The National Register. — London, England, 1817-12-15 00:00:00

. ctef - 4t J,attivnA lArgiOttr+ 14 : ur U,n, tonfititutft anu USIA. No. 514.—V0L. X MONDAY, DECEMBER 15. 1817. POLITICAL DISQUISITION., ON THE FIRMNESS OF CHMACTER NECESSARY IN POLITICAL MEN. " Sir John Grey Egerton, of Oniton Park. after ascertain ing that the vote which he had given for the anspension of that bulwark of British freedom, the Habeas Corpus Act, had deeply affected his interest with the Electors of Chester, has thought it pin& lit to declioe presenting himself again to theit choice, anal hat, in consequence, addressed his eonsti bleats to that effect, stating that he withdraws his pretensions as scandidate for their 4fitlr.kees at the approaching general election. Sir John had before acknowledged, in a letter to Colonel Branston, of Chester, hotel the tith of October, that it had been suggested to him, that the vote which he had given far the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act had injured his interest, and might have the effect of withdrawing from him the support of some of his most zealot's friends and that after the e‘ertions and sacrifices which he bad made in their cause, it would he improper to involve himself in a contest which their power might render unnecessary. Respectin4 the motive, therefore, of Sir John's retirement, and the effect of his utihappy vote on the Habeas Corpus basincss, titer. can be no doubt. His address to his constituents refers to this letter to Colon , l Branston, and says that circumstances have occurred which induce him to deellue again ofterini himself - as a candidate for the representation of Chester. Sir John Egerton has tilled the seat, of which he is thus reluct antly obliged to resign the hope, for ten years."--(Globe.) THE friends of reform and purifiers of our Con atitution, are hailing this event with rapture ; they contend that it furnishes a complete answer to all these statements which have been made, that a majority of ' the respectable part of the population, was with the Minister in the late measures adopted for tranquiliz ing the country. A lvocates of a cause rendered more hopeless by every effya in le in its favour, they exult la a triumph gained, not by their own skill, but by the pusillanimity of an dvcrsary, eta they take it as a good omen th it a geatlentaa of Sir John Egerton's weight in the county of Chester is unable to maintain his grouncl age oat the expression of p disapproba tion. With every disposition to think well of Sir John Grey Egerton, we cannot but censure in the strongest manner, the step which he has taken on this occasion. It was by conduct like this, that all the horrors of the French Revolution were produced. The nobles, the men a virtue and integrity, abandoned their posts on the first assault of the enemy, and left the field to briefl.;sa.l waves, hardened iu heart by worldly dis appointment, as mach as by their coarse of study, to tyrannize over, and destroy their fello..v creatures. If men of talent and influence in a State have not courage and virtu:: enough, in dangerous times, not only to act with vigour, but to avow nail baldly defend their acts, we may consider the canditias of the country as desperate ; and most sincerely do we hope that amoug those who voted tin the suspension of the Habeas Cor pus act, few will be found so susceptible of fear as Sir John Grey Egerton. We need not go out of our own history, nor indeed, out of the history of our own age for proofs of the benefits, which have resulted from a firm and decisive mode of action on the part of public men. But for this determined spirit, (the consequence of right principles) we should not at this day have witnessed the happy change which has taken place in Europe. It is not, however, enough, that public men have the spirit to act from the impulse of right prin ciples, they must have the spirit to avow those acts under all circumstances : they must never shrink from Cie discharge of a great public duty, because there may be clamourers against it, for what measure was ever yet proposed that was ,not met by clamourers ? and in the particular case of Sir John Egerton we will ask. was there ever a measure more necessary, as proved by subse. e ient events, than that to which he gave his Lane' ? Iced, must that man be by prejudice, who will tkov ch.t at the commencement of the present year the te.:, ii!lity of the country was deeply en dangered. ti.r, in the as!:,,:nbiies of ignorant and beak enthasiastA, alone, was the doctrine of re bellion opaliy pr,:avhc:l, but Ia the liJust; of Commons itself, we were told by a Noble Lord " that the people had no means of redressing their wrongs, bet by withholding the amount of their taxes." To the crime of treason, we saw in out public streets, and in our most sequestered vales these of theft and murder added, and yet we were told. that in attempting to stay these evils, the legislatute was oppressing the people ! The