha was seized, attacked, and wounded by several ruffians. They consulted among themselves whether they should put him to death, or carry him utf, but in the mean time they kept hint in custody. At half an hour after sun set, when Lucien's family were about to sit down to dinner, Mote. seiguor Cunro was missing, and see vents with lighted torches were sent in search of him. They went lowa' ds Tuscnlum, and called loudly his name. In the meantime the robbers rushed towards the house, and seized Lucien's secretary, M. Chatillion, together with two servants (mistaking probably the secretary fur the inasteo, and carried him off. Von seignor Cuneo had the good fortune to make his escape during the tumult. A report has spread this morning, tmst the noted robber Barbone, of Velletri, perpetrated Inn vio lence with 21 of his banditti; but front the declarations of sonic of Lucien's people, there were only six men engaged in it, who were dressed in the garb ut' boors, without shoes, and wearing a species of sandal tied on their het, (called cioceied like the poorest of the people. The Papal Go vernment may congratulate itself that Lucien escaped. To what a 111:1-11 of suspicious, and to what a misiMer of con jectures of a political kind, would not such an act of biolenee have given occasion among the tried or the half in formed, in the interval between his 411•Cial •e'arutce Mild his re, cuvery. We have just been intOrlityil that the timbers, having ascertained their mistake of the person, sent word that they are willing to liberate their prisoners fur a ransua of 3 trOu Roman dollars. On the 2nd inst. a trial was made on Lake Pusiatio with one of the boats invented by 31. Locatelle, of Venice, which is of a construction secure against sinking, and p rorte d, without sails, 0.1114, or steam. This kind of sessel possesses inany :Mr:images over steam-boats, part ieularly in point of security and tile saving of labour acid fuel. It goes back. wards and forwards, toms in all directions, and stands still at the pleasure of the pilot who directs it. He Iryliiles riii iig more than the assistance of two persons, ss no set is motion a machine of a ',cry ingenious conailuction. RUSSIA. An official table, printed in the Gazette of Petersburg. has been tatitali,eal at 31uscow, 01 the 1111111:Pt r ut dwelling -hom es destroyed by the conflagration in 1812, and now rebuilt. stone-liantses before the bunting ittouunted to 2,567, those of wood to (t. 591 making in 0119,1511. There remained standing 526 of stone buildings, 2,4410 wooden houses, making a total of 2,521 i. There has ebt en newly rebuilt 3,137 stone houses, and wooden ones 5,531, tu.ekinl a total or 8,688. It appears from th is , t h at :he !intoner n 'lotuses in genital, and pal ticadra a) that of slum. 11c , 11%4•!‘, j 3 very mutt mei t.ett d. Toe tie) vomits at pi te,:t 11,314 dw houses. 'rite ra -esiabiasliment of the Aar ps end alie4e2l..m. has pr o ceeded a littk less rolutelly. Tilea 12 w. re of I Lou tole the buritiog 8,521,1,368 remained "44111116 C end thole have ha ea rebuilt 5,544, making the total nuabhn't at present anmont to 6,017. The poputetrco of thAL v ojt pi esent duiuUsitir to 31;000 soul*. tr. ~ ~+_