The National Register. — London, England, 1817-09-29 00:00:00

WE have long witnessed with pain, the degraded state of what has been commonly called the Constitu tional Whigs in this country. .Sunk by their own misconduct into total insignificance, they appear to have lost even the knowledge of the right means of re deeming their characters. From having been the pride, ssfeguanl and boast of the nation, they have become the objects of its scorn and contempt. One cause only has led to all this :—a weak and childish admiration of a sanguinary foreign revolution, and next of a bold and merciless tyranny. • Led by their hopes, they pledged themselves a thousand times for the success , of the ene mies of their country, and still they found - themselves in error, yet too proud, or too obstinate to retract, they persisted till every man who could balance be .tween right and wrong, turned from them loathing. Earl Grey, who has by some been considered their leader its the Upper House, has recently made a feeble attempt in his native county, to recover some of the lost popularity of the party. The 19th of this month was the day app cinted for the celebration of the me mory of Mr. Fox, in the town of Newcastle-upon- Tyne, .and on that occasion Earl Grey presided at a dinner, where it is said, above one hundred gentlemen sat down, The speech which his lordship made at this dinner, is in many respects presisely of the same cha racter with those which he haamade an hundred times in various other places;—pompous, long, and dull; but at the same time, these are points in it deserving of particular notice, not only es containing woe assertions not founded in fact, but aos exhibiting a cone...4erable change in his lordship's mode of thinking. upon a ,most important subject—namely, Parliamentary Reform. His Lordship commenced his speech by reference to the hopes which, at their last me :tine, three years ag0,... " were inspired by the first overthrow of that power, ' which had proved so fund to the -,5e-a= and liberty of Europe," carefully rcmariiig at the sealle time, that the event was not produced by the wisdom of the Minister, or by the skill and good fortune which pre sided over our armies, but by that madness and am bition in our enemy, which thought nothing impos sible to its daring. We 'can pardon his Lord ship for giving this colour to the event. He is unwilling to awaken recollections of his former predictions. When the " wisdom and ability" of the Mini.ters, and, " the skill and good fortune which 'resided over our armies," were baffling every effort of the enemy. he assured his auditors in the House of Lords, that, " in dime weeks, there would not be a Isritish soldier on the Continent, bus as a prisoner of war." It must be painful to his Lordship to remem ber this, and many other such instances of his fore sight , to tear the laurel, therefore, from the deserving lnow, and tread it in the dust, is precisely what might be expected at his hands. It is said, that great op timise followed this part of the speech, and we be lieve ie ; to hear the gallant services of .that gallant army, which suffered and achieved so much, under valued must have gratified many of those respectable meantry Squires by whom his Lordship was surround ed—many of these useful and valuable men, whose ambition never soared higher than to be stewards of a race, or chairmen of a country club, whose days arc spent in idleness. and nights After having deplored the slavery in which we ?-.nve left the Continent after all our victories, his Lordship enters upon those topics which he trusts ore to give him back his good name. Of those, the Suspension Act stands first. In all the distur ances which havc exislel, he con find nothing which should have excited alarm ; to public distress he assigns the evils, and he takes it for granted, that no because, that and that exception, no man• in making,. have the law , able to prove, evoeip seditious ever the law officers, may " or not to do, will his Lordshil of London, for a confirime those men who were acquitted, because the law offi cers of the Crown chose to indict them fur High Treason, rather than a seditious misdemeanor ? Or does his Lordship think, that by falling in with the popular cry against Reynolds; Oliver, and Castles, he will re-establish himself in the good opinion of the .radical Reformers of the present day ? All this, how ever, was to be expected flom his Lordship, from him, who, in 1793, could oppose the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and agitate the county he repre sented, in order to procupepetitions against it—inl793, when levelling democracy had attained to such a height as to lead to an