The National Register.
London, England, 1817-09-29 00:00:00

WE have long witnessed with pain, the degraded
state of what has been commonly called the Constitu-
tional Whigs in this country. .Sunk by their own
misconduct into total insignificance, they appear to
have lost even the knowledge of the right means of re-
deeming their characters. From having been the pride,
ssfeguanl and boast of the nation, they have become the
objects of its scorn and contempt. One cause only has
led to all this :—a weak and childish admiration of a
sanguinary foreign revolution, and next of a bold and
merciless tyranny. • Led by their hopes, they pledged
themselves a thousand times for the success,of the ene-
mies of their country, and still they found-themselves
in error, yet too proud, or too obstinate to retract,
they persisted till every man who could balance be-
.tween right and wrong, turned from them loathing.
Earl Grey, who has by some been considered their
leader its the Upper House, has recently made a feeble
attempt in his native county, to recover some of the
lost popularity of the party. The 19th of this month
was the day app cinted for the celebration of the me-
mory of Mr. Fox, in the town of Newcastle-upon-
Tyne,
.and on that occasion Earl Grey presided at a
dinner, where it is said, above one hundred gentlemen
sat down, The speech which his lordship made at this
dinner, is in many respects presisely of the same cha-
racter with those which he haamade an hundred times
in various other places;—pompous, long, and dull; but
at the same time, these are points in it deserving of
particular notice, not only es containing woe assertions
not founded in fact, but aos exhibiting a cone...4erable
change in his lordship's mode of thinking. upon a ,most
important subject—namely, Parliamentary Reform.
His Lordship commenced his speech by reference to
the hopes which, at their last me :tine, three years ag0,...
" were inspired by the first overthrow of that power, '
which had proved so fund to the -,5e-a= and liberty of
Europe," carefully rcmariiig at the sealle time, that
the event was not produced by the wisdom of the
Minister, or by the skill and good fortune which pre-
sided over our armies, but by that madness and am-
bition in our enemy, which thought nothing impos-
sible to its daring. We 'can pardon his Lord-
ship for giving this colour to the event. He is
unwilling to awaken recollections of his former
predictions. When the " wisdom and ability" of
the Mini.ters, and, " the skill and good fortune which
'resided over our armies," were baffling every effort
of the enemy. he assured his auditors in the House
of Lords, that, " in dime weeks, there would not be a
Isritish soldier on the Continent, bus as a prisoner of
war." It must be painful to his Lordship to remem-
ber this, and many other such instances of his fore-
sight , to tear the laurel, therefore, from the deserving
lnow, and tread it in the dust, is precisely what might
be expected at his hands. It is said, that great op-
timise followed this part of the speech, and we be-
lieve ie ; to hear the gallant services of .that gallant
army, which suffered and achieved so much, under-
valued must have gratified many of those respectable
meantry Squires by whom his Lordship was surround-
ed—many of these useful and valuable men, whose
ambition never soared higher than to be stewards of
a race, or chairmen of a country club, whose days
arc spent in idleness. and nights
After having deplored the slavery in which we
?-.nve left the Continent after all our victories, his
Lordship enters upon those topics which he trusts
ore to give him back his good name. Of those, the
Suspension Act stands first. In all the distur-
ances which havc exislel, he con find nothing which
should have excited alarm ; to public distress he
assigns the evils, and he takes it for granted, that no

because,
that

and that exception, no man•
in making,. have the law ,
able to prove, evoeip seditious
ever the law officers, may "
or not to do, will his Lordshil

