The National Register.
London, England, 1809-03-05 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL REGISTER.

lain some express definition of w hat men are to understand by
libelling ? Let it he enacted, what we may say, or what we
may not say ; and let us be kindly instructed as to what we may
write, and as to what we may not write. Ought the situation
of authors iu Paris, Sir, to be less hazardous than that of authors
in London ? Better, however, is the discipline of incessant re-
striction, than the privilege of being at liberty merely to
*endanger ourselves.

Scut-leafing must be done respecting the British Press; of
which, for the alternate purposes of power or faction, the liberty
is artfully blended with its licentiousness. Suffer not, Sir,
another alarmist-system to
.depreciate, and almost annihilate,
the franchises of mankind. Let not the licentiousness of the
_Press succeed to the Jacobinism of France. You, and such as
`•ou, ought not to be apprehensive of the progress of human
reedom. It is the parer of the purse, you are well aware, and
the power of the people, that now threatens the vitality of
our political existence.

Alas, for Junius—had his publisher lived when simply to
di hold a man up to ridicule and contempt" might constitute " a
libel!" Consider, Sir, let me beseech of you, the few thoughts
which, through the channel of newspaper intercourse, I have
now ventured to submit to you. Turn over some back
pages of the chronicles of our countrymen, and mark the
time when, even during one of the most degenerate and disgust-
ing periods of our history, ballad-siugersand street-cryers were,
neverthdess, still allowed openly to ridicule and rebuke the
mistres,e , and ministers, and measures of their prince. Yes, Sir,
this trine fact occurs under the arbitrary government .of the
Second Charles l—How, indeed,are the mighty fallen !
Does it not recur to your mind, Sir, that we are driving the
doctrine of libels to an extreme that will effectually bar all
salutary inquiry ? Perhaps there i 8 not, after all, any open libel
without some covert justice ; as, we know, there are many lies
with much truth in them. Competent to every legal purpose,
you have therefore acted right, meritoriously right, in attempt-
ing to bring the deci.ions of our Courts of Law immediately
under the cognizance of the H igh • Court of Parliament. Judge's,
though independent as to influence, are not infallible as to in-
ference.

Congratulate yourself, Sir, as to the political eminence on
which you stand. took backwards, and justly pride yourself on
your past conduct; look forwards, and prepare for the glorious
career that is opening itself
.to your view. Whigs or furies. of
the old-school or of the new-chool, catholics or anti-catholics,
men are heartily sick Of all the usual parties. A really new
party, a strictly honest and truly able party, is the party now
wanting. txpect this new party, co-operate in the formation
of it ; and doubt not to tind your toils compensated. by the secret
:approbation of your own consciern'e, and the grateful acclama-
tions of your independent compatriots.
Aittrch 1, 1809.

Homo.

DEBTORS AND CREDITORS fl

TO TUE EDITOR OF TUE NATWANL RECISTER.

SlR—Every honourable and enlightened man, throughout
these United Kingdoms, must feel grateful to Sir Samuel no-
roilly for his intended Bill, to be introduced into our Imperial
Parliament, on the subject of the Bankrupt Laws. The most
callous of human beings will not be able Wholly to resist the
representation he has given as to the relative situations of debtor
and creditor in this country. \W hat, indeed, is sr monstrous,
as first compelling debtors to practice dishonesty, and then pun-
ishing then' for the etrect of their fraudulency What, too,
can be imagined more impolitic, especially at the present mo-
-went, than the system of increasing the sum of general misery,
mot only by keeping thou-sands of useful and industrious indivi-
duals locked up • within the walls of our prisons, lint, at the
same time, burdening the already distressed, though unimpri-
sorted, portion of the community ith the task of supporting
those to whom we deny the means of stipportit:,,: themselves?
Let any reasonable man put these simple questions to himself.
There is one particular consideration, which, though `should
to have escaped the immedtatentereeption of Sir
_;e*:lnuel
Rnmilly, ought to he brought forward. Of what are our jail.
likely to he inevitably composed, if the rigour of justice, as it
is called, is much longer admitted to supersede the mandatcs of
mercy ? Alas, are we not obstinately employed in thus formiPg
tostriorents for our op n eventual destruction ? Our prisons, Si.r,
ire already filling with disalintiou to the existing government—,

