The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1808-08-15 00:00:00

--•
MONDAY, AVGCST 15.

•
The homeward-bound East India fleet, comist-
Mg of the Lord Castletagrk, Metcalfe,
Charlton, Castle Edea, Marquis Weilastey. City
of Leaden, Lard lissekesltury, Airig Conk, Starry
and Windham. smirk-it yesterday itt the Downs..
They left St. Helena an the. 19th June, and have
I.roaght bowie with them a French frig-ate, (vie be-
lieve the Pieciareataite), which has made many cap-
ture; and done much mischief in the Indian-seas.
The Captain of the English yowl that engaged the
frigate it is said was killed in the action. A Purser
arrived yesterday, at wise o'clock, at the India
Howie. with the intelligence of the maim* or the
fleet. It was also officially announced at the Ad-
miralty.

The SatelGte, Captain Itu•ttw'oars, arrived on
Saturday morning at Portamoutli, from Berbadoes,
having seen the homeward-hound •hips from the
Leeward lala‘nds into St. George's Channel.—She

separated from the Caatifis and Rosario, with the
ship' bound for the River under convoy. In the
,course of the day they palmed Portsmouth for the
Downs, under convoy of the Camilla, with a strong
westerly wind. Their arrival in the Downs was
announced yesterday at the Admiralty, by the
Telegraph.

We give, in our subsequent columns, an inte-
resting report of a trial for a riot in Yorkshire. It
is the fir►t of the series of state trials, in conse-
quence of the recent disturbances in the manu-
facturing ditpricts in Lancashire, 'Warwickshire,
and the borders of Yorkshire.

The Casette bf last night contains a proclama-
tion, proroguing the Parliament until the Ist of
November. It is in the usual forni of intermediate
proropitions, and not in the technical language,
which evinces a determination that it shall certainly
meet on that day.

It is not true that Louts the EIGETECNTH had
an interview with His MAJESTY. at Kew, on Mon-
day last, as has been asserted in some of the
Morning Papers. Loot! the EIGHTEENTH visited
Kew, in the day above-mentioned. accompanied
by the Duke of Bounnon, and walked, dining
some time., in the gardens ; but he never was in the
Palace. While the FRENCH KING was in the gar-
dens, a Messenger, sent by the Count D'Arrois.
front London, brought him the grateful intelli-
gence of the surrender of DEPONT to General
Cawratios. Louts the EIGHTEENTH afterwards
returned to town. in his barouche, and dined with
his brother, in South Audley-street.
There has not been, perhaps, in the whole course
of the revolutionary titum which we have witnessed
slum. 17e9, a moment of more anxious and painful
suspense then the present. Td whatever quarter
ne direct eat view, a degree of doubt still remains.
Even DIPONT's surrender, though it cannot be
called in gitestion, and rests on concurring evidence
or testimony. yet is not gavial. OfJuXOT and Sir
ARTI4:3t IVELLESLEr a, know nothing. The ar-
rival of.losrPn BON at Nladria is not bet-
ter authenticated than his precipitate departure, or
ttlit, place to which be has direct/id his Sight. We
%either know where Bussistrs is, nor the /*number
pf his :urea. CCIEST.t's march to Sala.s..ix. ..J
P. .1

the tuntious or operations of BtAxv, are eqatly
obscure. Of Pet roz, a i aril as of MONCIY and
LL.FESTRI!, we have alumat lost sight attegether.
Except that NAPOLEON had arrived at Pau, we
are unacquainted with his movements ; and though
prot.ably h, must long. ago have reached Paris, we
are ignorant of the day, or of any particular relative
to his reception. No Munitesers nor Dutch Pa-
pers mention it. This anxiety, cannot, however,
last long, and may, perhaps, be dissipated before
this paragraph is perused.

Those who have Lees accustomed, during near
nine years, ever since November, 179 u, to con-
' template, in N APOLION BONAPARTE, a perfect
model of deep and well-regulated ambition, of su-
perior military skill, and of succe.,sfid crime, to-
wards the attainment of whatever object his exer-
tions were directed; such persons cannot easily be
induced yet to believe, that his career has met with
a serious check. As little can those few, who, dur-
ing the short truce, improperly denominated peace,
which took place in 1601, were able, by visiting
Paris, to form an accurate conception of the ma-
chinery which enabled the tyrant to chain down
the French people, while he gave to his military
usurpation the mane of ass election ; as little can
they be induced to conceive that, under any/risi-
ble circumstances, BONAPARTE has the slightest
reinon to apprehend internal insurrection. Ad-
' witting, iu its fullest exbst, as we do, the energies
of his character, akd convinced, as we equally are,
how firmly rivetted are the chains which he has
imposed on the inhabitants of France, yet we
think that the error, independent of the atrocity.
committed by NAPOLEON in the conduct of the
Spanish enterprise. may eventually overturn the
whole edifice of his greatness, constructed with
such consummate skill. That error. of which many
were long led to doubt, seems now to become tan-
gible, palpable, and clear to demon stmtion. Time,
which unveils the secret springs, and exhibits the
results of human wisdom or imprudence, has al-
ready rendered us able to appreciate the policy of
NAPOLEON'S conduct in attempting, by an act of
mingled perfidy and lawless power, to transfer one
of the greatest monarchies oo,eartk. perhaps, in-
cluding its colonies,-the greatest and richest of the
European states, from the hne of its ancient Sore-
. reigns to his own brother.

