The Sun.
London, England, 1823-09-08 00:00:00

to arbitrary and despotic acts, such as are cba-
racteristic of it weak and tottering authority ?
The Government of Portugal is, in fact, at present
worse than it was in old times, for then a listless-
ness and torpor pervaded every department of
the State. Now a spirit of active revenge impels
those who have been entrusted with command,
and hence they pursue the most arbitrary and
atrocious measures. With this view, an army of
spies and police-men has been created, whose
duties are to watch the acts of every one for-
merly employed under the Constitution, or
is supposed favourable to it, and, on the least
suspicion, the peaceable and well-meaning
citizen is torn from the bosom of his family
unit plunged in loathsome prisons, literally
'cltoaked up with inmates. Letters passing through
the Post-office are opened, and some of them
published ; loyal and unblemished patriots are
driven into exile, and that. amnesty and oblivion,
so solemnly pledged by the present Government,
has been converted into a complete mockery.
The mercenary and mutinous soldiery are insti-
gated to insult and outrage ; those whom the
people have been accustomed to look up to with
veneration and respect ; the Commanders of the
several corps, who had gained their rank and
honours on the field of battle, and fighting in
defence of their country, are removed, and their
places are filled up by ignorant and demoralized
Nobles, anti society is constructed in such a way
as to leave one half the victims of the other.

DaITISII PRESS.]
The note or preparation is stilt fearfully sound
ed by, the French Ministerial Journals, and the
Moniteur is full of preparation ; but no attack ap-
pears to have been made as yet on Cadiz. Reports
.very prevalent on Saturday, that the French
had lictually attacked Fort Matagorda, called the
Trocadero, but that they were repulsed with
great loss. They had pushed their trenches, it is
stated, to the breach of the Trocadero; and, on
the night of the '26th of August, the works of the
first parallel were commenced. " Our soldiers,"
(the writer adds, with all the gasconade of ultras)
" with the impatience of brave Frenchmen, wearied
with these regular approaches, ask to be led
straight to the enemy's batteries ; but the Duke
of Angouleme, avaricious of French blood,
chooses rather to defer for a few days the
capture 'of the Trocadero, than to sacrifice by
a coup de main the lives of some of his best sol-
diers." This important fort is said to be defended
by the. Madrid militia, and will, we are per-
suaded, be held to the last. Without it, Bourde.
soult cannot attempt to bombard Cadiz, and even
then, not with any effect ; but its possession
would afro; d a facility of communication with the
fleet, and the bombardment might be partially
effected under the shelter of the fire from the
Trocadero. The Moniteur contains the entire
array of preparation and attack, directed
both against Fort Matagorda and the Isle of
Leon; the bombs, howitzers, and heavy artillery
erected against one, and the means adopted to
effect a descent on the Isle of Leon. For the
latter purpose, sixty boats, each capable of con-
taining sixty men, were collected at Rota, and
as many moremere expected. A, hundred boats
would therefore contain six thousand men ; they
were to be organised in divisions of ten, with their
pilots and leaders, and the troops were exercised
to bear the sea. The descent on the Ise of Leon
will be most difficult and hazardous ; the coast
is rocky and enfiladed by the fire of the forts ; a
repulse will be annihilation to the rash ad ven.
turers ; every thing now depends on the firmness
and courage of the Spaniards; if they stand to
their guns, the invaders must be destroyed.—
The next accounts from Cadiz will be looked
for with the deepest anxiety. On the result of
the announced attempt, the Constitutional Go-
vernment of Spain will stand or fall.

[MOaNtNa HERALD.]
The affair in Spain seems to be almost as un-
decided as ever, and even yet it is a question
whether the French will maintain their ground.
If the Constitutsonalists we're only to fight as well
as,they have talked—if they were as heroic as
they have said they were, they might yet de-
stroy the Duke of Angouleme and the army un-
der his command. Some short time since there
was a good deal said regarding that heroic nation,
Spain, as that country was termed, and also of
the heroic people of Spain, as the Spaniards
called themselves—but hitherto they do not ap-
pear to have performed any thing of a very heroic
nature ; therefore, as the old adage has it, " It
has been much noise and little work." We
must confess that we would, as Englishmen—or
" heroic Britons," as we are sometimes called,
and even call ourselves—like much to see
our " heroic" brethren in Spain bestir them-
selves. Nothing could give us greater plea•
sure than to hear that the Spaniards had rid
Spain of every Frenchman in the country
Nay, if they served them as the English served
the Danes some thousand years ago, we could
hardly pity the Trench, for certainly they had
no more business in Spain than LOUIo XVI. had
to interfere between England and her rebellious
North American colonies. If Louis XVIII.

should eventually lose his head in consequence
of his interference between the quarelling :par-
ties in Spain, and if. it should bring about
another revolution in France, and another
getting rid 'of the Bourbon Family, it would
form a singular coincidence between him
and Louis XVI. One advantage, how.
ever, Louis XVIII. has aver Louis XVI., add
that is, he has been educated in the school of ad-
versity. And again, if some of these days he
were to fly, it is more then probable he would
not stop on the road to dine, nor would he so load
himself with band.boxes as Louis XVI. did.
The approaching winter may, by producing sick•
nese in the French army, do much for the Spa.
niards, but not unless they prove themselves to
be more heroic than they have been hitherto, and
more true to their cause than Messrs. Ballasteros,
IVlorillo, and others, excepting these gentlemen
intend, in the long run, to be as treacherous to
the. French, as the Parthian renegades were to,
Crassus. But we are much afraid that Spain, for
a great length of time, has been rapidly declining
as a nation. She reached, it is probable, her