The National Register.
London, England, 1808-09-19 00:00:00

SVPTEMBER 19.

Ivry, secure impunity to the traitors who had espoused their
cause, require hostages for the fulfilment of the condition,
insist on the liberty of serving again, wherever their mas-
ter should employ them, we would not expect that such a
stigma on our arms should have been proclaimed, like the
victories of NELsox and Asencftomay, with the firing of
the Tower and Park guns ! But the popular feeling better
announced the national character. Whatever judgment
Europe, or the future historian, may pass on the transac-
tion, they will say that it was not pusillanimity on the
part of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom, or indiffe-
rence to the interest and honour of their country, which
justified the necessity of it. No I had the feelings of the
public been consulted, it would have been proclaimed
throng!) the streets of the metropolis with muffled drums,
the tiriug of minute guns, and our bells sounding a funeral
dirge, as the interment of our. national honour. Our ances-
tors frequently indulged in the pride of comparing our cha-
racter, inditutions, and manners, with that community of
heroes and statesmen who conquered the universe, could they
have foreseen that their descendants would have submitted to
thepresent degradation, in the very peninsula, where a Ho-
man Consul, for having signed a much less dishonourable
capitulation, wits delivered up to the Numautines, naked,
and with a halter round his neck, by the order of the Se-
mite, they would have been more cautions in indulging
this effusion of self-love. The Roman Senate, as may be
expected from that council of statesmen, refused to sane-
lion the ill condtict, incapacity, and cowardice of their
(ieueral, and sent him back like a fugitixe Jaye, to atone,
by his punishment, for their violation of a compact, so op-
posite to their policy and martial spirit. We would
analyse this capitulation of 32,000 British sol-
diers to 14,000 discomfitted Frenchmen, were it for no
other purpose, than, by stimulating the public indigna-
tion, to prevent the possibility of a future General vio-
lating the national honour ; but where every article is
equally reprehensible and impolitic, we would strain our
language, and not find words sufficiently strong to mark
our disapprobation and disgust. The only motive of
consolation we feel, in the midst of the universal gloom
is, that Government will not, and cannot, ratify the Con-
vention. It is not withont • precedent. Every Gover-
nment has given an example of that kind ; and it is far
better to be guilty of injustice, than of infamy. The
effects of the former may be palliated by the imperious
necessity of the measure, but the consequences of the lat-
ter are indelible : they leave an impression which will con-
tr:!:ate iy.ore to national relaxation, than a series of de-
G.:as by sea and land could possibly effect. In a porten.
Cons crisis energy alone can save a community ; and, we
hope, there is no man so unfeeling as to deny that the pre-
sent moment is awful. We frequently had occasion to
congratulate the public on the vigorous measures of the
present Ministry. They produced consequences so bene-
iirial, that the most sanguine would have scarce expected
in the arduous situation we had been placed iu after the
Peace of Tilsit. We acknowledge, however, that if the
French army be permitted to return home in the manner
stipulated in the Convention, we consider the arrival of
oiir troops in Portugal as one of the greatest calamities
v.-hich could have befallen the common cause. Had our
army remained encamped on our shores, they would have
Dept the enemy in anxiety, and compelled them to keep a
considerable force on the opposite coast. The brave CAs-
TANOS with his Andalusian', after having compelled Du-
posT to surrender, would have •speedily !,crated Portugal
from her oppressors. lie would never have consented that
Joplin should quit the country with all the honours of war,
and the plundered effects of the unfortunate inhabitants.
We have not a doubt on our mind that this would have
taken place withouta material inconvenience to the opera-
tions of the Spanish Patriots-. That enterprising and ge-
ner.ous people would have acquired new laurels, new repu-
tation, and new confidence, had the liberation of Portu-
gal been left to them. • They would have kept Joamr and