So vast a project, it must be admitted by those
.who look up with most terror and reverence to the
talents of the Corsican Emperor of the French,
far exceeded, in difficulty, any enterprise which he
had Hitherto achi&ed. For Sprain; unlike Aus-
tria or Prussia, was net engaged in war with
Francs; nor Could he, unless
.by an unprovoked
attack un his nearest allies, enter Catalonia, or Bis-
riay, or Navarre, as he • broke into Austria and
Bmndenburgh. lie might, indeed, as in effect lie
did, ensnare the So►ereigns of Spain, imprison,
and depose them ; and he might then, by the ir-
resistible plenitude of his authority, give away the
vacant crown to • mean foreigner, of very mode-
rate abilities, destitute of any military talents,
and whose principal or only merit seems to consist
in his dissimilarity to the ferocious tyrant, his bro-
ther. But, in order to insure success to an attempt
without any precedent, for history presents no ex-
ample of a throne so obtained, and permanently
preserved, it was indispensable either that the Spa-
nish nation should see the transfer a ith indifierener,
and remain perfectly neutral, or, more properly
speaking, null; or, it was necessary that NAPO.
LEON should have been able to quell and suppress
every effort of resistance, throughout the penin-
sula beyond the Pyrenees.

If this despot, who appears, in almost every ob-
ject that he has hitherto attempted, to have ma-
turely weighed, and to have admirable anticipated
the impediments attending it, did presumptuously
amid ignorantly assume, that No Spans& people ex.
rated, his greatest admirers must admit that he has
committed an error of no common magnitude.
But if, as is far more p►obable, F.. expected some
fermentation, and, perhaps, an armed resistance,
in the provieces of so wide extended a ceuntry ;
in that ease it seems evideut that he did not adopt
the precautions indispensable to coerce a popula-
tion of nine millinpa of inhabitant*. He ought to
have known that the Spaniard, diasevered front the
other Continental Nations, bore little resemblance
to the selfish Hollander, the phlegmatic German,
or the superficial and fickle Pule. He ought to
have Letter appreciated the moral operation on the
mind, of so black and so horrible an act of per-
fidy and violence, as that, by virtue of which lie
pretended to place on the throne of FERDINAND
and ISABELLA, a vile Italian adventurer, who was
to found .new dynasty of Corsican Kings. Even
if he allowed himself to suppose that a great na-
tion, high-minded, loyal, and religious, was ne-
vertheless an base and profligate as to be insensible,
to its own degradation and slivery; yet he should
have secured himself against any effort of their
despair. He unquestionably might have dote so,
by greater precautions, and less precipitation.
It was not eitowrli to hare made himself, a, lie
did, master ofthe capital of Biscay. Navarre, and
Catalonia, while he left Arra4on, Valenti., Cadiz.
Ferrol, and the co.+A. of Astoria unoccupied.
1-1-nce has arisen the defeat and discomfiture of all
bis plmn. Forty thoosand more troops introduced
into Spain, previous to the attempt on the Kings of

that country, would probably bare retained in obit.
the.blonarchy, if DUPONT, 'with only ten
thousand men, had entered Cadiz, while t.trillltt
had been admitted with eight thousand into Sera,
goses„ and Moues' had occupied Valentin with a
similar number. no commotion of consequence
could have arisen on the Ebro, or on the Gua-
dalquivir. Corruption, would bare suppressed
every spark of discontent in the eastern and Medi.
terrancun provinces. The squadrons of France
and Spain would have continued to act in concert;
while Juttcyr held Portugal in submission. Above
all, the Comiciut, in other occurrences Ito acute and
provident, seems to have naglectedlis usual precut.
tioits, iu Asturitand Gallicia. He ought to have re.
collected uotonly the tuountainotis nature of those
adjoining provinces, ant: the independent character
of the Cantabrian inhabitants. who twice liberated
Spain from the Moors ; he ought to have dreaded
their local vicinity
.to England, and 'the facility
with which, from their ports aid hirimiers, they
could open a communication with this country.
Twelve thousand troops, distti tinted along the bay
of Biscay. at Coritinia. Gijon, and St. Auden).
would have rendered even a kitowlittlge of their dis-
content impossible to have been easily transmitted
from Oviedo to London.

Happily for mankind, these measures, • ap.
parently so obvious, natural, and easy, have been
overlooked or despked by NAPOLEON. He is, we
trust, about to pay the forfeit of his imprudence,
if not of his crimes, and to find the terniinattou of
his further conquests in a country, ,there, four
months iwo' he expected to have laid the founda-
tionsP of a new dynasty of Corsican Sovereigns.

