The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1806-03-14 00:00:00

THE BRITISH PRESS.

LON
FRIDAY, M*ice 14.

We alluded en Monday to an article in a Sunday
Paper, which, professing to to at of the Indemni-
ties to be granted to Austria, maintains that Tur-
key is unworthy of a polit:c2l existence. and that
any power is jastifiable in seizing upon her Pro-
vinces, and annexing them to its own Dominions.
After expressing a wish that the report may be
true, which states that Austria is tor be indemnified
for her recent losses, by the Turkish Provinces of
Bosnia and Servia, it thus proceeds :
" Do you take from Turkey any thing that she
is enabled to keep ? Do you seize these Provinces
from the legitimate hand of a regular and protect-
ing Government? or do you rescue them from
banditti—from rebels who, in the general anarchy
attendant upon the utter dissolution of law and
government, are cutting each othor', throats, and
rendering fruitless she bounty of Nan e in the most
fertile countries under Heaven ?—The Turkish Em-
pire is, and has long been, a wreck—Austria, or
even France, has as much moral and political right
to them as Russia. No power can call that its own,
which it did not protect.—The bond of sovereignty
is dissolved in the same moment as the boad of pro.
tectiois.—This is true with regard to subjects and
their Sovereigns—it is equally so with regard to
Sovereigns, amongst each other.
" It is the first, the essential obligation of an ie-
dependent State—an obligation, upon the perform-
ance of which they hold their independence—
that such independent State should preserve itself
in due law and social order—that it should not fall
into that anarchy, and those diwtdevs, which, by
the sere and fatal contagion of vicinity, should in-
fect the adjacent States. When a Sovereign cannot
maintain his States in this order, he ceases to be a
Sovereign. The common order of Europe cannot
allow such States to continue in perpetual anarchy ;
there exists a right, if not an obligation, to reduce
them to civilization, and recover them to law and
nature—and the natural reward of such interposi-
tion is, that the Conqueror should retain his can-
quest.
" We wish to express ourselves simply, and in
one word. We assert, therefore. upon our mast
mature ciinsideration, this principle
" That when a falling Empire has become too
weak to pretel its members—when this dilapida-
tion of the State, this imminent dissolution of an
Empire, is not matter of opinion, but matter of
altual and complete evidmce—when stone after
stone, and timber after timber, are falling before
our eyes, and picked up by every chance comer
that in this state, we say, that Empire may be fairly
considered as dissolved, and that its members, as
having become 2oria vacant's, are fair objets of a
scramble. It is neither necessary nor just, that the
power, which, by its local vicinity, is neatest,
should assume to itself the exclusive right of the
whole ; in a word, that Austria has as good a right
as Russia, and England as either of them.
" Such is the couclesion, and the warranted in-

