The National Register. — London, England, 1809-10-22 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER. OCT. 22. new maritime Lyeurgas. If he, indeed, is to change laws at his pleasure, all disquisition is needless; in the mein time, however, we may just observe,. that this new code has never yet been by him put in pracCce, although he wishes to render it binding ; upon us. Our limits will only p erm it us to notice a few O ' l' the passages of this curious produc tion ; we shall, therefore, conti:ie ourselves to ore point, to shew that it is a tisAie of falsehood and Misrepresenta tion, too flimsy to impose even on those Americiim who may wish it be true ; and adopt the new French mode of giving Extracts with correseonding notes. IN all her conquests, France has considered sacred private property depositei in the warehouses of the van quisi,e.i state." This will doubtless be readily believed by those whose warehouses have been emptied on suspicion of their containing English goods ! If France nad seemd the monopoly of the seas, she would have 7,ccumulated in her territory all the products of the earth."—That she has not (folic so - is because she was unable; but the Americans surely have not forgotten the capLere of their vessels by her privateers, and the detention ot their shipping, and imprisoumeat of their fellow-citi zens in French ports. " Undoubtedly, if England had the dominion of the . land, she would, as in the times of barbarism, have sold the conquered, and distributed them as slaves."—This ob servation comes with a peculiar modesty from Vie slave of that master who, in the year 1796, actually sold the Aus trian prisoners to the Spaniards for their mines; and of whom upwards of four hundred were liberated from Ge noese vessels, by the squadron under Sir John Jervis,. then off Toulon ! - " The right, or rather usurpation• ofblockadihg rivers and coasts by proclamation, is palpably coiitrary to reason.. and equity ; —yet Napoleon thought proper to declare the whole of Great Britain in • a slate "of blockade, at a time when we confined ourselves to a partial and actual exercise of the right. A place is not 'properly blockaded, unless it is besieged by land and water."—lt this be correct, then there are many places which can nover be blockaded at all ; for an island cannot be blockaded by land, nor an inland town by water . . in the great republic' of Many nations, it is not to be sup posed that express and positive laws can he made, as in a single nation ; therefore the law of nations Must be a law, in many instances, depeading on analogy and reciprocity, as well as on the strict letter of tactics. It happens, how ever, that the question of blockade is strictly defined in the treaty of 1725, between Spain and Austria; a treaty guar anteed by many of the European powers, and acknowle dged - by all ; and this treaty expressly says, 4 6 that no seaport ought to be deemed to be actually besieged, unless it be so shit up by two ships of war, at the least, in the sea, or (not and according to the Napoleon system) by one battery of cannon, at the least, on the shore, as that its entrance cannot be attempted without being exposed to cannon shot."—And further, the armed neutrality of 1780 had for the basis of one of its demands, " that to determine what is meant by a blocked up port, this is only to be under stood of one which is so - well kept in by the ships of the power that attacks it, and which keep their places, that it is dangerous to enter into it."—Such were even the princi ples of British practice, until retaliation became ‘ecessary : now, thank God ! we • are enabled to retort 'the tyrant's violence by a cool exereise of our power, and to contro vert his new fangled doctrines by a dignified recurrence to British principles. A fall in the price of corn is e xpected, we are confidently assured, owing to the large qtrantities expected by license from France. Certain Commissioners who were buying up corn in Cornwall, for Bristol, have, in consequence, received orders to stop their purchases; and even to dis entangle themselves from all such engagements as may aut have amounted to actual contracts. FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. FROM THE FRENCH AND DUTCH PAPERS. NOTES FROM ?HE MONITF:CR. The hfoniteur, of the 9th of October, contains some re; marks, in the shape of notes, on the observations of an English Paper, of the 13th Sept. relative to the conduct of Lord Wellington in Spain. English Paper. —" .We have said, that in a military point of " view the movements of Lord Wellington were regulated by " his own choke." Note of the ;lioniteur.—Lard Wellington has been very fortu nate to reach the banks of the Tagus, to be able to rover himself by this river, and thus escape total destruction ; but that his re treat was regulated by his own choice, is a thing H kh can only be said in England, and will be believer no where. WI!). then did not Lord Wellington retire by Placentia, where his- inaga zines were? At least, why (lid he not pass the Tagus over the bridge of Almaraz ? Why did he pa , s that river by the bridge of Arzobispo, whence he made his retreat over difficult moun tains, and by scarcely practicable roads? Certainly suzli a re treat as this could not be a voluntary retreat ; and Lord Welling ton, unless we suppose him actually insane, could not have taken that direction of his own choice. " Lord Wellington preserved, during ten days, a position in " which the French troops, had they thought themselves strong enough, might have attacked our arm), aud left it no other " means of escaping nut victory." . Note.—This is a very singular assertion, when, according to the noble custom of the English, Lord Wellington had abandon ed the army of Cuesta, who had been beaten on the Tagus, and lost 35 pieces of cannon, and all his ammunition. The writer asks why the French did not pursue the English army. They did pursue it; fqr they came up with the rear guard. This rear guard, it is true, was composed only of the troops of Cuesta; but they were there as allied troops, and made a part of the pur sued army. The French, too, destroyed that portion of this army which they overtook. Two things certainly result ft4im this; first, that the rear-guard of Lord Wellington was destroy. ed, and secondly, that Lord Wellington having to givt7 the post of honour either to the English troops, or those Spaniards of whom he speaks so ill, determined in favour of the Spanish troops. The post of honour in an army is that which is nearest the enemy. When Francis I. sent to re• demand the sword of constable from the Constable of Bourbon, the lat ter replied, " The King took it from me on the day when he gave the command of the advanced guard to the Duke of Alen. con." Lord Wellington had not the same sentiments with the brave chevaliers of those times. He itles not pique himself on keeping for himseif the post of hotoply ; he gives it up to his allies. The French, after having 1)(,,n his rear guard, might have entered Portugal; but they cid nut wish it because it was then the month of August; because the climate is fatal at that season : because only madam such as thcsn who direct the English Government, would, in the months of August and Sep tember expose au army to perish in the marshes of Walcheren t or in the sands of Est wanadura, ." It is certain that he W4s deceived in his expectation of find " kg provisions, and the means of conveyance. The charge of " want of foresight made against Lord Wellington falls of " itself." Nule.—The pretext of wanting provisions is always the ex cuse of Generals who are beaten, or who are rendered unable to do any thing. Would not one suppose Lord Wellington com manded an army of 300,000 infantry, and 40,000 cavalry ? When a General has an army so considerable, the procuring of provisions may give him some trouble, hut cannot absolutely stop his progress. Can it he believed, that nu army or 26;000 men conid not find subsistence in a country where towns are so numerous? Such on army is.only a stnnidivision, which a sin gle town of Spain eauld maintain for two months. Besides, if Lord Wellitwen was oa.!a” , wit 1 retilked to the subsistence of his army, wby did he aNandon his magazines ? His line of ope ration and his magazines were upon and at Placentia—why did he suffer Placentia to be taken ? Why ? Because this General of Sepoys had the impru knee to advance to the very middle of Spain, without knowing either what -- before him, or what upon his flanks. We see, patches, that he sometimes believed that the Duke of had but 8003 men, and sometimes that he had 10,000. these false stippoiitions, he had proposed to divide force wilt by his dia• Dalmatio 100. Under his forces,