The National Register. — London, England, 1811-11-03 00:00:00

~~~ THE NATIONAL REGISTER,thaM Cur 'Ring, CanOtitution, anD TLatoz. ?PUNTED "AND PUBLISHED AT NO. 5, PICKETT-$'TRL•'L'r, STRAND, NEAR TEMPLE BAR. ? .6 SUNDAY, NOVIMiIEII 3, 181 1 . N° 1 . 1. POLITICAL DISQUISITION. . i No. 188. OFFICIAL FRENCH WORT 3. The French Government, however hostile to the liberty of the press, has evidently no scruple to em ploy it for its own purposes, and whilst liberty of speech, and even liberty; of opinion, are wholly sup pressed in France on the part of the people, the Government itself uses a liberty which even truth and honour are not allowed to restrain. There k not another instance in Europe of a Government which so totally sets at defiance all the obligations even of ordinary decorum. It will be seen in another part of our Paper, that the French Generals have made their official report. of the late battles on . the Coa. Those who are ac customed to the gravity and modesty with which such actions are related in the English Gazettes, and more particularly wht...a the personal modesty of the Commander is always the main the dispatches, will experience a sentiment of disgust and surprize at the falsehood and vanity of. these French reports. They seem to be written with no other purpose but to exalt the personal re putation of the French Marshals at the expense of . that of their opponents. The Gazettes of other nations, and particularly those of Vienna, in the first wars of the Revolution, had adopted a similar habit of popular delusion, but there was in them this difference—they were free at least from the egotism of personal boasting ; the action, perhaps, was ex alted above its just measure, and defeat was con verted above its just measure, but the interest of the country, and not the personal ostentation of the individual, was the motive. The dispatches were not signed with the name of the General command ing, they were wisely given as narratives, and above every thing, they abstained from any per sonal reproach of the very able Generals who were opposed to them. It appears from the general tenor of these parratives, that Soma. and MAMONT after' VA. IF. Nc CC. L.. ~': raised the siege of Baikjos, .divided their armies ; C ~y •• Prucc 9d. SouLT going into the maritime provinces of Spain, and NIA mom', with the army, termed the Army of Portugal, watching the Anglo-Portuguese Army of Lord WW.INGTON. Lord WELLINGTON, some time afterward?, made a movement from Aronches to the Coa, and was apparently assembling a force and means to besiege Ciudad Rodrigo. MaamoNT having been informed of this movement and its pur pose, advanced, on the 2d of September, to opp . qe it. lie united himself to the four divisions under General DORSENNE, and, on the ;34th, entered Ciudad Rodrigo and revictualled it. He continued his march on the 25th, and fell in, as he states, with the English rear-guard. The French =tune. guard, which had this rencontre, was commanded by General MONTERUN. The English are, said to have retreated in confusion, and to have precipi, tared themselves in haste and surprise upon their entrenched camp of Fuente Guinaldo. MARMONTt of his narrative, accuses Lord errors, to which the French Generals, in the com• mencement of the Revolutionary Wars, owed their repeated victories over the Austrians. But if Lord WELLINQTON had committed these errors, did not MARMONT commit an equally great error, in An being in a condition to have availed himself of them ? Why had not MARMONT made himself acquainted with the position of his Lordship itoT a previous recognisance ? Why was an army, whie/s had advanced upon the express purpose of surpris' ing an enemy, itself surprised ? Lord WELLINq. TON, according to your account, was in a condition to be destroyed in detail : how did it happen, there. fore, that you had not come up with the force sufficient to destroy it ? It seems, therefore, accord ing to this account, that you were both alike i; fault. The result, however, seems to be, that Lord WELLINGTON had taken up the only kind of posi. on which the peculiar nature of his circumstanc“ it fd. j-lis Lordship's system iE defensive, ao4 r „ . In° "" or in this part of his narrative, directly accuses Lor4 character of-** ' tirmusityrox of ignorance, and incapalpility, mid as tent of equal having committed one of those egregious military