The National Register. — London, England, 1819-06-13 00:00:00

/ 1/ 7 / 1 / .4%. - - A Lit tio nal( tilitittr+ Om Bing, ComStitution anZi ab 36. LPaicz 94d. SUNDAY, JUNE 13, 1819• No. 1189.—VoL. XII.] ON TOO DEPLORABLE STATE OF OUR FINANCES. Iv has often, of late, been our official duty to en dca•onr to direct the attention of our readers to the deplorable state of our Finances, and to the total in adequacy and irtibeeility of the hands to which, in a crisis like the present, they are so unfortunately en trusted. Ask from one end of the kingdom to the other, ask among the friends or foes of Government, and we will venture to assert that no man will be found whose opinion on this point, if honestly given, does not coincide with our own. But, amidst all this universality of sentiment, a sort of apathy, aris ieg either from despair on one hand, or from distress on the other, seems not much less prevalent. This we lament to state, a strong, but alas ! a general feature of national decay; a feature which the philo sophers observed, and the historians have recorded of the declining days both of Greece and Rome. The effect of all bad Government is to sap the foun dations both of public spirit and of public virtue; and its operations are carried on, first by creating a disgust with respect to public men and to public measures, and a feeling, almost approximating to indifference, as to both what they do, and what they leave undone ; and next, a hopelessness extending even further than the reality of the case will justify, as to any amelioration, by whatever hands, or under whatever guidance. All opposition is thus looked upon by Anne as useless, and by others as the mere etiect of a longing for place and power, as the out cries of a faction scrambling for loaves and fishes. fhe mischief thus aggravated and continued, has at last all the fruits and consequences of positive ap proval, and men, who are hated, mistrusted, and despised by nineteen nut of twenty, are yet permit ted to pursue their career of iniquity or folly, to exercise that public controul and to enjoy that pub lic patronage, which should so naturally be allotted only to wisdom and virtue, because then they would be wisely and virtuously employed. It is alone on grounds such as these that any man can rationally account for the continuance of our present rulers in the offices they now boa And, indeed, little as we are ourselves inclined to encourage an apathy, from whatever source arising, wkich is in effect a desertion of the public cause, or to agree in the opinion that there is not abundance both of wisdom, virtue, talent, and political experience at our dispo sal to form a very splendid and powerful adminis tration which would both maintain the rational ho. nour, and still redeem us from disgrace and ruin ; yet should the present schemes of Government be realized and carried, should an additional load of taxes to the amount of doec millions a year be sub mitted to, we shall ourselves be driven to the very same state of feeling which we deplore in others, and to say of our once happy and flourishing coon try, " jam vero otartelaotatum eel ;" the soul has left I ts tenement, and the body waits only to be carried forth to burial. The evil under which wehave been long struggling, Ens been a Tit.rationfever,a disease from which, during the rage and tumult of hostilities, no one dared even to hope to be relieved. But to see the blessings of tranquillity and peace at lust restored to a patient, suffering, and exhausted people, to have heard theca greeting each other with the prospect of " better times," fondly connecting peace with plenty, and plenty with moderated demands and reduced expen diture; and then, after a tantalization of four or five years duration, to see the cup of miskay again filled to the very brim, every prospect of alleviation again removed, and removed oo s digitises which admits of no definition, makes the heart sick indeed. This is not the language of idle declamation, we are not vainly censuring a system which cannot be avoided, Nrc assert, and we do so boldly, Mat a single shilling of taration ougli not lobe asked on one hand, and ought not to be granted on Me other. In the manhood of England's fortunes, financial arrangements would not have been wanting to meet the exigency of the times, and that too without the creation of fresh burthens. But the evil does not end here. If the fit:zing system is to be pursued, artificial means of support. ing it must of necessity be resorted to, and minis ters, we shall begin to suspect, are playing but a deep game of the most unprincipled hypocrisy when they pretend to be converts to the opinions and warnings of those who have so long and powerfully sounded in their ears the claims of the country to a sound metallic currency, and the removal of that horrible anomaly which has for so many years placed both our private property, and the national interests and honour, in. the hands of a trading company. They are greater ideots than we believe them to be, if they do not know that the only possible l ocation about the Ilinti'Restriction is the difficulty appre hended with respect to the MCVCIIUC, if the value of money should be materially raised, and it should become, as formerly, an adequate and substantial representative of the property of the country ; and their conduct, on the other hand, assumes a charac. ter which we will not venture to describe, if, know ing and feeling how perfectly absurd it is to look fur the return of rash payments, and to go on with increased taxation, as simultaneous measures of po licy, they have held the language attributed to them by reporters, and played with the sense and votes of Parliament Again, if taxation is to be pushed on, pauperism, discontents, and riots must follow in its train with aggravated features. Shallow politicians may assert that taxes, if properly imposed, do not affect the poor, but firsts are better than a thousand specu lations even of the wisest beads, and the history of taxation will chew us that pauperism and taxation have regularly and exactly kept pace together. Be tore the Revolutionary War, our taxes were not quite one third of their present amount, and our poor rates were then two millions. In 1803, when the taxes had mounted to two thirds, the poor rates had advanced to /IT trillions; and in 1816, when the taxes