attempt on the life of the Sovereign, was little likely to sanction a similar measure in 1817, though every man in the kingdom not led away by party feelings, felt the necessity of some strong measure being adopted. Anxious to be once more the popular opposer of Govemment, his Lordship urges the practice of petitioning. He confesses that he is still a Reformer, " but with some modification , of his former opinions; with more fear of the effect of sudden and inconsiderate changes, with a more complete conviction that to be successful, reform must be gradual, and must be care fully limited to the necessity which has proved it to be wanting." And does his Lordship think that language like this will conciliate the reformers, those innocent men who deliver seditious harangues from scaffolds and waggons to the mob, and then plunder the shops of peaceable citizens and pistol . those who resist. To prove what may be effected in the House of Com mons b > - legal petitioning, his lordship instances the repeal of the income-tax, and warns his admiring audi tory to resist every attempt which the minister may make to re-impost it, Such language as his Lordship uses throughout.this speech might have come from hint with a better grate, had it never been his fortune to serve his king; i s „ w i asa p r o magnffrco would have then applied equall y in hi s case a s in many others; but, in an evil hour for the party to which he Lelonged, circumstances placed Mr. Fox high in an atUul.aastration in which Earl Grey himself was a member. Never, perhaps, did any ministerial change produce suet hopes,—never was there any instance in which these hopes were so grievously disappointed, and it will be difficult to pro duce as many political failures. as many political bin ders in so short a period, as characterized the coalition administration of which Earl Grey was a member. It is the remembrance of these things, coupled with a re collection of the year 1793, and some succeeding ones that have put a seal upon the popularity oe Lail Grey and his party, nor will ell the invective in the weal!, whether poured out among drunken foxhunters, or yawning peers, restore them to that rank which they heir/ hethre they were " tried in the balance and found want i reg," The Letters front Pernamtraeo receive some time a;o, mentioned that a revolution had broken out in tin Province of / Paraiba, and that a vessel had arrived with 3000 staittlitf arms. We tiud the same report in some American Papers which arrived yesterday, dated as tier back tat June. The latest intelligence from the Brazils say, that every thing was tranquil. There can therefore be no doubt that the rumour is of an old date; a report circulated perhaps by the Insurgents of Per nambuco to scree their particular purposes. We un derstand that amongst the merchants interested in the Brazil trade, there was never the slightest attention given to the rumour. tract such strong in g allant officer's peculiar style, that there would have ben no doubt as to whom it should be assigned. There is nut. we think, a man living who stands upon better terms with himself than Sir Robert Wilson. If we believe him, he is the only good soldier, the only wise le„,,ois lator, the only true patriot, that has shewn fortli in these time—in times which we have hitherto foolishly believed to be fertile in minds of a superior order'. The text from which Sir Robert preaches his doleful. sermon on the new dangers to which Europe is ex posed from the encreasing power of Russia, is found in the 7th page of his preface. " Rassia," says he, "m -ilting by the events which have afflicted Europe, hwi not only raised her ascendancy on natural sources, suf ficient to maintain a preponderating power, but far ther, that she has been presented by her rivals with sl4. sceptre of universal dominion." And that we may be fully able to appreciate the justness of this position, Sir Robert enters into a history of the Russian Ein pire from the time of Peter the Great, to the period when the arms of the allies triumphed over the nasty of Buonaparte. This history occupies nearly half the volume, and in the course of which we are furnished with numerous instances of gross ignorance ...suet mismanagement on the part of those Generals and Statesmen who took an active share in those campens and councils which led to what is commonly called:kb - el liberation of Europe, but which Sir Robert has no doubt, is its slavery. Of the real causes of that disastrous retro( , in which above a quarter of a million of French Ba 4 con federates perished; and which led to the immediate ruin of Buonaparte's fortunes, the world has hitherto been in utter ignorance ; it remained