Star.
London, England, 1809-08-24 00:00:00

SPAIN,

By the Spanish Patriot, DURELL master, which left
Cadiz the ScLinstant, we have recei►ed the following
communication :

" A Aritish Officer of rank, who was in the province
et Catalonia, sounded the disposition of the inhabi,
tants on the subject of the public defence. He had
scarcely imparted his sentiments before he raised 700
men, and in a few days 7000 were collected round
the standard of FERDINAND. Thus circumstanced, he
wrote to Seville, requesting that 12 or 14 Field Offi-
cers should be sent to organize this new levy, but his
IF:tters were not attended to, and fur want of leaders,
the recruits disbanded." •

This account is confirmed by a Gentleman who
left Cadiz also on the 2d inst. lie says, that Officers
only are wanted, and that the zeal of the lower ranks
is so ardent, that a few Proclamations in populous
districts would soon raise an army adequate to the
entire expulsion of the enemy. He observes, tha
great complaints were made by the English of the
deficient supply of necessaries, but he added, that the
exertions of the Junta were now in some degree pro-
portioned to the urgency of the occasion. All the
cars and mules in the neighbourhood of Cadiz and
Seyille bad been put in requisition, to transmit the
supplies, and the quarantine of -ships from America
bad been dispensed with. Nine vessels of the United
States laden with tobacco, corn, and other important
I rticles, were to discharge their cargoes, without any
regard to quarantine, in order that the expectations
of the British army might not be disappointed.
We have more than once noticed the lamentable
want of energy that has been so glaringly conspicu.
ous in the Spanish Junta ever since it took the direc-
tion of the affairs of that Kingdom. Vire have also ,
expressed our surprise that after more than twelve
months they should not yet have 100,000 men effec-
tively in arms out of a population of twelve millions
of men ; and we have frankly declared our opinion
that something should be done for the people as well
as for FERDINArD, if it be really desirable that the
moral and physical energies of the kingdom should be
tolled into action. To enable onr readers to form an
opinion of the degraded and imbecile state of the
great mast of the Spanish population, we shalt Lty
before them a document from the pen of the celebrated
Jevat.Lallos, a distinguished Member of the Supreme
Central Junta, a man of liberal potions, and possessed
of the most perfect knowledge of the manners, local
habits, and national prejudices and wants of his
countrymen. This document appears hi the Appen-
dix to 1.4111 HOLLAND'S Account of the Life and
Writings Of LOPS =VEGAS,
" The labouring class of society require diversions,
but not exhibitions ; the government is not tailed up-
on to divert them, but to permit them to divert them-
selves. For the few days, the short moments which
they caw devote to recreation and entertainment, they
will naturally seek, and easily find, amusement for
themselves. Let them merely be unmolested, and
protected in the enjoyment of them. A bright sky
and fine weather on a holiday, which will leave them
at liberty to walk, run, throw the bar, to play at ball,
quoits, or skittles, or to junket, drink, dance, and caper
upon the grass, will fill all their desires, and yield them
complete satisfaction and contentment. At so cheap
a rate may a whole people, however numerous, be de-
lighted and amused. How happens it then that the
majority of the people of Spain have no diversion at
all ? for every one who has travelled through our pro-
winces must have made this melancholy remark ; even
( n the greatest festivals, instead of that boisterous
merriment and noise which should bespeak the joy cf
the inhabitants, there reigns throughout the market-
places and streets a slothful inactivity, a gloomy still-
ness, which cannot be remarked without the mingled
emotions of surprize and pity. The few persons who
leave their houses seem to be driven from them by
listlessness, and dragged as far as the threshold, the
market, or the church-door. There, muffled in their
cloaks, leaning against some corner, seated on some
bench, or lounging backwards and forward;, without
object, aim, or purpose, they pass their hours; aye, j
may say, their whole evenings, without mirth, recrea-
tion, or amusement. When you add to this picture, the
dreariness and filth of the villages,the poor and sloven-
ly dress of the inhabitants, the gloominess and silence
of their air, the laziness, the want of concert and union
so striking every where, who butweuld be astonished;
who but would be afflicted by so mournful a phenome-
non This is not indeed the place to expose the errors
which conspire to produce it; but whatever those errors
may het one point is clear--they are all to be found in
the laws. Without is andel ing from ,oy subject, I may ;
be permitted to observe, that the cilio mistake lies in 1
the faulty police of our villages. Many
Magistrate;
are
misled, byan ill-judged zeal, to suppcse that the