of London, for a confirime
those men who were acquitted, because the law offi-
cers of the Crown chose to indict them fur High
Treason, rather than a seditious misdemeanor ? Or
does his Lordship think, that by falling in with the
popular cry against Reynolds; Oliver, and Castles, he
will re-establish himself in the good opinion of the
.radical Reformers of the present day ? All this, how-
ever, was to be expected flom his Lordship, from him,
who, in 1793, could oppose the suspension of the
Habeas Corpus Act, and agitate the county he repre-
sented, in order to procupepetitions against it—inl793,
when levelling democracy had attained to such a height
as to lead to an attempt on the life of the Sovereign,
was little likely to sanction a similar measure in 1817,
though every man in the kingdom not led away
by party feelings, felt the necessity of some strong
measure being adopted.
Anxious to be once more the popular opposer of
Govemment, his Lordship urges the practice of
petitioning. He confesses that he is still a Reformer,
" but with some modification, of his former opinions;
with more fear of the effect of sudden and inconsiderate
changes, with a more complete conviction that to be
successful, reform must be gradual, and must be care-
fully limited to the necessity which has proved it to be
wanting." And does his Lordship think that language
like this will conciliate the reformers, those innocent
men who deliver seditious harangues from scaffolds
and waggons to the mob, and then plunder the shops
of peaceable citizens and pistol.those who resist.
To prove what may be effected in the House of Com-
mons b>- legal petitioning, his lordship instances the
repeal of the income-tax, and warns his admiring audi-
tory to resist every attempt which the minister may
make to re-impost it, Such language as his Lordship
uses throughout.this speech might have come from hint
with a better grate, had it never been his fortune to
serve his king; is„wiasa pro magnffrco would have then
applied equally
in his case as in many others; but, in an
evil hour for the party to which he Lelonged, circumstances
placed Mr. Fox high in an atUul.aastration in which
Earl Grey himself was a member. Never, perhaps,
did any ministerial change produce suet hopes,—never
was there any instance in which these hopes were so
grievously disappointed, and it will be difficult to pro-
duce as many political failures. as many political bin-
ders in so short a period, as characterized the coalition
administration of which Earl Grey was a member. It
is the remembrance of these things, coupled with a re-
collection of the year 1793, and some succeeding ones
that have put a seal upon the popularity oe Lail Grey
and his party, nor will ell the invective in the weal!,
whether poured out among drunken foxhunters, or
yawning peers, restore them to that rank which they heir/
hethre they were " tried in the balance and found
want i reg,"

The Letters front Pernamtraeo receive some time
a;o, mentioned that a revolution had broken out in
tin Province of/Paraiba, and that a vessel had arrived
with 3000 staittlitf arms. We tiud the same report in
some American Papers which arrived yesterday, dated
as tier back tat June. The latest intelligence from the
Brazils say, that every thing was tranquil. There can
therefore be no doubt that the rumour is of an old date;
a report circulated perhaps by the Insurgents of Per-
nambuco to scree their particular purposes. We un-
derstand that amongst the merchants interested in the
Brazil trade, there was never the slightest attention
given to the rumour.

tract such strong in gallant
officer's peculiar style, that there would have ben no
doubt as to whom it should be assigned. There is nut.
we think, a man living who stands upon better terms
with himself than Sir Robert Wilson. If we believe
him, he is the only good soldier, the only wise le„,,ois-
lator, the only true patriot, that has shewn fortli in
these time—in times which we have hitherto foolishly
believed to be fertile in minds of a superior order'.
The text from which Sir Robert preaches his doleful.
sermon on the new dangers to which Europe is ex-
posed from the encreasing power of Russia, is found in
the 7th page of his preface. " Rassia," says he, "m-
-ilting by the events which have afflicted Europe, hwi
not only raised her ascendancy on natural sources, suf-
ficient to maintain a preponderating power, but far-
ther, that she has been presented by her rivals with sl4.
sceptre of universal dominion." And that we may be
fully able to appreciate the justness of this position,
Sir Robert enters into a history of the Russian Ein-
pire from the time of Peter the Great, to the period
when the arms of the allies triumphed over the
nasty of Buonaparte. This history occupies nearly
half the volume, and in the course of which we are
furnished with numerous instances of gross ignorance
...suet mismanagement on the part of those Generals and
Statesmen who took an active share in those campens
and councils which led to what is commonly called:kb-el
liberation of Europe, but which Sir Robert has no
doubt, is its slavery.
Of the real causes of that disastrous retro( , in
which above a quarter of a million of French Ba 4 con-
federates perished; and which led to the immediate
ruin of Buonaparte's fortunes, the world has hitherto
been in utter ignorance ; it remained fur Sir Robert
Wilson to set them right.
" There ran be no desire to exalt rho reputation of Nape-
Icon, or disparage, if it were possible fur tletraetion-to do so,
the *shw of the heroic army and brave people apposed to
htm ; an army, to whose devotion Napoleon himself has paid
the highest tribute, when he demelbes the battalion*, writh-
ing under his firt., " in unwilling to go, and yet unable to
remain but the fact is, that from want of energy in the di-
rection of the Russian operations, and a deterinisation not to
mike a concentrated and general attack on the enemy's lite
o'niarch, the French army would have regained their posi-
tion on the Dwina and Boristheoes, without any serious Inju-
ry, bad it not been for a sedans intense frost, and a total
neglect to p, ,vide karac-skora suitableio the climate, except-
ing for Napoleon's own horses, which Cauliocourt saved by
the precaution,'

