The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1809-04-17 00:00:00

LONDON,
MONDAY. APRIL 17.

The expedition ender Sir ASTIMR WEIALESLCY
sailed on Saturday, from Portsmouth for Lisbon.
Sir ARTHUR and hie SEMI sailed in the Surveillenge
frigate, Capt. Cu 1.1.1 ER.

We have received New licult Papers to the 22d.
The Secretary of the Treasury has issued a circu-
lar letter to the mereantile interest, explanatory
oldie Non-Intercourse Act, in which he states,that
every country moulted& enjoying an independ-
ent ferns of Government (other than Great Britain
and France) and nut in the actual possession of either
Great Britain or France, is open by the law, and
particularly Holland, Spain, and Portugal, and
their colonies." A copy of the official instructions
is give() in our preceding columns, and apse or the
new PRESIDENVI speech. from wind' it appeani,
that he is resolved to tread precisely in the steps of
his predecessor.

The Gazette of Saturday night contains an eIR•
cial account of the capture of Cayenne, acid also
of the capture of Le Niemen French frigate, of
44 guns, by the .linetAyst, Capt. SLestouit, who
lately distinguished himself so much by the cap-
ture of the French frigate La Topaze.

We are assurtd, that General Expedition
was met, going into the Tagus, #lll4 the 311 of April,
as the last accounts came away from Lisbon.—
This is, imthe present situation of affairs in Portu-
gal, a most important piece of intelligence.

Report states that Lord Met.vtLl.E is to succeed
his son the Right lion. HUBERT DUN PAS, as the
head of the East India Board. Of Mr. DUN-
Das abilities the world knows nothing. except Ins
gentlemanly speech in the [louse of Commons in
defence of his father, against the charges of cor-
ruption alleged against I' upon the authority of
the Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval
Inquiry. Upon that trying and delicate occa-
sion, Mr. DUNI/AS certainly shelved great good
sense and feeling but how far he is com-
petent to the duty of the Chief Secretary of
Ireland, we do not pretend to say. It may also ap-
pear a little extraordinary to find Lord Mlttvut.E,
who was removed from office for imputed corrup-
tion, restored at the very critical moment when the
public voice is so loudly rinsed against public
abuses. This circumstance, we admit, diminishes
the credit which we should otherwise have given to
our authority for this statement, which, if tree,
would not merely restore Lord MELVILLt to of-
fice, but crown hint with eclat, for by this lineup-
meut it is not sue but two places to which hii fa-
mily succeed.

On casting our eye over the troubled Chart of
Europe at the present moment, it is peculiarly and
iuvoluntarily attraCted to the two extremities, Por-
tugal and Sweden ; countries, in both of which,
scenes of foreign war, or of domestic violence are
acting, which forcibly compel attention ! On the
Tagus, by a curious and singular transition, we have
precisely exchanged situations with the enemy ;
CRADDOCR being in April, My, nearly in the moue
position which JtINoT occupied in August last;
while Souve and LASN as are become the invaders,
as Wei.l.cscer and DALRYMPLE were, six minimills
aye. That our army is critically circumstanced,
we readily admit, hut, we never can allow, or suppose
that it is, or ever will be in the contemplation of our
Commander to re-embark from Lisbon, as Blisoae
did from COMMA, unless a far greater French
force penetrate into the henry of Portugal, than we
trust is probable, before Sir ARIVIUM WELLER-
LEI'S arrival in the 1.91g1111. Our army, when
augmented by the 6,000 men sent out tinder
Geir. lltt.L, cannot fall short of /3,500 troops;
amid the Portuguese are still more numerous. If
no decisive operations take place before they are
joined by Sir Arnica, who carries omit 11,000 in-
fantry; such a laxly of British, sustained by the
native inhabitants, and masters of the capital, the
forts' and the river, may make a long, and we
conceive, a successful resistance to the French.
It is indeed difficult to conceive that Sou LT, whose
aggregate strength, we apprehend, does not exceed
17,000 teen, and whose retreat into Gallicia, over
the Minho, either by Tny, by Oreu►e, or by Chaves,
must be very uncertain and precarious, while the
Spanish and Portuguese insurgents occupy the
banks of that river; can venture on a march of 160
miles front Oporto to Lisbon, in face of ass sascsay
advantageously jousted. The motions of Soi i.r

7,77. 0,7

:v.

wait, indeed, eboo,.sl • 19 et treat mestere de-
pendant on, and ilii••, u d h,t, the advances of the
army at:vain:log through the Siainish proaince of
Estreut-tolara, towurl• thelajot and Rivas. If we
could ouppoof th.it 1 rerun ur LAsit es, after tatting
or blockading Elvas, could reach %Intermit, or
even Ahrantas, ivittiont opposition, then indeed
the co-operation of Sou I.T might decide the con-
tent; but of so rapid or irrelootihie iw, attack, front
ten quarters so remote, through a country inimical
to the invaders, deatitute of mug/Amines,. and at this
catty seawnr, wlitis little or nothing is to be found
on the ground, we eutaintin 110 stroag apprehen-
sion.

