The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1820-01-12 00:00:00

'll 10, BR rig [SU PRESS.

LONDON.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 12, 1820.

Some of the provincial Journals, particularly of
the northern districts, occasionally endeavour to
keep alive the apprehension of a certain mysterious
danger, which according to their representations
still threatens the country; hut their exertions
upon this point are for the greater part ridiculed
or contradicted by such of their contemporaries
as from local circumstances •re best enabled to de-
tect and expose their errors. Nothing is easier
than to speak of dangers, and to affect the air and
tone of mystery--miehigreas spargere cores—nothing
too can be safer, for is thousand pretences will arise
to save the alarmist from the detection of his false-
hood, and he can always throw around him the
cloak of importance and of political expediency,
to ■void the inconvenience of being too closely
questioned as to his means and sources of intelli-
gence ; nor can any device be individually of
[nor,: advantage to an ingenious fabulist, for he is
valued and courted in the direct proportion of the
extravagance of Ills fictions, and of the danger
that lie threatens. Should his veracity be ques-
tioned, his impudence can save him, fur he re-
quires nothing but to call his opponent traitor or
radical, and his poor credulous neighbours will
rally round him, and it is ten to one but the rogue
will boast some silly Minister of State has given
him a pension for his good services, when his merits
would he best requited with • halter or a cart's tail.
The season, however, is now past, when such ser-
vices were likely to be well received, for the Minis-
ters having attained their objects, would now be
better pleased to be informed of the tranquillity of
the country, particularly if it be at the same time
affirmed, that the said tranquillity has been the
immediate and necessary consequence of their vigo-
rous and wise measures.

Possibly in the changes of sentiment to which
even Cabinets are liable, our humble exertions may
now he in part gratifying to our Ministers; because
it is our wish, when with troth we cars do so, to
represent the country as being free from those revo-
lutionary doctrines which have been lately attributed
to the mass of the people, although we cannot
affirm that the absence of such dangerous opinions
has been caused by the late parliamentary enact-
ments. The country is in • political sense uni-
versally tranquil, for we cannot believe that the
riotous dirposition lately evinced by some manufac-
turers near Leeds hail any the remotest connexion
with any project of a political nature. The agita-
tion originated solely iu • desire to raise their wages,
and proceeded to that degree of violence which
may always be expected from men acting in a body
upon any sudden impulse. The tumult was, how.
ever, happily allayed, with no other ill consequences
than a few broken heads and broken windows, and
the removal of some riotous fellows from the looms,
at which they were succeeded by men of a more
humble and tractable disposition.
The silence of the provincial Papers upon one
point connected with the late proceedings iu Par-
liament, is deserving of much attention. The Bill
for enabling a Justice of the Piece to search for
or•►s has now been in operation for some weeks,
and notwithstanding all the terrible accounts of
private arming with which the Ministers and their
agents alarmed the country, we have sot heard of
the scovery of a singk pike or pistol ! This lets
in some light upon the nature and character of the
information upon which the Miuisters acted. It
was easy fur a fellow to deceive a Magistrate or a
Minister by • false account of pistols and pikes
concealed in one house, of arms being fabricated
in another, and of private drilling in a third;
and from the tender regard which the laws of
England displayed for the sacredness of "an Eng-
lishman's castle," the Magistrate or Minister could
not detect the falsehood. This difficulty, however,
lies been removed ; the house of any man in the
country may now be rudely entered at any moment
of day or night ; no matter how unseasonable or
distressing, his lock. may be forced, the depositories
of his most ►aluable property may be ransacked, the

wainscoting of his rooms tiny be torn down, and
the boards pulled up wader the pretence of search-
ing fur arms ; yet with all this extravagant power,
which Ministers with post Nude threw into the
hands of the Magistrates, to be used at the discre-
tion of any one of them, not one solitary pike-heed,
sword, or pistol has been discovered! What has
become of the depots, and the manufactories of
arms ? An Act of Parliament might prevent a
popular assembly, o► deter men from openly learn-
ing military evolutions, but we cannot attribute to
an Act of Parliament the capacity of devouring or
destroying whole depots and manufactories. It will
be objected that perhaps the keepers of the arms
have concealed them ; but what hoe become of
the spies who had been confidentially apprised
of the existence of these arms, and whose means
of information cannot be supposed to be dimi-
nished ? Surely some of those valuable gentle-
men might be found as well capable of giving in-
telligence now respecting the places where these
arms are deposited, as they were when these arms
were first provided, and when the object for which
they were 'opposed to be procured wait of a nature
that would necessarily induce the keepers of them
to be circomepect in preventing the nature of the
property under their care from bring very publicly
understood.