And in a note be infoion us, drat
" During the retceat, a ducat; than worth one pound ster- •
ling, was, with thanks, the price of a single horse.shoe, even
in the Russian army. But the Russian horses ui their own
country are always rough-shod, that they may be prepared •
for the frost. The French artillery and cavalry beinguaear-
viceahle, no disposition could be made for the protection of
the troops, either nu march or when reposing at night; and
no provision or forage could be obtained. except in the towns
or villages which lay immediately on the road. The cause
may appear minute, but it was strictly the lea cause of Me-
d,;:isti•us n hick Wei die French troops."
Gium what minute (=tuts does the fate of Empires
hanig - Although un eye-witneas of the retreat of this
French n..-my, after the burning of 'Moscow, Sir Ro..
but has fur. fished us with. hardly any other firct of bit...
portancc, not before known. One frightful picture 1.10
has, indeed, adored to the many already known, of
misery and total desolation of the retreating, army.
" In the hospitals of \Vilna there vi ere left aline e ,ge.
ventren thousand dead and dying, frozen and freezi
The bodies of the termer, broken ap, served to stop t
.ha ca-
vities in windows, ttoors, and walls; but in one of th grorri-
dares of the Great Cotivent„,above fifteen hunilre• Itlndies
wile piled a transversely, az pigs of lead or iron wheu
these were finally removed oat sledges to be burnt, the most
extraordinary figures 'Vete pi.escuted by the vatic ty of their
attitudes, for none seemed to. have been froze tan
euur-
posed state; each was fixed in the last action o' pis iiNq in
the last direction given to his limbs ; even the t :ats retaysrd
the last expre.sion, f‘ither of anger, pain, or tilwatv. ha
the roads, area were collected round flu. bi *of „alas
of
the cottairs' which a mast spirit of destill•
pic:sing and eating the hu.un bodies of re
.:sew
awn;
while
thousands of horses were ino,vnitig in ak
mangled and hacked to satisfy the era yin! ''vYttls
itiluiegierratehsalt
' i
knew no pity. In many of the sheds, e. 4earcely
had heaped on their frozen bodies Imin
festering by the communication of anew _Andre/nes, which.
the alias"
the dying and tho dead iu one lases of atrefaction,"

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No. 505.—V0L. X. • MONDA - SEPTEMBER A 1817.- . : • , :.OS.
.
. _ •-•-•••••.-r ._
POLITICAL DISQU isrrtoN. disaffection exit . , because, "in no single immune), REVIEW °M UTSU .• ..
v• 1 •
--as.— with the exception of that miserable inan Cashman, —....m....- ... .* 1 . ,-i. '
SKETCallor roe MILITARY sett' 1 , Po WEIL
IN EARL GREY'S SPEEcH AT THE FOX DINNER. and that exception, no mazi• can for a mouloatt hesitate or RUSSIA, as row YEAR,
WE have long witnessed with Fain, the degraded in making,. have the law officers of the Crown been This te sheer. hes hese
.. : , •. , , I,;
:d.te of what has been commonly called the Coustitu- able to prove, colt* st.sditious combination." What- but as es!:isiolessbis •isin4 wor.„ Tiobio to
wiliker4 dm
onal Whigs in this country. .Sunk by their own ever the law officers, may have thought proper to de, author's part* abitod, the inibll6- &yew it to be the
tisconduct into total insignificance, they appear to or not to do, will his Lordship appeal to the Citizens production of Sir Robert Wilson's pcn, even:before it.
appeared. Had this, however, not been done, the
tie lost even the knowleb-e of the rielit means of re- of London, fora confirmation of the innocence of
, tract bears such strong internal evidence of that gallant