had been pushed to 70,000,0001. the poor rates had risen to nearly nine. We have thus a clear and unquestionable testimony of the effects of taxation on public misery, and with public misery upon public morals. Then come the quackeries of legislation, and, what is still worse, Spies and Sus. pensitm Acts, and the whole host of evils before which every tautly irtAte flees away, and under whose operatioa liberty expires. But we shall pursue this melancholy subject no further. The House of Coalitions is our only hope, anti to this, often at. it dis.i..iroints w, we would still cling. We would remind that august assembly that a bleeding country cries to them for protection, and that the destiliies of futeve ages are balanced in their hands. THE EX-KING OF SIVEDEN. The following letter, with the signature of Gus. tavus, the ex-King of Sweden, is extraeted front the Courier:— " Many journals having inserted articles concerning Prince Gustavus, son of Gustavus Adolphus the Font th (Gnats&sou). fames lidog of S.vedea, it is neressaty to explain what had been said respecting this young Prime, and the public ought no longer to be ignorant of all the unlawful and unjustifiable transactions of the last there yenta. " It is tame to make known that secret intrigue w ere employed to separate the King from his father, to whom Le owes not only the attachment and respect that estate inspires U 4 with for our parents, but moreover, a feeling of personal gratitude towards his father, Mho had made over to him a great trait of the con.ider.thle plop-gay de coked on him from his 1110111t`f of ble.sed nittiory, ti.o defunct Queen of Sweden, and tile remainder of whicts he divided among his other children. " Flinn( Gustavus's father, who is the year 1312 was separated from the Queen, his Consort, gave her, as the mother of iiis children, the most unequivocal proof o: his confidence by trustiug to her Majesty, not only the educa tion of the Priucessea, bait that of Prince Gustavus also ; however, miller three cunditions, viz. Is% that their ed.' . cation should be conformable to the religion in a high they were born, 2d, to the tank they hold iii the mid ; and 3d, to the duties they may one they be called upon to " The Queen aftsrwards received a new mat k of con fidence from her former Consort, by his giving up to her the administration of the above•utcutioned inheritance, relinquished in favour of his children, which was paid by the Swedish Government, and placed at the dist °sal of her Nlajnsty. " But that moment she seemed resolved to act ab solutely contrary to the tensor of the conditions pi esclibed to her, exactly in the same tuannee as her son, who,,p give. Ably to such, was on Isis coining to age (I. e. at seve tweet') to present himself to his father, anti concert %WI him as to 114 future destiny, but refn.ed so thing at Ihe time, &whit iric himself it/capable; and rejected the importiiiii. Mites of kis father, his friend and benefactor. Instigated by his royal mother, lie persisted in disobeying the re peated (a d efy o f his s i re , aileging as a reason that he had Ira (Milled kis mother upon his bottom, ilia to leave her mitt lie bad attained his 21st )ear —a singolor of a yonhg prince, who, refusing his majority, art. with the disobedience that a son inig!it more windily do if he were °lege. It would be reverting and coottaiy to Val we, to charge this some so virtuous and &a obedient a son entirely with such an offence ; it woold be even unjust to say, be fore it could be evidently proved, that Ike Queen-moth••r of this ',lime lied acted only from herself; yet, it must lie known, that abe bestowed her confidence, 4411 41111 more, committed the charge and education of her son, with which she ulnae was intrusted, into the hands of a Cal vinist, of a republican, and stranger; who, nvireover, possesses no acknowledged title that could iiiidingolib or recommend him in any way for the situation of Mince Gustave✓s governor. " Let siuhudy allege the name of the famous Laliarpe, on the side of the Emperor Alexiiiider, to prove a parr dos i for Labarpe was but Alexander's tr acher, and nut his governor. Let nu one abuse any mete the name of the Emperor Alexander, by repttsentiug it in f a mily dis. sessions, as it cannot appear con .onaut with the digni:y that characterises a great sovereign. " It has been said in the gazettes lately, that the Empe ror of Rts.sia had appoini-ell Prince Gustavo., G o v e r nor o f one of his proviures; at another time, that he was going to England with the Esuperos's penniaiun, to finish his studies, uhd to be alkiwed by hint 2,00:. sterling for the expenses of his removal, which woillil indicate that the Prince had not 4 Silif eillley to provide tor it himself. •'Let us, therefore, put a stop to so many weakly grounded novelties, sari endeavour, at least, to deli lop the truth, and not belies e it tuneable that the Emperor Alexander would carry dis,inuniation so tar a. 1101 to givot any advice at all to Psioec Gustavus's father of his good intentions towards his bon, while he is in painful anxiety iur the termination of she same soul's disobedience." The above article k sent to the editor of the Courier, with the iv/pest that he Nilliudrut it in his (Signed) GUS.CAESSON. Bark. June 1. IBI9. intelligence was received - Worn ,Lagnyra, by the way of St. Thomas's of the very late date of the 15th April. On the 7th of that month, a convoy consisting of seven vessels of war, and three trans. ports, sailed from that port, with u supply of pro visions for the garriFon of Cumana. An official despatch, dated early in April, from the island of Chiii., , ues, on the river Apure, had arrived from Gen. Murillo. A few days preceding he had a severe engagement with a body of independent troops amounting to 400 men, who were on their way to join Gen. Pees, and consisted chiefly of Englishmen. I he whole of the detachment, with the exception of about 40 were tilled in the acion ; and those not killed were taken prisoners. Previously to the a l i on j ust mentioned, Gen. Pact had been rem pellet' to toreatfrom the A.,:ure on the other side of the river Arancu. Morales, who under Merino commands a division of troops composed of Creeks, received an accession to his force of 400 men, deser.. tam from Pats in his retreat to the Arancii. V, -11" ' • ..., • • (11 4 Z 1i ,11 , 4 „,„ ;; . r l A -si