The National Register.
London, England, 1809-10-22 00:00:00

THE JUBILEE.

Seventeen millions of free people, uniting on the same day,
to commemorate the same event,—pouring •ut their thanks
to the great Disposer of Events, fur the long reign of a Pa-
triot a grand and solemn association ! How trifling
and diminutive does the image of a Roman. triumph appear
in comparison: If it celebrated and kept alive the heroic
virtues of that warlike community, it served, at the same
time, as a memorial of their rapacity and restlessness.
Contrast their paeans wiih the execrations of the rest of
mankind; their intoxicated joy with the profound mourn-
ing and lamentations of their fettered captives; their tro-
phies with devastated provinces and levelled cities; their
slaughtered hecatombs with the murdered victims of their
ambition; and the sum of ill which the image presents,
will far outweigh the advantages and splendour of the
institution! How different the object, and how much
more legitimate the joy, which the Jubilee of Wednesday
next conveys and inspires! This spontaneous act of a
happy, loyal, and independent people, is countenanced by
religion, recommended by humanity, and inspired by pa-
triotism. It implies no impious thanksgivings to the
common Father, for the massacre of myriads of his com-
mon children. No mourning widow, no weeping orphan,
ne plundered family, are associated with the idea. It is
intended, on the contrary, to dry the tears of the widowed
matron and the unprotected child, to release the captive,
cheer the victim of penury ; and, whilst it gratifies the
characteristic loyalty of the country, it' gives to British
benificence an ample scope, and sure direction.
The homage of a free community, and the shouting
adulation of a slavish rabble, -are as different as the action
of a rational being, and the forced movement of an auto-
maton. The one is ♦oluntary, dictated by feeling, or
guided by reason ; the other, proportioned to the violence
or laugour of external impulse. The former is an offering
made to virtue; the latter a tribute paid to vice, and en-
forced by iolence. How often did Trajan and the Anto-
nines regret that they were condemned to govern a people,
who were incapable of, and had lost all sense of freedom!
They could not estimate highly the approbation of a
wretched immoral multitude, which applauded Nero and
Domitian with louder demonstrations of joy than they did
these great and virtuous Emperors. Their applause was ex-
tracted by terror; their affections won by games and
largesses. But the people of this country, free as the air
they breathe, and endowed with as large a portion of just.
feeling and reason, as any that ever existed, proclaim to
the universe, in commemorating the fiftieth anniversary
of the present reign, their sense of its blessings, and
their unaffected veneration for the Sovereign. How
honourable for both is this day of festivity and gratitude!
Whilst the neighbouring states present an affecting picture
ire/. .XCV.

of private and public' misery, of iiiiworth! .or unhappy
princes, and a distracted people ; we shall offer the interest-
ing appearance of a numerous, happy, an:! united family,
preparing to celebrate the birth-day of a beloved father!
What a proud and' glorious distinction does the title of
British King confer! It implies truer and more substantial
dignity than that of Emperor, or Compuror of' the
World. We have, there:ore, felt no small-surprise at the
levity of our exclusive patriotic journalists, in Tecom-
mending to our Sovereiga to renounce the constitutional
title of King for that. of Emperor,—a title founded upon -i
military • usurpation, and coeval with the extinction of
Boman freedom. Instead of assimilating him to the ty..
rant, who desolates the Continent, as I.as been so incon- 4
siderately proposed, we should draw between both an iusu. 4
perable line of distinction. 'When we cease to be freemen, 1
we shall likewise have a tyrant and a monster under the 4
name of Emperor; but until then, our Sovereign. cannot
and shall not assume the obnoxious title. qt
The approaching Jubilee fixes upon us the attention of lu
mankind; it furnishes, in, the present crisis, a most accept- 1'
able opportunity of displayiqg our loyalty and union. This '''
is a most important consideration, and deserves to be ma- "..6
turcly weighed. No notions of false economy should dew .-I
tract from its pomp and solemnity. Surely it shall not be'
said that a people vaunted for their opulence, and justly
proud of their liberality, have displayed a sordid thrift
upon so memorable an occasion. National honour, if we
felt no respect for the Venerable Character whose long
reign we intend to commemorate, and national safety,
would object to such untimely avarice. An inconlestible
Mark of the decline of freedom, and the depravity of a
people, is meanness and apathy in the celebration of their •
national festivals. The Greeks and Romans, in their better 1
days, were as remarkable for public magnificence, as •
for private frugality. But when they ceased to identify - .1
their honour, with that of their country, when their mo-
rals
were vitiated, and the constitution undermined, their
splendour was exhibited principally in objects of private or
ruinous luxury. Sumptuary laws afforded a very ineffec-
tual remedy, for they only served to expose, and not to
' check the alarming evil.