existence of crimes agaitist.the State, could not ,denied, but those who eithe abetted those crimes, ear were perpetrators of them, aexterously shifted the burthen from their own shoulders, and placed it on that of the Government : upon spies and informers they charged the whole of the evils which the country en dured, not altogether denying that the seeds of dis affection were sown, but boldly accusing a single indi vidual with having ripened them into such fetal fruit. Wonderful, indeed, must have been the powers of that individual had he accomplished all that they charged upon him. He is accused of having revolutionized almost every manufacturing district to the northward of the capital, and yet he was absent from London only fifteen days. But many of those who arc loud ' in their accusation, know that their statements are false. The Reformers of Birmingham, more parti cularly, well know that in their committee he was only an auditor ; and that the plans which they had formed were of so dangerous a character , that even the chair man of the Hampden Club was kept ignorant of many important facts, and, when he wished to be introduced to Oliver, one of the committee significantly replied, " No, Sir, keep you quiet, whoa we want you, we will call for you It is not our wish to dwelt upon the events of that gloomy period ; our aim is to impress upon public men the necessity of doing their duty boldly, and not to fear " what man can do unto them." To what a lamentable situation woald the country* be reduced were the example of Sir John Egerton to be often followed ! Then, indeed, we might be compelled to adopt the system recommended by Mitchell the Man chester delegate to the Crown and Anchor meeting in January last. " Property (sa4l he) 'ought to fbrra no part of a Member of Parliament's qualifications; virtue and talents are sufficient." And a resolution to that effect was actually tarried by a large majority at that meeting of pennyless legislators. Farnestly, thercfOre, do we call upon those men who took a decided part against the disturbers of the public peace not to shrink with any rain fears, before their con stituents. Such conduct is unhappily calculated to bar the sound hearted part of the community from a public expression of its opinion ;—to revive and lift up that gaunt and ruthless demon• of rebellion whom we have sabdueil and trodden down ; and to put, as it were, "a soul under the ribs of den te ." The monuracut of General Moreau, erected by the Emperor Alexander on the heights of Racknitz, near Dresden, is in the form of a small pedestal, eight feet high, on which is laid a swoel entwined with laurel, and surmounted with a helmet It is s urrounded with three oak trees emblematical of the three Monarchs present, The following is the inscription ;—" Moreau fell at the side of Alexander." Lavulctte now resides six miles from Munich, under a different name; Foushe is at Prague ; Beauharnois resides at Munich; and the E x -Qtteen of tlolland at , Augsiterg. Drouet the Postmaster, were stopped the unfortu nate Louis at Varettaes, emigrated SOME time since to America. The Bermuda paper of the 6th September says—" It has been camfidentially stated to us, that the young man who arrived here in the American ship Severn, on the c'7th March last, and who appeared with the name and character of Lieut. Wilson, of the American Navy, was in fact no other than Young Watson, then on his way to the United States, His appearance, it is said, en rwered the description of Young Watson eery as .• • FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE. FRANCE. The Bureatix of the Chamber of Deputies, en the 31th, were principally occnpied with the choice of a commission to examine the law en the recruitment of the army. In the Mt' ting of the 6th, the Cliamher received a petition from certain intlividnals condemned to banishment, who had been elm. fined, and Mill were prisoners, in the fort of Pierre Chattel, (department of the Aire), and who prayed that they might he released from prison, by having their tentence'uf calls from France carried into strict execution:. The circus , - stances staled by the Minister of the Interiertiu elltplanalitivi, • throw a curious lieht upon the subject. It appearrelhet a neighbouring power the Netherlands we presunie;.hod rew [ fiord setinhision to "Enhishrdoirenchmen, scat oat of the country by that frontier. The experiment was tried in other directions ; but intiiilar difficulties every where occur' eel.