The same uncertainty which has •verhung all
the operations or intentions of France, Austria,
and Russia, during several weelva past, as to the
great question of pence or war, still pervades the
Cabinets of those countries. BONAPARTE Stilt

huger. at Paris, uor in the dye irrevocably crust
by the Government of Vienna. That NAPOLI:COS
would with to subject Portugal, to drive the So-
preme Junta from Seville, and to make himself
master of Cadiz, before he came to a rupture wits
Fount:is, no wan can doubt ; as, on the other
hand, it is clear that Austria, however unable shit
may be in mauy respects to cope with the Corsican.
yet, by waiting till he has reduced to his obedience
the whole peninsula, after deinonotratiog her die
position to take up arms, cal, only protract while
she meals, her own destruction. We are still of opi-
*ion, said if that be any confirmation, we know
that our Government contiime to believe that war
roust tinselly ensue between Austria and rrisnot.—
Wbat rart may he taken in such, SO event by Rue.
site, Prussia, and Saxony, remains as yet mu some
measure prohilematieal.
la Sweden, we apprehend, no natioual efforts,
meriting that title, either on the part of the Dale.
carbons, or any other Provinces, will be made to
replace Gustavus the Fourth in the active admi-
nistration of affairs. Ills life may not improbably
be spared, from the /immunity, loyalty, and noble
simplicity of the Swedish character, whose annals,
though stormy, are not sanguinary, and who sirs
nut, like the Italian*, or the Muscovites, dispaurli
their deposed Monarchs by pRIS•11, or by manual vio-
lence. Yet we cannot forget, that ERIC XIV. who,
for estrongesseat of Ruud, was dethrunwd by Iris bro-
ther, perished at Gripsliohn in 1569, In the very pa-
lace to which, by the latest accounts, we amid that
GuSTAYUS had been, tnnisferred. This fact is cer.
tainly ominous. Nor is the character of the de-
posed Prince of that yielding kind, IA to render it
probable that he will acquiesce patiently in his
fate. We lament his uilhappy destiny, as our ally,
as a magnanimous and zealous partizan of the atk-
inflextble

tient order of things ; above all, ow the
foe of the Corsican tyrant, to whom he never would.
like Fr:F.OEI/1G VI. or ALEXANDER, bend the knee.
We fear, that under the lteGelle, Sweden., t
become a member of the ernifetlorney against
its, however unwilling the Duke of SUDOE.r
MA NIA may be to take a hostile part in the war.
But though these propositions may both be true, we
do not leas candidly admit. that Gumtree's arrest
and deposition were. we leer, become indispeosible
and necemury. Not only Finland and Pteliennua
were lost. We site that Sweden itself would have
been invaded and probably citiequeied. The Bos-
siest Conran ks had landed et Griselhaium, ott
the shore of the Gulf of Bothuia, from whence
it is only about forty-six miles to Stockholm. We
repeat, that GUSTAVUS ought, as the Regent as-
serts in his Manifesto, to have made Peace with
Naeoreox at Tilsit, while Alto, Iltlsingfors. and
Stralsund, were all unattocked. It was not merely
bad 'silky ; it was madness to persist in the war,
from the instant that ALEISEDIa and Feminist;
WILLIAM laid down their arms. The cousetpuesict's
might all have beau foretold at the time. For the
rest, those who only see in history, a repetition of
the saute facts, under new moues, will smile to re-
Meet that in 1604, 410( her CHAILLES. Duke of SU-
oLum• o t•' uncle to another king of SWEDEN. Sl-
titmice on, deposed his nephew, exactly as now its
1104. That Duke of S —UDEEM•NIA was declared
King by the States. reigned gloriously for seven
rears, was father of the immortal GUSTAVUS ADOL.
Piths, and died in 1611, in possession of the crown
of Sweden, which be teseemitteei to his descendants.

Sir Jung Ducawnwra's squadron has arrived at
Plymouth.
Sir J. CR A 01110 C , the present Commander-in-
Chief of the British Forces in Portugal, has been
appointed I..ient.-(lnvernor of Gibraltar, and is to
proceed thither as soou as Sir A. Wal.utstev ar-
rives in the Tagus.
The Myrtle, Capt. Issas, arrived last were at Portsmouth,
from Cadiz, brought the fiilluwise triter, datrd
" Cadiz, &bush rs, 1109.
w Since I wrote you, a few days ago, (nano tin' Cadiz' then
its the fleet of Sir J. Duckworth, we Lave karat, .bat t'
French lest, of whieb we were in perseit, is he I
We were thcrefuev ordered into this port, witt
Seer sad Norge, instead of pang to ear original t'
Lisbon. We foaled here the Atlas, Adantral Pt
inn, Bombay, Yoh:attain:, and Ambuscade
Eclair Asap. The Vilk de Paris sailed this
the Ahura Lord Collingeoud. Freach
Sited ow board balks here, are dying Moly,
their bodies arefluatiwg alma the Imerhuor
ism beer. The St. Ames deoppeolleses frees
yesterday, with a 74, and a frigate (Creech)
ship. We hear writhing of the F'rewalit enema, or
the latter power, it is throsaht, is twee the a
denial), iu favour of the . . The GM'S
heed, this day, from Gibraltar ; she left tie Daiwa
Mole, but ant a surd of sews. We eaderstmed
John Duckworth is goo. as tar ma kteekars,
the lid, to creme dame. The skips with hi...
firor4e, SI George, Tenierairr, Dreadnought,
I ltb, Achille, Impetuous, sad Watitpite.

karat that the
is is karat,
, with the BK.
;teal desatuation.
J Purvis, Ham-
a, frigates and
its day to receive
11 prisoners 'cos-
y, by dunes . • mad
All is pat..tot-
al the Carries,
Kb) a beasettfet
a, us of
the wale evait-
Grasshopper ar-
e laity to she
leaned that Sir
, 'wadi the rest of
Ma arip—ieyet
leletatiew