The Sun.
London, England, 1824-12-13 00:00:00

THE LONDON JOURNALS.

DAILY
Extracts.from the Morning Papers, Dec. 13.

[NEW TIMES.]
- We rejoice to perceive, by accounts from
Stockholm, that a new Convention has been
signed by Sir Benjamin Bloomfield and Count
de %Vetterstadt, on the part of the British and
Swedish Governments respectively, for more
effectually restraining the Slave Trade. We
presume, the principle adopted in this Conven-
tion is the same with that of the enactment in the
late Statute for consolidating the laws relating
to the abolition of the Slave Trade (Stat. 5 Geo.
IV. c. 113) ; by the 9th section of which, the
dealing in slaves on the high seas is declared (in
the case of a British subject) to be piracy. The
Swedish Government has in general shewn a
laudable aversion to this traffic ; and unlike
some Continental Powers, it has not confined the
expression of its dissatisfaction to a few barren
phrases, but has issued Ordinances for the ef-
fectual restraint of the evil ; and we believe has
fairly carried those Ordinances into execution.

[narrisu mass.]
Last night we received the Paris Papers of
Friday. The French troops are beginning to
move towards the frontiers of Spain, and simulta-
neously the violence of the furious Royalists be-
gins to break forth in fresh acts of outrage on the
defenceless supporters of the constitution. Lists
of proscription are forming, and it is expected
that when the French are withdrawn, the king-
dom will be 66 purified" by a general massacre of
the negroes. One expedient of the Council of
Castille to furnish supplies for the Royal Trea-
sury deserves to be noticed. It is proposed to
confiscate the property of all those who, to en-
sure their personal safety, have lately emigrated
from Spain, unless they return and deliver them-
' selves up to their persecutors, who would imme-
diately condemn them to death without even the
formality of a hearing.—The Constitutionnel, at
the conclusio►► of an article on the late Royal
Order, respecting the French Army, remarks
that 66 the dismissal of a third of the present
number of Generals, one half of those of the army
previous to the restoration, is, whatever the advo-
cates of the measure may say of it, an act too
extraordinary in its nature not to conceal some
political after-thought. The coincidence of this
measure with the project for indemnifying the
emigrants, marks no design friendly to France,
or faiourable to Royalty."

[THE TlNtEs.]
The letters from St. Petersburgh, of the 10th
and 20th of November, present us with a dread-
ful account of the calamities produced by an in-
undation of the Neva, not equalled within the
memory of man. In some parts of the town the
waters rose to such a height, and with so great
rapidity, that the inhabitants had not time to
save themselves, but Men, women, and children
indiscriminately perished. A storm accompanied
this visitation of the waters, so violent as to roll
up the sheet iron which covered the roofs of
many houses, as if it had been paper; broke in
doors and windows every where, and comblidnß its
force with that of the current,swept away bodily
some of the slighter habitations. The magazines
of wine, sugar, and other merchandizes, being
principally in cellars under ground,and in the lower
parts of the city, it is supposed that damage to the
amount of millions has been sustained by the
merchants on this melancholy occasion. The
stores of raw sugar near the Custom-house, and
the Herring-magazine, containing upwards of
50,000 barrels of that article of food, were irre-
trievably ruined ; guard-houses and bridges de-
stroyed ; the streets of Petersburgh were covered
the following day with bodies of animals which
had been drowned—with fire-wood, the stores of
which had been broken up, and drifted away in
all directions—with ships, which had burst
from their moorings—with the contents of
ravaged shops, and the materials of which
wind and water had overturned. Whole
villages in the neighbourhood of the Russian
capital were, it is said, swept away. No food
could be had in any quarter for days after the
deluge had subsided—no payments were made—
no money demanded ; the ordinary transactions
and affairs of men being altogether displaced and
forgotten amidst this scene of overwhelming
misery. The inundation appears to have sub-
sided almost as suddenly as it came on—the lgth
being the day on which it began and ended.—
Stockholm was on the night ofthel Bth attacked by
a hurricane of equal violence, though of less du-
ration, and with considerable, though inferior, in-
jury. The wind in both instances from the
north-west.

[VIE PUBLIC LEDGER.)
Last night we received Lisbon 'Gazeltes from
the 22d ult. to the Ist inst. inclusive. They
contain the copy of a Royal Decree, by which
four captains, a lieutenant, and an ensign of the
9th Regiment of Cavalry, are dismissed from the
service. The crime with which they are charged
is disaffection to the Government, and an attempt
to debauch the other Officers of the Regiment.---
By another decree, and for the same offence, a
Major of the Veterans of th• province of
Tras os Mantes, is subjected to a similar
penalty. As there is none of that virulent
invective, which it pleases arbitrary Go.
vernments to use in denouncing constitutional
principles, we presume that the offenders do not
belong to this party; and, besides, the slight-
ness of their punishment, as compared to the
crime, points them out as appertaining to the
faction, whose efforts are directed to the esta-
blishment of pure despotism.—llowever, their
dismissal is an instance of energy, and perhaps a
consciousness of strength on the part of the Go-
vernment, which we hail with pleasure; and a
few more examples of this kind would probably
break the refractory spirit of the army.

[MORNING CIIRONIOLF.]
We are assured that the Catalonians and some
of their neighbours on the
,Freuob froutiers, dis-

gusted with the insane proceedings of the Spanish
Government, and desirous of enjoying some of
the benefits of the social union, have more than
once solicited the French Government to be in-
corporated with France, the natives of which
country they resemble more than they do the
rest of the Spaniards. The possession of
some of the Northern Provinces of Spain
would be of incalculable advantage to France,
for they would give to that country a number
of excellent ports and stations for ships, or a
most convenient situation for operations against
England. If France should ever acquire Cata-
lonia, Galicia, and Biscay, she might become a
first-rate maritime power, which otherwise, from
her want of ports, and the state of the mouths of
most of her great rivers, she can never hope to
be.—There is no saying what may arise out of
the present occupation of Spain. The Constitu-
tionalists have been delivered over to their ene-
mies, bound hand and foot, by the French. The
presence of the French emboldens Ferdinand to
proceed to the most dreadful extremes towards
the vanquished. The latter are as effectually
overawed by the position of the French as if their
armies were spread over the whole coun-
try. Under such circumstances it is hardly
possible to foresee the turn affairs may take.—
Should a war be kindled in the East, there does
not seem any great obstacle in the way of the
French adding the Provinces of Catalonia, &c.
to their territory, and as the Galicians are of a
phlegmatic easy character, and the Catalonians
hate and despise the rest of the Spaniards, to
whom they are infinitely superior in character
end industry, the partition would probably be
agreeable to the natives rather than otherwise.
As to England, as Mr. Canning says, she must
now move in her own orbit. We have enough
to do at home—we have to devise measures
for retaining Ireland in a state of feud and
disturbance, in order that capitalists may not be
tempted to embark their money in that country,
If Ireland were to be united and tranquil, people
might not be satisfied with our merely moving in
our own orbit, while there were such strange
motions elsewhere.