-- These French convict, belonged to a class whose principles have been held dangerous to all tiosernments and notions.; ' and for the same causes for which Rance expelled them, litsh prods.nt neighbours cast them back again. a cordon wag attempted to bedrawnrou d this mortal pestilence ; and FI :MCC was ()bilged, however Urdity, to este hush her MIS. recto upon her own soil. With regard to the cacao rases of imprisonment, the Minister of the Interior was to atheist about the means of executing the sentenver according tit legal lurm. In the same sitting M. Faget de Baure reported on the pro. jet de lei &livening the liberty of the press. The amendments proposed by the Committee are not numerous, our, with one exception, are they of high importance. Among those which may he quoted on the side apublic tioeriy, we observe that the power of seizing a work before distribution. provided a coutams " a direct provocation to crimes," though sr. oiled to the original pe °jet de lei, is withdrawn from the puller by the committee. Indeed, it must be obvious, that the question whether a literary production does or does not provoke to the commission of crimes, is WC susceptible of a very arbi trary judgment, and that it is therefore wholly auth to be resolved by any agents of the Crown. Another mitigation of the original projed relates to the rights of die journals. It was at first intended to continue their ? resent state of sic , jectiesta until the ist of Jannary, period has been teach abridged; the right of publication sad of uncontrolled discos, stun being suspeuded only for * simile year. The annual sea- Sion of the Chambers will of comae esiatil • them to rm. 4•445: if they deem it desirably, the primilittory poor new CUP eised by the Executive Otieeruntent. The grand question ap to what tributials shall try the offences of literature, is coldly and briefly treated by M. Faget de Baure. The press is in many instauccs to be deprived of the protection of a jury. SPAIN. Accounts of the 23d nit. front Madrid, mention, that an ther Council of State had been held on the project of Ways and Means, in which a plan to pay olf a considerable portion of the public debt had been discussed. The Spanish (lovers. went has long found that the decline of public credit nao uwiug as much to the flaming demands fur arrears of national debt, as the deficiency iu the revenue, and determined to re move the first great obstacle to the wheels of Uovernment..— For this 'purpose a project was formed for the sale lit a quasi. tiny of Crown and Church laud.; but an ECCieliidi.iliC4l ,mien. ber of the Council asserted, that a plait %bleb was intended to lay bold on the patrimony of St. Peter could only originate with atheists and heretics. The Russian Apithassador had met with a most brilliant recep • at Cadir. Several trans ports which were previously embargoed, hid been taken up„ but for what pnrpose was not well ascertsitted. 'lite hostile preparationa against Portugal, with which tae Peninsula letters were lately filled, hati•entirely suosided. The Court of Spain went into moaruing ou the 34th of Nov. uu account of the death of our ever to be lamented Primes. r It was to matinee fur 14 days. he young Queen of Spain la said to be again in the taluity way. NETHERLANDS. GHENT, Dec. s.—The Vera Liberal puhlishes the following note, written by Las Caw., the Soil, from the dictat ion of his father, who lies indisposed M 'firleinuot :—" Count Lases'sa whom all the pipers have made Private Secretary to Napo , Ilion, but who never had any other tithi shoot his person than that of his Chamberlain and Coutiellor of State, while on the throne, and slum! his inisfortinies, that of his devoted, tender, and pious servant, was ...ivied away from Long wood more than a year ago, and detained av captive in secret coutinement for about five weeks in u the Maud of St. Helena. Transported thence to the Cape ut Good Hope, 510 leagues tin tiler limn Europe, he remained there a captive fir near ly eight mouths more, in violation of the must sacred laws of English legislatiou. "Thrown, when labonring under severe indisposition, on ou board xsurail vessel of v.iti tuns burden, with a mew of Ii ' hands, and still treated as it captive, lie espy. tenced tat:sutler% ' jogs of a passaneof nearly a hundred days. " At his COlf4HCe into tite 'lliaines, a subaltern agent of the English Police seized all li:s papets, without cven con tenting to allow an inventory to he made of Mein, and sect him a captive to the ('ontirrut. lie was forced to traverse the kingdom of the Netherlands as a malefactor in a dzias condition. At his departure hence was are still ignorant whe. ther he will see his chains broken of remain still in captivity. Certainly, if lie has any c.nnes to eapiote, the bandying of him about in this meatier is toot a anaemia punishment ; bit if he has committed twilling for winch he can reproach him self, such a peIseCIHIOR incomes malicious." Madame Las Cmav, who had remained at Paris till she the debin kotion of her husb ud 01. the went to Ostend to Meet I Her inisna...l had heft that place two days before tit r ail ival, awl she theist - ere toltowed ; um . We Mire seen this hid) uu ucr phs.v..ge through Ghent. She wise keenly afts.cted with those Hattlel.& peiseentioas, -which ought to hove beets auyciamletl by a simple lare4ll .11 : ~. ~ ..: ~...„.., r,,,,LA: :- - -Ai..4. , delt ~.,_ , .. :TN - ‘- '4le...fa ~~ al:. ~~ hoMMil