We have given, in our preceding columns, 'a
Pre-
elamation issued atLisboo,.byJoNOT, signed under
his new title of Duke of •ASRANTEC Every line
of it betrays the imminent danger of his situatioo,
and liis terrors at the risiag spirit of the country.
The ferocious threat with which it concludes, is the
language of a barbarian driven to despair.

It is stated in a letter from Amsterdam, that a
Russian Courier, with dispatches Irons Prince ‘Vo-
LONSKY, at Paris; to his Court, has Loren murdered
in the Department of La Meurte, and his papers
carried off. It is likewise stated, that a Nlessetsger
from Vienna to its Minister LAMM Vfl114.3iNT, at
Paris, was some time before attacked in the same
neighbourhood, but escaped, although severely
wounded.

At the date of the last accounts from the Isle of
Trance. an Expedition was fitting out there, but
the object of it was uuknown.
A Letter from Bombay, dated the tut of March,
mentions, the receipt of advice) from Shinsz, that
the Emperor of PRIMA had been attacked with a
violent hereditary disorder which was hourly ex-
pected to terminate his hie. Some popular com-
sootious had arisen in consequence of a report of
his death, and au army, which bad been ordered to
proceedlo the shores of the Caspiau sea. fur fo-
reign service, had refused to march, waiting the
issue of.the malady.
The Loire frigate, Captain SCHOMBEIG, is to
take on board mousy fur Cadiz, and sail imme-
diately. General LELTU and suite go to Spain in
her. The Tigre, 80,. Capt. Ktaa, is under or-
ders to join the Channel fleet; and the C.'enturien
is appointed convoy for Itali fax.
The Abundance store-ship, Joa, Far az, master,
arrived at Portsmouth on Saturday evening, at
sun-set, from the Cape of Good Hope--The wind
blew so bard that she bad uo communication with
the shore.

A letter from the SEctErAay at IVaa to the
Commandants of Volunteer Corps, states, that w
it may be inconvenient to many corps, desirous of
transferring their services to the to as-
semble for etercile during the ensuing autumn, it
is not His MtJarrY's intention to call upon such
corps as volunteer into the Local Militia to as-
semble for exercise until next spring. An opinion
has obtained. iu consequence of the above notice,
that the Local Militia Act will not be carried into
effect this yer.r, in regard to thaw corps which wire
already volunteered into it.
The Cambridge Militia, now quartered at Yar-
mouth, under the commund of Line Right Hoo.
Col: YORKE have volunteered their services to :icy
part of Europe.
The numerons attacks upon Sir Pat sets
BARIIIG in the Ministerial Journals. in which his
conduct, in giving the President *nil the United
States of Atnerim as a toast at the late dinner iu the
City. iu honour of the Spanish Patriot*, has I.era
severely censored, has produced and called forth a
public answer from the Worthy Baronet, in wlr.L
be says _

" I have always considered it to he the duty at a Clair.
man to act with impartiahry and propriety, and mot In kir
truAace any toast at a public dancer to a clandestine owe.
nee. To i.core that I had no such ioteution, :Le &yams
were printed, with a translation for the inforonsti.ie of the
visitorv, and distributed at the table at alio L I sat, :admirals
I believe they were only partially circulated at the ether
tables. All the friendly Governments, with tbtw taapial:tre
Sovereigns, weer given m regniar Inclusion : Spate, Par
begat, Sweden, Sicily, crwirluiling with Ansert74. 32, site.
*bon was a public one, and it wits sot permitted fur Ise to
indulge a pets ate °piston or feelive •, rtrict impartiar.to auvi
tiered propriety demanded that I should propose, and dot
omit, Arne: with shorn we are to amity ai.d
placing that country on IRO equal footing with the rat .la
American Mirist.r is beta; we have one in Anieriete; a
state of peace mast therefore be supposed ewe 0 ; end st
would bate been presumption for me, in sue Chair a sa
respectable an Assembly and in the pm.eiget His v
jestC Ministers, to have decided-whether the isreFeut sl4ll
of t CullueCtwas between the two countries vial more as
Ins friendly."..

Tnotsis linonew..Esq. is returned to sane in
the prevent Parliament, for the Borough 01 Dor.-
cialk, in the room P4Talak CRAW CORD Harr i.
ho has scredted the office of titsmani or i;.*
MUMMY'S manor of East need:val. ►n the couu.y
or Berks.

The Ayrohire Militia. Colonel Sir DAVID HE N.
Tea BLAU,.. at Gosport, have volunteered t 1 it
st-rviees in the cease of the Speuish
Ihscifl limiter Wait is wen itattlitied to ku! :Ls
French a merry dance.

■

(Signed) The Duce of A BRANTES.
-44,
THE BRITISH PRESS.
LONDON,

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