Ve have received Paris Papers of Thursday and
Friday last. The Chamber of Deputies assembled
gm Thursday in bureaux, but no business was
transacted except that of appointing Presidents
and Secretaries, renewing the Committee of Peti-
tions, and engaging in a preparatory examination
of the project or law relative to the definitive
security of the purchasers of national &goring.
—The Madrid Gazette contains an official account
dispatched by General Mortim.o, of • surprise
effected in the town of Barcelona by ten Royalist
troopers, in which a few of the Independents were
slain. The ten brave fellows escaped. How
miserably barren of military fame the war
that desolates South America must prove to the
Royal Army, when a trifling incident like this
is published with all the importance that belongs
to events of m ignitutle !
The French Funds have risen considerably. The
Five per Cents, on Thursday were 71 f. 60 c.—
Batik Stock 1,4371 is

Smuggling boo so much increased on the north-
east of Svotlandl, the Lords of the Treasury, we
understand, have found it expedient to adopt means
for rendering the preventive service more efficient
on that coast. Three new stations ne to be
formed in that line, including Aberdeen, at each
or which a naval officer will preside, who will in-
struct the Revenue Officers and cruisers on the
coast, as advised by Government, or according to his
own local knowledge and observation. The three
superior Officers appointed to fill these situations,
are two of them Captains,sid the other • Post Cap-
tain ill the Royal Navy. They will retain their half-
pity, which, with the emoluments of their new
duty will amount to between 400/. and 5001. • year.
It appears by accounts printed by order of the
House of Commons, that the Exchequer bills re-
ceived in payment of duties, between the Ist of
July and the 10111 of October, 1819, amounted to
the sum of 350.364/. 6s. 4d. The deficiency of the
Consolidated Fund, on the 10th October, 1819,
amounted to 8,056,0091. 12s. 6id. Awl was medic
good, by the making out of Exchequer bills to that
amount, as directed by the 57 Geo. 111. c. 48.

An official return to an order of the House of
Commons, stairs the total innount of Exchequer
bills wined since the Ist of September, at par, and
bearing an interest of two-pence per cent. per day,
•t 791,0001.

A Bell has I•assed the House of Representatives
of Georgia, repealing the law on usury. It makes
no alteration in the prevent established legal inter-
est, and subjects the usurer to a mere nominal
penalty, vie. the forfeiture of so much interest as
exceeds eight per cent. This law, therefore, had
for its object the sauctioniag of usury, and the
penalty threatened was evidently a were cover to its
real object.
It appears by recent accounts from Cape Coast
Castle, that that part of the coast of Africa was
tested by swarms of pirates of the very worst de-
scription, who frequently, not content merely with
plundering the vessel, murdered the crews also.
This happened to • Dutch ship called the Drie
Vrieseden, in Dexcore roads, which was boarded
during the night, when the captain, mate, and all
the crew were inhumanly butchered, and the ship
was afterwards blown up by the marauders.
The Hussar Frigate and Me Sloop Mercrry.—
A Mr. SANDIE DAVIS, of Baltimore, offers a pro-
ject for raising these British vessels which were
sunk during the revolutionary war ; the our in the
east, and the other in the north river. He states,
that one of these vessels had, when she sunk,
nearly a million of dollars; that lie is informed by
letters from the Mayor of New York, and another
respectable gentleman, that there is no doubt from
examination given to the vessels by means of •
diving-bell, that both can be raised, and that he
has Invented • machine by which he has already
raised two schooners which were sunk in the har-
bour of Baltimore, as well as is large wreck 15 feet
under water.—(Bahbwore Patriot.)
To-morrow the LORD CHANCELLOR will com-
mence his Sittings ws Lincoln's-Inn Hall, and on
Saturday he will hold the first seal before Term.
The VICV•CHANCEI.I.OR will also sit on Saturday.
Several very important motion• are expected to
be heard by his Lordship, among which are the well
known case of the Marlborough Gold Plate, and
the late case of Contempt of Court, in which Mr.
SVABLEA and others are concerned. There never,
perhaps, was • moment when the business in Chan-
eery was so pressing.. at present, as above 200 ay.
peal cases are yet unheard, besides an imntensa
number of Bankrupt Petitions, in addition to ma.
Innis and Cause Petitions.

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