fur Sir Robert Wilson to set them right. " There ran be no desire to exalt rho reputation of Nape- Icon, or disparage, if it were possible fur tletraetion-to do so, the *shw of the heroic army and brave people apposed to htm ; an army, to whose devotion Napoleon himself has paid the highest tribute, when he demelbes the battalion*, writh ing under his firt., " in unwilling to go, and yet unable to remain but the fact is, that from want of energy in the di rection of the Russian operations, and a deterinisation not to mike a concentrated and gener al attack on the enemy's lite o'niarch, the French army would have regained their posi tion on the Dwina and Boristheoes, without any serious Inju ry, bad it not been for a sedans intense frost, and a total neglect to p, , vide karac-skora suitableio the climate, except ing for Napoleon's own horses, which Cauliocourt saved by the precaution,' And in a note be infoion us, drat " During the retceat, a ducat; than worth one pound ster- • ling, was, with thanks, the price of a single horse.shoe, even in the Russian army. But the Russian horses ui their own country are always rough-shod, that they may be prepared • for the frost. The French artillery and cavalry beinguaear viceahle, no disposition could be made for the protection of the troops, either nu march or when reposing at night; and no provision or forage could be obtained. except in the towns or villages which lay immediately on the road. The cause may appear minute, but it was strictly the lea cause of Me d,;:isti•us n hick Wei die French troops." Gium what minute (=tuts does the fate of Empires h ani g - Although un eye-witneas of the retreat of this French n..-my, after the burning of 'Moscow, Sir Ro.. but has fur. fished us with. hardly any other firct of bit... portancc, not before known. One frightful picture 1 .10 has, indeed, adored to the many already known, of misery and total desolation of the retreating, army. " In the hospitals of \Vilna there vi ere left aline e ,ge. ventren thousand dead and dying, frozen and freezi The bodies of the termer, broken ap, served to stop t .ha ca vities in windows, ttoors, and walls; but in one of th grorri dares of the Great Cotivent„,above fifteen hunilre• Itlndies wile piled a transversely, az pigs of lead or iron w heu these were finally removed oat sledges to be burnt, the most extraordinary figures 'Vete pi.escuted by the vatic ty of their attitudes, for none seemed to. have been froze tan euur posed state; each was fixed in the last action o' pis iiNq in the last direction given to his limbs ; even the t :at s retaysrd the last expre.sion, f‘ither of anger, pain, or tilwatv. ha the roads, area were collected round flu. bi *of „ alas of the cottairs ' which a mast spirit of destill• pic:sing and eating the hu.un bodies of re .:sew awn; while thousands of horses were ino,vnitig in ak mangled and hacked to satisfy the era yin! ''vYttls itiluiegierratehsalt ' i knew no pity. In many of the sheds, e. 4earcely had heaped on their frozen bodies Imin festering by the communication of anew _Andre/nes, which. the alias" the dying and tho dead iu one lases of atrefaction," .• 4 „ . , ...i;: .T.,' V. , - ;:i.'..).: 77 :',' • • 14; 3 r ; • A , , A of . 'lir ° ' , +.l . .4' . .....4k pat t anai ';lk.irLt(tiStr . • ••• • .- ' - front r• •r. • f • .. . ~ . Out Ulna, J incititutia n anti UAW. •-- —____ • _ . , _,........... No. 505.—V0L. X. • MONDA - SEPTEMBER A 1817.- . : • , :. OS. . . _ •-•-•••••.- r ._ POLITICAL DISQU isrrtoN. disaffection exit . , because, "in no single immune), REVIEW °M UTSU .• .. v • 1 • --as.— with the exception of that miserable inan Cashman, —....m....- ... .* 1 . , - i . ' SKETCallor roe MILITARY sett' 1 , Po WEIL IN EARL GREY'S SPEEcH AT THE FOX DINNER. and that exception, no mazi• can for a mouloatt hesitate or RUSSIA, as row YEAR, WE have long witnessed with Fain, the degraded in making,. have the law officers of the Crown been Thi s te sh ee r. hes h ese .. : , •. , , I, ; :d.te of what has been commonly called the Coustitu- able to p rove, colt* st.sditious combination." What - but as es!:isiolessbis •i sin4 wo r .„ T iobio to wiliker4 dm onal Whigs in this country. .Sunk by their own ever the law officers, may have thought proper to de, author's part* abitod, the inibll6 - &yew it to be the tisconduct into total insignificance, they appear to or not to do, will his Lordship appeal to the Citizens production of Sir Robert Wilson's pcn, even:before it. appeared. Had this, however, not been done, the tie lost even the knowleb-e of the rielit means of re- of London, fora confirmation of the innocence of , tract bears such strong internal evidence of that gallant I ti