firanee from the simple relation of a falling Em-
pire. When to these considerations we add those
of the present state of Europe ; a state of such
peril and urgency, that the common danger will not
admit that any State should be patiently left as a
prey, and consequently a means of augmentation
of strength to the common oppressor ; such rela-
tions, we say, would fully justify us, and may jus-
tify Austria, in seizing a State to ourselves, which
cannot maintain its own independence."
Were the writer of the above article in the pay
of BONAPARTE, he could not broach a doarine
mere favourable to his revolutionary system, and
his particular and immediate designs, at this mo-
ment, upon the Turkish Empire. The most sub-
tle casuist, in the most servile Print in Park, in the
service of the French Government, has not had the
boldness to assert principles so subversive of all le-
gitimate rule. When BON•PARTL himself, the
child and champion of Jacobinism, invaded Egypt,
he did not preach up this extraordinary datrine.
lie pretended, that the objed of his expedition was
to punish the rebellious Beys, and to serve his ally,
the GRAND SIGNIOR, by restoring tranquillity in
that province. He had not the audacity to state,
that Egypt, being in rebellion, it was fair prey to
every adventurer, and he had a just right and title
to take it to himself, if able to conquer the country.
But it may be said, that this right accrues only in
extreme cases, where the rebellion has proved of
long standing, and the Government has uniformly
failed in all its efforts to subdue it. We desire to
know how, and where the line is to be drawn, at
which the right of invasion and seisure accrues to a
foreign state against a disturbed and distracted neigh-
bour ? Are two years, or three years of partial rebel-
lion, the time required to constitute this right ? and
is it a failure in six or seven attempts to restore tran-
quillity, that is to lay the country at the mercy of
the first comer ? While the legitimate Prince sits
upon the l hrone, and the legitimate Government
subsists, and the Prince and the Government have
not absolved the rebellious subjeCts from their
allegiance, but, on the contrary, exett themselves
for the restoration of order, although these
exertions may not have had the desired elle& it is
not possible to draw any line. The principle,
therefore, advanced, would justify the interpo-
sition of a foreign power, in every case of rebellion
or insurrenion, in a neighbouring state. France,
according to this doctrine, need not subjeEt
herself to the charge of lawless aggressions,
and unjustifiable seizures of feeble states. She
has only to excite, by means of her emissaries,
a little internal insurrection, and then usurp the
Govro-nment, upon the alleged ground, that the de-
posed was not able to maintain his authority. This
is an easy way to dissolve, by right, the strongest
Government. La Vendee has been longer, and
more formidable and obstinate in insurrection, thin
Bosnia or Servia.

The Earl of Sr. VINCZNI. sailed from Portsmouth
on IVednesday in the ILSernia, accompanied b) the
Yuile de Paris and the Mars, to join the Channel
Fleet.

The Forortrd gun-vessel has c tptured a French
privateer of lb guns, and carried her into Ports-
mouth.

The Elation for the City of Waterford, is fixed
for this day. Sir JOHN NEWPORT, as we have al-
ready stated, will be returned without opposition.
Count MUNST an, the new Minister from Hanover,
in the room of the late Baron de ZEN/ Hs, had his
first audience yesterday of the Right Hon. Secretary
Fox, at his Office in Downing-street.
The New Chancellor of the Excherruee. Lord
HEMET PETTY. presented his first Bill, at the Bar
of the House of Lords yesterday, that for settling
an annuity on the brave and meritorii us Lord
Cot. ci trowoou. He was attended by an unusually
great number of Members.
The New Bishop of Owns, was in waiting yester-
day, at the House of Lords, for the purpose of
taking his seat regularly, and the oaths, as one of
the Irish Representative P►elates ; hut the hour to
which the Committee of Privileges sat, being beyond
four o'clock, such a proceeding could not take place
Some of the Papers have stated, that Lord
HAwttnIURY gave a grand dinner, at which a new
Opposition was organised. and its leaders clu,siin for
both Houses of Parliament.—The same Papers now
assure Ili, that no st•ch dinner tuck place, and that
his Lordship was not even in town at the time.
The Deiphia, HICIII.II/0, from l'arniouth to
Bristol, is captured off Portland.
The Eslamrd, FINDLAY. from Quebec, for Lon-
den, was captured on the Bth December, of Dun-
geness, and carried into Boulogne.
lire Thames, MARTIN. from Yarmouth, is cap-
tared.

The Dorset yacht sailed from Plymouth on Tues-
day. to receive the new Lord and Lady Lieute-
nant of Ireland. the Duke and Duchess of Ben.
►osu. Her stateroom and cabins are fitted up
in a style of superior elegance, with crimson,
satin and gold fringe curtauis, with sofa and chairs
to match.

The Petershairgh Cautte, of the 2d inst. states the
whole loss of the Russians, by sickness, casualties,
and battles, hero the commencement to the end of
the late casspeige, was no more than seventeen
thousand men ; that the engagement of the 2d of
December was rather the effea of necessity than
choice; and that, through the mismanagement of
the Austrian Commissaries, the Allied Army was
almost starving.