The National Register. — London, England, 1812-02-09 00:00:00

FEB. 9• c ity of Alicant. Generals Malii and Freire were in the neighbourhood for the defence of the place, but the rapid successes of the enemy seemed to leave little hope of security. A letter has been received in town from an Officer who remained in the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo the whole of that night on which it was stor med. He had various op portunities of conversing with the French prisoners, who averred, that the intrepidity of the allies surpassed all they had seen in military peformances. In half an hour after the fortress was carried, Lord WELLINGTON and Marshal BEIiEsEORD were within the walls, forwarding the new ar rangements of the place. General HILL was said to have actually crossed the Tagus, in his approach to Lord WELLINGTON ; !Tntion, ~. was supposed, was to advance. MitamoNT was at Salamanca cm the 21st with the forces he had hastily collected together, and three days afterwards colt' d have been up with the British army. Whether he may deem such a measure expedient, after learning the fate of Ciudad Rodrigo, is uncertain. The scheme of an armed commerce has already begun to be acted upon by the American traders. A fine ship, the Hannibal, bound to Baltimore, has been taken by the Niemen 1; igate ; she was armed with twenty 21-pounders and 160 men, and fired several shots before the surrender. E NATIONAL REGISTER. but according to Of: account of one of the ten sailors, Admiral Rt y. nolds, conceiving 411 succour impossible, had thrown himself, in despair, into the sea, and been followed by the greater part of the crew : those who remained endeavoured to tie one another to pieces of wood, masts, and yards ; at length they threw themselves into the sea and attempted to gain th shore, distant about c(M) toises ; but with the exception of ten, they were all drowned, or crushed to death by the beating fragments of the wreck. The secretary of Admiral Reynolds got to land, but expired immediately, from fatigue and cold. 'There was found on him the portrait of his wife, with her address in London, and a note requesting those who might find his body to inform her of his unhappy fate. A child, eight years old, got on shore safe, fa , tened to a large piece of timber ; his father and mother were on board the Defence ; they followed him with their eyes, and when they Saw him reach the land alive, they threw themselves into the waves, and died together. Four guns, and forty-seven barrels of gunpowder, have been got from the Defence; and it is expected that a part of the St. George will be saved. The trial of Mr. Kirwan, the Catholic Delegate, for a breach of the Convention Act, finished in Dublin on Thursday se'nnight; n the Jury, after n tiring tor fifteen minutes, returned a verdict of Guilty. By the DuNin Papers and private letters of Monday l trt, which ar rived on Friday, we find that the Attorney-General has 6 ived notice that it is not the intention of Government to proceed in any or!,er t. tau for offences against the Convention Act. Conciliari(.; was object of Government, and as no man could plead ianorance, aftar the law and the fact had been established by a Jury, they hoped that n more viola tions of the law would take place.—Mr. Kirwan was to be brought up for judgment last Tuesday, but it was announced that the sent. rice would he a very mild one. We hope these measures of ce•a . _.iitation will produce their desired effect. —llre lives of the Jury who tried r. Kir wan are said to have been threatened in anonymous letters. This is a likely way to secure the impartial administration of justice 4! Lord Wellington's conduct, in securing Ciudad Rodrigo, has, given j great offence to sonic of our Journalists. Indeed we are certain that this NoLleman must he recalled, unless they will prescribe to him some line ot conduct which they can approve. If he does nothing, they blame him for wasting his time in inactivity ; and if he gains a battle, or takes a fortress, they :a: cure him of getting nothing but glory ! The report of an Alliance, Offensive and defensive, between France and America, requires confirmation. We cannot suppose tue Au;cri cans entirely ignorant of the kind of de:flarce Bonaparte extends to his and we presume they are perfectly acquainted with Cie nature of his affeesive operations. The substitute lately discovered for eealnut-tree timber, in the making of musket stocks, is elm prepared, a areat quantity or which is n:ov at the Tower, making up ; and two muskets, stocked with it, are no:: ie.:- fore the Board of Ordnance, for their inspection. The elm stocks, when thus prepared,are said to have doeble the strength of walnut-tree, and will be a saving to Government of 80,0001 per MIIIIIIII. The week before last, on the Change of Belfast, there were offered r for sale n 4,000 guineas in gold, the property ot a gentleman lately deceased. A young Lady of distinction, absconded from her friends a few even. ings since ; she left a note on her toilet, assigning, as a reason for the step she was about to take, a resolutioi to prefer death r4ther than a forced union