The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1824-02-18 00:00:00

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the bigots who encompass him. But what good can such
a umlaute, and at such an interval of proscription, now
accomplish in Spain ? Some other measures of the same
east have, it appears, been pressed by the French Cabinet,
and among thou the convocation of the ancient Cortes.
Bathe Etude, while it announces this, takes great pains
to irove, that this body, even if assembled, would have
nailing of representative freedom about it: " its sole
Wit (this Journal states) would be to grant or to
" limit the subsidies which the King asks. In other
" aspects (it goes on to say), the King is legislator.
Tse Cortes have only the faculty of requesting him to
" ism such or such a law, such a necessary reform, &c."
Thisia only in part true, as regards the ancient Cortes, for
they bad and exercised the right of altogether granting or
refusng subsidies. So far back as the time of Charles V.
the fortes of Arragon refused to give their unction to a
subsay for the war with Francis I. of France, until their
gnomical were first redressed. After repeated menaces
and remonstrances, which were unavailing, the politic

Chales promised the redress on the grant being voted;
butan the Cones trusting to his faith, and voting the sub-
sidy, be dismissed them without any redress, and never
summoned them again during his long reign. We would
wish m see the Cortes, under any limitation, summoned in
Spain. Once assembled, mutual collision would soon call
forth • proper feeling ; they could not, and would not,
be the abettors of the present iniquitous despotism that
degrades Spain. The very order from which they must be
amass are all attached to the Constitution ; and the sum-
moning the t'ortes, under any limitation, therefore, would
afford great hope of amelioration throughout Spain.

(From the if onifewr of Sunday, Feb. 16.-oflicial Part.]
PARIS, FEB. 14.
A telegraphic despatch from Madrid, addressed by the Ambas-
sador of Finance to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, dated the
Idth of tide month, announces that the King of Spain his just
signed a decree which grants the liberty of direct trade of the
Spanish Colonies with all nations, on the footing of an equality of
duties.