':.lJ*

We should offer to Heaven the warmest effusions of our-'''
gratitude, that we have a Kin' of our 'choice ; that he is
free, and that he governs a nntioa of freemen. Our neigh-
bours are deprived of this glorious distinction. We shall
know to value this inestimable privilege, should the vicis-
situdes of our time reduce 'us to a level of misery and de-
gradation with the surrounding states. Were their sud-
denly placed in possession of "n advantage similar to our's.
there would be no necessity to stimulate their loyal, it
expressing their sense of the auspicious change. We al
read with horror and indignation, at the time, the purls}
ment inflicted upon some loyal individuals, who assemble.
at Berlin, to celebrate the anniversary of their absent Mu
naich. They were arrested and thrown into prison by th
orders of DAvoysT, for daring to express their affection fo •
their Sovereign, without the ptrtnission of the french Au-

. 1

thorities. It must be observed that this act of arbitrary in-
terfirrencelook place after the Emperor ALEXANDER bad
procured at Erfurth the evacuation of the Prussian pro-
vinces Let us then proclaim to the world that we deserve
the freedom we possess ; that we know to estimate the
public and private N irtues of our good and venerable So-
vereign.; that we are no ungrateful and no inconstant peo-
ple; and that our character is as remote from sordid, as
from disloyal sentiments. Every principle of policy, and
of national self-love, recommends the utmost_ festivity and
magnificence, the most, unfeigned effusions of loyalty, at
the approaching Jubilee. On that memorable day, every
Corporation in the United Kingdom should approach the
Throne, and express their veneration and loyalty for our
worthy Monarch. A deputation from every county, from
the Universities, the courts of justice, and every great body
in the kingdom, should renew their pledge of sacrificing, in
case of emergency, their lives and fortunes in defence of his
crown and person. A general illumination, the usual mode
of celebrating every great and auspicious occurrence, has
been objected to, upon the plea of the confusioa it may ex-
cite. This is 1 futile one; for upon the same plea every
demonstration of joy might be objected to. The good
sense and spirit of the public will net, we trust, be imposed
upon by selfishness and faction, under the mask of order
and economy. From time immemorial it has been the
custom of this country to express its joy by -illuminations ;
and this is not a fit season or opportunity for deviating
from our national habits. But an invitation from the M-
agistrate is certainly unnecessary to warm our patriotism, or
stimulate our loyalty.

We shall conclude, by expressing, in common with the
great body of our country men, that the day may not pass
over without some lasting memorial of its existence. It
should reflect a ray of comfort into the cell of the captive,
and spring the bolts of his prison. It should be an act of
grace for small offences, too often the effects of improvi-
dence, ignorance, or severe necessity. It should restore the
deserter to his colours, and, the exile to his family and
country. A public foundation for fifty seamen and fifty.
soldiers, who, by their bravery, wounds, and length of
service, might particularly, claim th'' distinction, and for
a similar number of male and female orphans, whose fathers
transmitted to them uo other inheritance: but hoaour, no
°thee protectiOn but that of their country, in whose cause
they fell.—A foundation of this kind might immortalize
the event, and transmit to the latest posterity the vir-
tues of the Sovereign, and the gratitude and veneration of
the people. Serving as a monument to commemorate the
'Teat events of the present rein., it might teach future
minces ,the important and salutary lesson, that to "merit
much honours and marks of affection and confidence; they
lust imitate the virtues and follow the example of the
L atriot King, whose memory the monument was intended
'1 3 perpetuate. May we long preserve the influence of his
xample, and the presence of his virtues, and when by the
atural course of events we shall be deprived of both, iaav
iev descend in regular suceession, with the title to the
rown, to his remotest tiescendauis.