with one she never could love as a man, or e:A..ein as a husband ! A hoax ha; been played off against a worthy Divine of Plymouth, the circumstances of which are said to he follows :—A letter was received by the Rev. Gentleman, dated from London, importing to he written by a friend of a Lady of rank, at the point of death, who had been struck' • with the religious writings of the Divine, and wished nosh to have hitn to attend her. It enclosed a check on a banker in town for fifty pounds. The Rev. Gent. ;.et off in a post-chaise, and on his arrival in London, drove to the house to which he was directed, but no such person a; the writer lived there, nor any where near ; he then drove to the banker's, who disowned keeping any account, or.knowing the writer. Upon this he sent to the Nobleman whose name was on the frank, but his Lord. ship had no recollection of having franked the letter. 'lie Rev. Gent. returned to Plymouth minus the expences of his journey. Molinenx, anti a Life-Guardsman, are matched to fight within eight week.; the sum is not yet axed for which they are to contend. The nuptial ceremony between Mr. Pole TOney 1.0:1g Wellesley, and Miss Tylney Long, we find, has not yet taken place. The marriage deeds are not yet completed, but all matters will be Cully arranged in a few days. The following advertisement is copkd from the Plynicroth pap( r " Wanted, a steady man in the seafaring line, not belongillg to a ulan of war, for a husband fur a widow-woman. She bath a little pr.tperty, and one child. The man will be sure to meet with an agi enable ar tier, and good employment in the merchant service. None but a decent middle-aged man need apply." Tuesday the Lord Mayor ordered the price of Bread to be reduced an aisize and a half, the quartern loaf now is, Is. 3ALI and Household Is. ‘2d. The Lord Mayor has backed a warrant, for the impressment of tea men in the Ci , y for the Royal Navy. NOTTINGHAM RIOTS. No-rm:on.tm, Fzs. 7.—Though the destructive operations of the frame-breakers have not been so extensive this week as they were dur ing some of the preceding, yet they still continue in spite of every ef f •rt to suppress them.— be distress occasioned by this alarming and destructive waste of property, and the numbers who are thriawn out of bread, cannot be described. On Monday evening a frame was broken at Babher's-mill, and taken clean away ; and on Thursday night one was destroyed at .Bastard, both of which places are in our immediate vicinity. In the last-mentioned evening two frames were broken at Taghill, and five others at Burton- Joke ; the former place being within twelve miles, and the latter within Aix miles of the town : though in all these places many soldiers are sta tioned, as well as a strict look-out kept up by the civil authority. In deed, so systematic are the operations of these nocturnal gangs, that though several articles of property were stolen from Clifton at the time, the frames were broken there, that property has wholly been restored by a person styling himself nerd Ludd, accompanied with a letter, explanatory of the means he had made use of to recover the stolen goods, and the punishment he had caused to be inflicted upon the thieves; at • the same time stating, that he had discharg, , 'd them his *mei! On Tuesday the Royal Buckinghamshire Militia arrived lire in thir ty-eight waggons, and yesterday two field-pieces belonging to them ar rived. The men left Woodbridge Barracks on Friday evening, and proceeded all the way by forced stages, under an impression that the town was in flames; instead of which, however, were it not for the ap pearance of su many soldiers and peace-officers in the streets, a stranger would have no conception that any commotions existed in the town. — Two more troops of Hussars arrived here on Wednesday. Mr. Conant and Mr. Baker, Magistrates from London, have been making strict enquiries whether politics are connected with the present disturbances ; and, it is generally widerstood that they are satisfied that no such thing oasts. MISCELLANIES. The following further particulars of the loss of the Defence and St. George are extracted from the French papers :—The Defence, which was very old, struck the ground the first. She made signals with blue lights that she was lost without resource, and in a moment after, wirds she went to pieces; what remained of her, however, continued still visible and lying bottom upwards, but at a distance had the appear ance of a church. Capt. Atkins got alive to land with six sailors , b ut ex pired a few moments after. The St. George let go her anchor, but the violence of the wind drove her on the shore, and the furious waves roiled over her without being able to break her, as she was of a very !tong construction. This circumstance served only to prolong the suffer ing of the unhappy crew. During the whole day of the 25th, from four to 500 men were seen clinging to the lofty deck of the vessel. It was Impossible to come to their assistance, on account of the storm, and unexampled agitation of the sea. On a sudden these men disap- Feared, and it was thouilat dm bad been ;att*laway by a wave; PP"' I 91