g
perfeetlign of municipal government *consists in the'
subjection of the people ; they imagine that the great
object of subordination is accomplished, if the inhabi-
tants tremble as the voice of Justice ; and no one ven-
tures to move, or even to breathe, at the very sound
of her name. Hence :Any mob, any noise or disturb-
ance, is termed a riot or tumult ; and every little dis-
pute or scuffle becomes the subject of a criminal pro-
ceeding, involving in its consequences examinations
and arrests, imprisonments and fines, with all the train
of legal persecutions and vexations, Under such an op-
pressive police, the people grow dispirited and dishear-
tened ; and sacrificing their inclinations to their secu-
rity, they abjure diversions, which, though public and
innocent, are replete with embarrassments, and have
recourse to solitude and inaction, dull and painful in-
deed to their feelings, but at least unmolested bylaw,
and unattended with danger. The same system has
occasioned numberless regulations of police, npt only
injurious to the liberties, but prejudicial to the welfare
and prosperity of the villages ; yet not less harshly or
less rigorously enforced on that account. There re
some places where music and ringing of bells, others
where balls and marriage-suppers are prohibited. In
one village the inhabitants must retire to their houses at
the curfew, in another they must not appear in the streets
without a light ; they must notloiterabout the corners,
or stop in the porches; and in all they are subject to
similar restraints and privations. The rage for go.
venting, in some eases, perhaps, the avarice of the
Magistrates, has extended, to the most miserable ham-
lets, regulations, which would hardly be necessary in
all the confusion of a metropolis ; and the wretched
husbandman, who has watered the earth with the
sweat of his brow. and slept on the ground throagh-
out the week, cannot on Saturday night bawl at his
will in the streets of his village, or chaunt his ballad
at the door of his sweet-heart.

" Even the province in which I live (Asturias),
remarkable for the natural cheerfulness and innocent
manners of its inhabitant:, is not exempt from the
hardship of similar regulations. Indeed, the discon-
tent which they produce, and which I have frequently
witnessed, has suggested many of these reflections on
the subject. The dispersion of • its population fortu-
nately prevents that municipal police, which has been
contrived for regular villages and towns ; but the tot-
tagers assemble for their diversions at a sort of wake,
called Romerias, or Pilgrimages. And there it is that
the regulations of the police pursue and molest them.
Sticks, which are used more on account of the inequa-
lit f of the country, than as a precaution for self-de-
fence, are prohibited in these wake's. Men-dances are
forbidden ; those of women must dose early in the
evening ; and the wakes themselves, the sole diver-
sion of these innocent and laborious villagers, must
break up at the hour of evening prayer. How can
they et reconcile:shearit all.ih, emyseelsv,e its i
s twithrue:
tnhve:::::ci :al:
such werarielm inn—r.iciice ? It may, indeed, be said,
L but they bear it with an ill will ; and who is blind to
the consequences of long and reluctant submission?
1 The state of freedom is a state of peace and cheerful-
. ness ; a state of subjection is a state of uneasiness and
discontent. The former then is permanent and dura-
' ble, the latter unstable and changeable.
All, therefore, is not accon !fished : quicn the are quiet, they siiculd also le contented; and it is only a
heart devoid of feeling, or a head unacquainted with
the principles of government, that can harbour a no-
tion of scenting the first of these objects, without ob-
i taining the second. They who disregard it, either do
l not see the necessary connection between liberty and
prosperity ; or, if they see it, they neglect it. The
error in either case is equally mischievous; for surely
this connection deserve: the attention of every just and
mild government. A free and cheerful people are al-
ways active and laborious ; and an active and laborious
people are always attentive to morals and observant of
the laws. The greater their enjoyments, the more they
love the government under which they live ; the bet-
ter they obey it, and the more cheerfully and willingly
do they contribute to its maintenance and support.
The greater their enjoyments the more they have to
lose ; and the more, therefore, they fear any distur-
bance, and the more they respect the authorities in-
tended to repress it Such a people feel more anxiety
to enrich themselves, because they must be conscious
that the increase of their pleasures, will keep pace
with the improvement of their fortunes. In a word,
they strive more ardently to better their conditions,
because they are certain of enjoying the fruits of their
' ciertion, If such then, be one of the chief objects of
a good government, why is it so disregarded among '
us? Even public prosperity, as it is called, if it be
any thing but the aggregate of individual happiness,
depends upon the attainment of the object in ques-
tion—for the power and strength of a state do
not consist entirely in multitudes or riches, but in 'the
moral character of iti inhabitants. In point of fact,
can any nation be strong, whose subjects are weak,
corrupt, harsh, unfeeling, and strangers to all senti-
ment of public spirit and patriotism ? On the other
hand, a people who meet often, and in security, n
public, for the purposes of diversion, must necessarily
become an united and affectionate people ; they can
feel :slat a common interest is, and are consequently
less like)/ to sacrifice it to their own personal views
and individual advantage. They have a higher spit it,
because they 4,7 e freer—a consciousness of which im •
proves their notions of rectitude, and exalts their seri
•inienns of honour and courage. Every indisriduo i