I From the Efoik of Monthy.l
PARIS, Fell. IS.
A treaty has been made with Spain for the free commerce of all
nations with the Colonial. (See the Telegraphic Despatch). The
thirty-rout millions due by Spain to France are recognised, and
the treaty the the occupation signed. It is said that the Marquis
de Tahiti will have the blue ribbon. The arrival of the Marquis
de Meta Florida at Paris is uwonted, who is going to Tunn as
Minister film die King of Spain.
The drat regiment of infantry which is in gamma at Mont
Louis haa received orders to enter Spain. It is going to the Seu
d'Urgel ; and the battalion of the Mith of the line, which is in the
latter plade, goes to reinforce the garrison of Violent*.
The Erbile declares itself positively authorised to contradict, as
destitute of all foundation, the story of the assassination of eleven
prams by twenty-two rubbers, in • farm-house at Cormeil, near
• MADIIID, Jaw. r•
We sir assured that the Decree of Amnesty will be published,
and it is necessary that them may be • fixed law of goverment,
be with the ntodifications which the restoration requires. The
men who were faithful till the forced oath of his Majesty, and
afterwaeds behaved in a prudent manner, will obtain his Majesty's
chimney. and be restored to favour.
The convocation of the Ancient Cortes is spoken of. This na-
tional representation is not to the taste of our liberals. Its sole
right is to grant or to limit the subsidies which the King asks. In
other respects the King is legislator. The Cortes have only the
faculty ed requesting him to Issue such or such • law, such a ne-
cessary reform, Ise. The oath of Grand Justiciary of Arr.igon,
&oda) many other things which the democrats have vociferated to
give strength to their popular sovereignty, were only ruin forms.
The Cortes made laws and even regulations, bdt according to the
will tithe Sovereign.
To mom that there was nothing popular in the Cones, the most
ancient of which we have any knowledge were ,composed only of
the chief Nobility and murmur Clergy i they nude the civil and
ecclesiastical laws. Such were the Cortes under the I lothic Kings.
The introduction of the Representatives of cities is of more mo-
dern date, and this right of representation was by some
tides only to which the Kings bad granted thl rfavour, with •
view to counterbalance the power of the two other branches, which
went too be, and wanted to eclipse the ttovereign.
Lord btagent brought on his motion last night respecting
Spain; pod his propositions, as was to be expected, were
negatived by a large majority. With the sincerest respect
for the lcharaeter and principles of Lord Nugent, whose
whole political career has been most honourable and disin-
•tarestetit we regret he suffered his present feelings to in-
-valve his jut sow Ss a swift of this description : what-
ever itaimerits may have been, the time for its discussion
bad prised by ; this country is now little interested in the
fate th at befel the Spaniards ; they did nothing to pre-
serve their own character and freedom ; their Cortes and
Govern tnent were alike contemptible ; they talked of liberty,
'but ha:l neither the manhood nor resolution to defend that,
or the . country, as they ought. It would have been the
height of madness for our Cabinet to have plunged Great
Britain, into war, to maintain a Constitution within the
Pyrens sees, to which a large proportion of the inhabi-
tants o f that nation were themselves opposed, and which
its ad vacates had set up and declaimed upon without
adopti,ag any decisive measures to defend it. Sir Wil-
Lam 'Montt, in his negociations with the then Fo-
reign Minister, San Miguel, and subsequently with
'General Alava, was, we are confident, influenced by the
'best i atentions. He knew the character of the Spaniards ;
he maw the materials of which the Ministry and Cortes
were composetl ; he was aware that no effective prepara-
tions were made against the invasion threatening on the
front lees, and that when the Constitutional Government
was beleaguered in Cadiz, its last strong hold, little
hops existed of any successful resistance being offered;
and therefore that any concessions that could be fairly
rube to moderate the Constitution, and still preserve the
nalNy of liberty within Spain, would have been equally
wise and prudent. Who can now any that such would not
have been the policy an honest and able Ministry in that
unh:lppy country ought to have pursued ? If they, with
the Cortes and people, were prepared to defend the Con-
stitu bon to the last, at all hazards and at all risks, and
that 'no treason or disaffection existed around them, then
concession to a foreign enemy would have been alike weak
and Unworthy. But how did San Miguel and the Mi-
nistry—who entailed the war of aggression they might have
avoided—set when it burst upon the country ? They
wrote idle notes of defiance when they ought to have
armed and disciplined all that was sound in the population ;
they were declaiming at Madrid, within the Hall
of ithe Cortes, and at the Landaburian Club, when
the French army was in the very heart of the country.
They and their predecessors saw, for three years,
invasion thickening on their frontiers— a cordon so-
Itilivare, succeeded by an army of occupation—and at
length hostility openly announced by the French Monarch
at the opening of the Chambers in the spring of 1523, and
Yet they made no real effort to defend the country ; not a
mountain pass was fortified, a road broken up, a guerilla
corps in motion, or the opposition of an hour made to the
advance of the French armies nn Madrid. The Cortes and ,
Ministers soon after fled, with the wretched Ferdinand a
captive, to Seville ; and during the night-marches of Hour-
de.oult through the Sierra Momma, not a solitary gue-
rilla band was placed there to offer the slightest opposition, ,
though they might have acted with decisive effect; on the
subsequent flight to Cadiz, that important place was
wholly unprovided, and almost defenceless: had Hour- 1
desonit, on arriving before it, possessed a battering train,
or even matte energetic advances with the means he had,
the Troesdero at least must have fallen. No naval force
there, or at Coruna, Vigo, or any other port, existed to 1
keep the sea open. A few French frigates and brigs
were sufficient to blockade all the ports of Spain, and
title triumphant in the Mediterranean. San Miguel and

his Afinistry declared war, left Spain open, and almost de-'
fenceless, and then resigned ; it was almost the first ex-
ample aftbrded, of any Ministry deciding on a contest of the
description, and then suddenly abandoning its conduct to
others. What was our Cabinet, under such circumstances,

to do? No gratitude on the part of Spain had attended
our former efforts for its preservation, though our whole
force was then put forward for the purpose. We could
act no middle part: either we should have been neuter, or
at unparalleled sacrifices have made the same exertions
again : and fur what ends ?—to maintain, at ■ monstrous
waste of life and treasure, a constitution, the very framers
of it could not uphold themselves, and to which thousands
of the very Spaniards themselves were opposed in arms.
Thus we should have had not only to arm against the
French ttoops, but against the very inhabitants of Spain,
which we professed to defend. It is now clear that the
advice given by Sir William A'Court was the most prudent
that could have been followed, and the melancholy result
has shewn the monstrous infatuation of San Miguel and
his colleagues refusing to modify the constitution, where
they were not prepared to defend it, whole and unchanged,
by force of arms; the ruin that since has followed is
the result: the exile and proscription that have
awaited the followers of the Constitution, and the un-
heard-of misery that has been entailed on wretched Spain,
might all have been avoided by some timely conces-
sion, as nothing else could have been done. As to the
blockade of Cadis by the French force,—until the right of
one belligerent to blockade the ports okanother is denied,
there could, in that measure, have been no ground what-
ever of hostility by this country. Altogether, the course
pursued by our Cabinet, we can have no hesitation in say-
ing, was the discreetest and beat, when we look to its conse-
quences. War has been avoided, peace has been preserved ;
the preservation has taken place without any loss of na-
' tional influence or national honour, and the advantages
and blessings that have followed in the train of the latter
have been invaluable; they arc now felt and estimated in
the rising prosperity of this great country—in the increase
of its trade, manufactures, and resources—in the reduced
burthens and growing wealth of the people at large—in
the confidence and content that is gradually pervading
every part of the community, bringing with them present
happiness and future resources, for that day, when it may
again be necessary to arm for the maintenance of the
real character and independence of Great Britain ; not on
any light or Quixotic grounds, but when the national
quarrel becomes necessary and unavoidable. That such a
contest may long be absent from these shores, is our fervent
wish. Peace is now the salvation of this country ; its
blessings are invaluable, and will, we trust, under the
dispensation of Providence, be yet preserved for very many
years to come.

An interesting and satisfactory document from the Trea-
sury, has been laid before the House of Commons, this
Session, and printed by its order. It contains an account
of the nett income of this country and Ireland, for the
year ending the sth of January, 1824 ; with an account of
the balance of public money remaining in the Exchequer
on the sth of January, 1823 ; the amount of money
raised by additions to the funded or unfunded debt in the
year, ended Sth January, 1824; the money applied to-
wards the redemption of the funded, or for paying off the
unfunded debt, within the same period ; and the money
remaining in the Exchequer on the sth of January, 1824.
This document is made up according to the present form
of the public accounts, and takes the shape of a balancel
sheet; so that the whole income and expenditure of the
country meet abs eye at once. This is a satisfactory mode
of statement for the public at large ; and a review of
this paper affords a gratifying picture of the rising wealth
and resources of this great country. The income for the
year, paid into the Exchequer, amount, to the sum of
57,672,9991. Ba. 44d. This large amount includes—besides
the produce of Customr, Excise, Stamps, Taxes, and the
Post-Office, with the other comparatively minor assess-
ments-766,6661. 13s. 441., money received in repayment
of the loan due by Austria, and paid by the late Con-
tractors here into the Treasury, and another large sum of
4,675,000 paid by the Trustees of Military and Naval
Pensions, after deducting 175,000 included in the remains
in the Exchequer on the Sib January, 1823—which sum
goes to the discharge of what is technically termed, in
Parliament, the dead weight for the year; while, on the
expenditure aide of the balance-sheet, the country is
charged only on this account with a sum of 2,800,0001.
Long Annuities, into which the decreasing charges
under this head have, by a resolution of the Legislature,
been commuted : these annuities remain almost perpe-
tual ; while, in ten years, the dead weight of the Naval
and Military pensions, by the deaths of individuals now
receiving them, will be lessened one half ; and, in ten
years more, sink into almost nothing. The total amount
of the expenditure on the balance sheet amounts to
50,962,0141. 17s. 11 id. ; the increase, as we before
stated, to .57,672,9991. 84. 4id., leaving a surplus of
6,710,9841. 105..5 d. paid into the Exchequer above the
expenditure of the country, applicable to the Sinking
Fund, and a reduction of taxation beside of near two mil-
lions, affording, in prospect, a most important relief to the
country. This paper exhibits, in a most satisfactory view,
the rapidly increasing resources of the empire. There is
now an actual Sinking Fund, really applicable to the re-
duction of the national debt, which, if peace should last
for some years to come, must make a moat serious inroad on
this great, and once almost hcreeless, incumbrance. Each
coming year must also witness new diminutions of the
public burthens ; while our resources are, at the same
time, progressively increasing, and the finances of the
country acquiring confinned strength and stability. This
is a most gratifying and cheering prospect ; a striking con-
trast to the gloom and despondency that, some few years
since, settled over Great Britain, and carried such univer-
sal depression in its train. That such a state of things
may long endure, the country each year increasing in pros-
perity and rising in resources, is our sincerest wish. Con-
tent, confidence, and national happiness must all follow
with it.

IS'e have received letters from Bahia of the 17th of
December, and from Pernambuco of the 31st. At Bahia,
on the arrival of intelligence of the events at Rio de Janei-
ro, a protest was prepared and signed by several indivi-
duals, expressive of their disapprobation of the Emperor's
conduct in dissolving the Legislative Assembly. (In the
17th, however, a general meeting of the principal persons
in Bahia took place, on the invitation of the Government,
to consider what steps ought to be taken, but nothing oc-
curred except the passing a resolution to consider the pro-
test above-mentioned as null and void. Those who had
signed it addressed the meeting, principally with the view
of exculpating themselves for having done so, by alleging
that they were not aware at the time of the real state of
the case. It seems that a strong party exists in Bahia, dis-
posed to adhere to the I:mperor under any circumstances,
so that it was probable the tranquillity of the place would
be preserved. Affairs remained nearly in the same state at
Pernambuco as mentioned in the last arrivals. The decree
for the expulsion of those Portuguese who had not taken;
the oath of adherence, was carrying into effect, and a ship;
was prepared for their conveyance to Europe.