IWARCII 5.

because it is under this very government that their miserable in-
habitants are suffered to pine in wretchedness of all descriptions
Let us then, however deaf we may be to the cries of humanity,
listen to the pleas of policy. Emptied our jails must one day
be; and the longer we defer the release of their tenants, the more
inflexibly we persevere in this species of hostility to our ulti-
mate interests, the more are we aggravating the spirits of men
already discontented with the present order of things, and, of
course, augmenting the dangers to which we shall become, al lust,
seriously obnoxious. Some amelioration of the existing rela-
tionship between debtors and creditors will be found to be as
much a measure of sound polity as it is of true philanthropy.
Let us claim the credit of performing, from motives of lima
nity, what we shall be otherwise compelled to perform from
motives of necessity. We cannot much longer defer the libera-
tion of the many thousands now laying in our jails for debt.
When this liberation, however, shall have been legally effected,
still it will he the duty of our Legislature to consider, in com-
mon with Sir Samuel Romilly, those causes which, originating
in the coottruction of our Bankrupt Laws and hi the present
practice of Arrests fur Debt, engender the calamities consequent
on imprisoning the person of the debtor. Our's are
,times (as
long they have been !) when it is impossible for any man, unless
of established opulence, to avoid pecuniary embarrassments.
Covernment is itself the greatest debtor among us. Is it not ab-
surd then, as well as cruel, to persecute individuals for those
defalcations which may arise from the circumstances of the com-
munity at large ?
I hope, Sir, to live long enough to see this disgrace, the sys-
tem of confining debtors, effaced from our national character.
It has always lowered us in the estimation of foreigners, and
it has inflicted incalculable calamities on the persons and families
of our suffering countrymen. Nor does the evil terminate in en-
gendering individual privatious and domestic destruction. Pri-
sons, let it be remembered, are not penitentiaries! He who has
been long in the Fleet as a debtor, often comes out, both as to
morality and property, with the consoling prospect of getting
into Newgate as a felon. It is thus, indeed, that individuals
become criminal, families degenerated and dissolved ; and society
generally, from these and other concurring causes, is filled th
delinquents vutt .ne-naced with desolation. Let us, in this hour
of tremendcas tribulation, sedulously endeavour to conciliate all
description, of men in favour of our political constitution ; by
allowing tr.:e agency to its benign influence among them, and
extending to them, whether civilly or religiously, the privileges
which it is so nobly calculated to impart. If we would make
our country loved, let us, as one of our greatest statesmen ad-
vised, hasten to make it lovely !
March 2, 1809.

BlIRONS•

FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE.

THIRTY-SECOND BULLETIN OF THE FRENCH
ARMY IN SPAIN.

" The Doke of Dalmatia, being arrived before Ferrol, caused
the place to be invested. Negatiations were begun. The Civil
Authorities, and the Military and Naval Officers, manifested a
disposition to surrender; but the people, fomented by the spies
whom the English had left, resisted. On the 24th the Duke of
Dalmatia reer,ived two messengers, one sent by Admiral Mel-
garejn, Commander of the Spanish squadron, and the other,who
came across the mountains, sent by the Military Commanders.
These couriers were both sent without the knowledge of the
people. They stated that the authorities were under the yoke
of a furious populace, excited and paid by the agents of *Eng-
land, and that 5000 men belonging to the city and its environs
were in arms. The Doke of Dalmatia had to resolve upon open-
ing the trenches; but from the 21th to the 25th, various move-
ments were manifest in the town. The 17th regiment of light
infantry had repaired to Alt,ardos ; the 31st regiment of light
infantry were at the forts of 11 Palma and Saint Martin, and at
Lagrana; and as they blockaded the fort Saint Philip, the peo-
ple began to tear the consequences of an assault, and to listen to
men of sense. On the. '.26th, three 110 of Inter, fu rubbed with
authority, and the annexed letter, arrived at the head-
quarters, and s,igned the surrender of the place. On the
lath,. at seven o'clock in the morning the town was occu-
pied by the di vison Mermot, and by a brigade of dragoons.
On the same day the garria was disarmed ; the disarming also
produced 3000 muskets. The people who do not belong to
Ferro', have been remanded to their villages. The • men whe