OCT. 29,

ANALYSIS
OF THE. NEW FRENCH MARITIME PRINCIPLES, IN THE

LETTER FROM CUAMPAGNY TO TUE AMERICAN MINISTER.

Much ingenuity has of late been displayed by the good
folks on the Continent, particularly in the French State
Papers, and also by some of their good friends in this
country, to stigmatize England as the Tyrant of the Sr as,
for resisting the claims of free traffic; which resistance has
always been justified by us, and indeed allowed by foreign-
ers, until they found that it must militate against their
own interests; then they attempted to enforce a doctrine
directly contrary, and which, it acquiesced in by us, must
have proved our certain ruin. It was not, indeed, until
the reign of George the Second, that the question became
of vital importance to us; in his reign, however, the
" right of search," and of " seizure of contraband," was
so strictly adhered to, that the practice of that period is
generally called, both by English and foreign civilians, the
" rule of the war of 1756," and the then universally ac-
knowledged principal of itsfestablishment was, 4• that neu-
trals have no right to deliver a belligerent power from the
pressure of his enemy's hostilities, by trading with his co-
lonies in time of war, in a way that was prohibited in time
of peace." This principle, however, as to its practical
application is but of recent date, as the powers of Europe
had no foreign colonies, when the laws of Olcron, and other
laws, which have formed the texts for civilians through
many centuries, were first promulgated. The fact is also
historically correct, that this rule was first adopted by
France, and also most certainly first relaxed by that power,
when her maritime force was almost destroyed curly in the
last century, and when its relaxation was necessary to her
existence; it was also soon actor relaxed by England, not
through necessity, but from motives of humanity, which
induced her to pity and relieve even those who sought her
destruction.

•
By all ancient maritime laws, the right of search was
always admitted as a general principle: in later times, it
is expressly stated by Bynkerstmet and Heineccius ; and it
is also supported by Vattel, a French writer, who has been
considered not only as the text book for the modern French
civilians, but has even been quoted by their friends and co-
adjutors in this country; and he says, " we cannot prevent
the conveyance of contraband goods without searching
neutral vessels that we meet at sea ;_ we have, thereft.: c a
right to search them. A neutral ship refusing to Le
searched, would, for that proceeding- atone, be condemned
as a lawful prize.

Such were the laws and practice of nations long before
American indepenaence was ever thought of. Oa what
plea then can the United States claim any exemption from
them, unless they suppose that american independence
means the being nneontrouled by those laws, by which all
the European nations mere bound forso many ages ? parti-
cularly when they, in their short warfare with France, ac-
tually exercised this right of search on English shipq!
Well has it been observed by a fete energetic writer, that
both hemispheres resound with reiterated and aggravated
charges agatast England, for being the tyrant of the seas,
and the oppressor of neutral commerce, whilst half the
world credits the accusation ; they little think, however,
that England, at present formidable every where, does
yet passively, or .at least has long passively, suffeied the
principal pillars .of
.her maritime right to be unflermined,
and her arm rendered nerveless, from the want of a vigor-
ous exertion of her naval preponderance, in curbing the
unlawful traffic of neutrals.

We have been led into these considerations by that most
extraordinary state document from Chainpagny to General
Armstrong, which he calls an exposition of the unalterable
principles which have and will regulate the conduct of his
master toward.; neutrals; and we have generallv
shewn the
state of the law. of nations before the usurpation of LW