. • •
respects his own class in such' a" society, because he
respects himself; and he respects that of others, as
the best mode of ensuring respect for his own. If
once the people respect ths government, and the su-
bordination establishe4 by law, they regulate their
conduct by it ; they grow attached to the institutions
of their country, and defend them with spirit ; be,
cause, in so doing, they are convinced that they are
defending themselves, *So clear is it, that freedom
and cheerfulness are greater enemies of disorder; than
subjection and melancholy,

" Let me not, however, be suspected of considering
a magistracy or police, appointed to preserve the
public peace, as in itself either useless or oppressive.
—On the contrary, it is my firm .persnasion, that
without such an institution, without its unremittng
vigilance, neither tranquillity nor subordination can
he preserved. I am well 'aware that licence ho-
vers on the very confines of liberty ; and that
some restraint must be devised to keep in those who
would pass the limits. This is, indeed, the most
delicate asaint in civil jurisprudence ; and it is this
that so many injudicious magistrates mistake, by con-
founding vigilance with oppression. Hence, at every
festival, at every public diversion, or harmless amuse-
ment, they obtrude upon the people the insignia of
magistracy and power. To judge by appearances,
one should suppose that their aim was to build their
authority on the fears of the subject, and to purchase
their own convenience at the expeuce of the freedom
and pleasure of the public. In every other view, such
precautions are idle, for the people never divert them-
selves, without complete exemption from restraint in
their diversions. Freedom is scared away by watch-
men and patroles, constables and soldiers ; and at the
sight of staves and bayonets, harmless and timorous
mirth takes the alarm, and disappears. This is surely
not the method of accomplishing the purposes for
which magistracy was established ; whose vigilance,
if 1 may be permitted so awful a comparison, should
resemble that of the SUPREME Br►lxo ; should be per-
petual and certain, but invisible ; should be acknow-•
ledged by every, body, but seen by nobody; should
watch licence, in order to repress it ; and liberty, in
order to protect it. In one word, it should operate
as a restraint on the bad, as a shield and protection to
the good. The awful insignia of justice, are other-
wise the mere symbols of oppression and tyranny :
and tb,e police, in direct opposition to the views of its
institution, only vexes and molests the persons whom
it is bound to shelter, comfort, and protect."

SPANISH AND PORTaGVESE PAPERS.
By the Duke of Marlboro packet, arrived at
Falmouth from Lisbon in six days, we have this
morning received Spanish papers to tho 11th, and
Portuguese to the 15th hct. The bead-quarters of
tx.r.A.Lagar...Ev and his ga".iant army Were, on the
7th inst. at Delectosa; and. i we may believe the Spa_
nish accounts, no interruption to the advance of the
allied armies will, in future, be experienced from the
want of provisions. The Supreme Junta have made
arrangements for a regular and liberal supply in
future, and waggon loads of stores of all descriptions
seem to be proceeding towards the armies, in all di-
rections.

VXNEGAS is said to have defeated the French near.
Aranjuez ; and it was also reported at Lisbon that
Sir A. WELLESLEa had attacked and completely rout-
ed SOULT, who was on his way to join the defeated
army of King JosEnt. Subjoined are the most im-
portant articles contained in the Spanish and Portu-
guese Papers: