Star.
London, England, 1823-08-26 00:00:00

THE SETTLEMENT OF POYAIS.

All the accounts from Honduras represent the poor
unfottunate emigrants who have been induced to quit
their country for Poyais as in the most wretched con-
dition. A letter from Honduras, dated June 4, says
Public business has so constantly occupied me
for some days past, in consequence of the arrival of
the unfortunate persons who have been deluded from
their native country to the Mosquito Shore by
MgGregor, that I have not time to write much at
length. The heart-rending situation of these people,
who, with the exception of eight or ten who were left
to take care of the stores, are all now laid down with
fever and ague in three large buildings here, cannot
be conceived, and no doubt
.they will long be a bur-
den upon this colony, whose means are so confined.
Four have died already, and many more must, from
their exhausted state, speedily follow. A committee
has been appointed to regulate the concerns of these
miserable creatures."
The Greenock Advertiser confirms this statement
on the authority of the arrival of the Catherine, Swan,
at that port, from Honduras, and gives the follow-
ing additional particulars, 41 with unhesitating con-
fidence of their accuracy in every material point."
" Early in the year, the Honduras packet, the first
vessel, we believe, which carried out settlers to
Poyais, arrived at Black River with 60 persons, and
WAS soon afterwards followed by the Kinnersley
Castle, which sailed from Leith with 160 einigranv,
consisting of various descriptions of artisans, and a
few agriculturalists. ' The people by the latter ves-
sel, we understand, were chiefly conveyed out at the
expense of Sir Gregor M'Gregor, and were to be
maintained from the stores sent out in the ship
with them, fpr one year. during which they were
to be employed in clearing the ground of timber,
and erecting houses at Saint Joseph's; the capital
of Poyais, which has as yet existed only in name.—
They found themselves lauded on the margin of a
wilderness, and were set to work in clearing ground
for erecting habitations, exposed b.y day to the scorch-•
ing rigours of a climate to which they were altoge-
ther unaccustomed, and unsheltered from the dews
,of the night in their hours of repose. Of the pie-

r vious emigration by the Honduras Castle, the greater
' part had dispersed alp the country, and those who
remained had made little progress 'in establishing
themselves when the Kinnersley. Castle arrived, the
person whom Sir Gregor M'Gregot sent out in the
capacity of Governor hating gone, in the prosecu.
non of some private object, to a distance. In a very
few days after their arrival, five of them, one of whom
was married, and carried his wife with him, formed
.the desperate resolution of putting to sea in a small -
`boat, with the intention of endeavouring to gain the
port of Belize, in Honduras ; in the execution of the
attempt they endured dreadful hardships frOnt the
exposure, and from their scanty supply of provisions
and water, the husband of the female above-men-
tioned perished before her eyes, and the survivors
reached the port, after being several days at sea, in
the most exhausted condition. A person of the name
of Halley, a boot-maker in Edinburgh, who had
gone out with the intention of cultivating lend, and
of ultimately settling with his family,-not long after:
his arrival, we understand, in despair, committed
suicide.* In short, whatever may have been the re-
presentations sent home by those in the direct em-
ployment of MiGregor, or otherwise influenced by
sinister motives, to the great majority nothing but
adverse circumstances appeared, and sickness, of a
maligeant kind, having shewn itself, they abandoned
themselves to despair. In this state they were found
by Mr. Bennet, the Chief Magistrate of Belize,' who
went himself in the schooner, Mexican Eagle, and
brought off 106 persons, which was as many as she
could Carry. Captain SWan, of the Catherine, re-
ports that in going into Honduras he fell in with this
vessel, and supplied her with water, of which she
was much in want. He was, of course, witness to
the distressing state in which the emigrants then
were, and had afterwards, during the stay of his
lahip in port, ahundant opportunities of learning .
their situation. The greater part, who had no means •
of providing for themselves, were placed in the
hospital, and here nothing could exceed the disin-
terested humanity of the inhabitants of Belize,
who liberally administered to the wants of the sick,
supplied the destitute with the means of support,
and found employment for those able to work. The
female already mentioned, who has come home in
the Catherine, was, until a few days before her de-
parture, engaged in attending the sick in hospital,
and gives a melancholy picture of the ravages made
by the fever, which had seized so many of these un-
fortunate people; for some time after their arrival,
several deaths occurred daily, and those who had
surmounted the malady, were recovering by very slow
degrees. It was about the 12th of May that the
schooner an ived with the abovementioned number ;
but during Captain Swan's stay she had returned
again, and brought away 90 More, leaving only six
persons behind, to take charge of the remaining ef-
fects of the emigrants, and for those-she had also
gone back, before the Catherine sailed on her home-
ward voyage. As a letter from Poyais, dated the
12th April, which was published some time ago,
mentioned that the emigrants then amounted to 2213
individuals, a total abandonment of the settlement
must have taken place by those successive desertions.
Governor Hall, as already stated, had left it with all
his moveable property, on the second return of the
schooner; and Captain Swan mentions having seen
several respectable individuals at Belize, who had
arrived there from Poyais—in particular, a Mr.
Westcott of Bristol, and a banker of the name of
Goodyer. A Mr. Kennedy, a teacher, and his wife,
the former in bad health ; one Handyside, a mill-
wright, also in a sickly state; and a young man
named Picken, a clef k, and who recently sent home
a very flattering account of the Poyais territory, are
likewise amongst those whom he met with at Belize.
The Thomas, Naylor, of and for Liverpool, which
sailed in company with the Catherine, brings back
four of them passengers."
The fate of the emigrants•by the Honduras packet
and Kinnersley Castle, must naturally lead to di*•
quietude regarding those which left this country at
a subsequent period, and of ss horn we yet cau have
no accounts. The Skeen, we find, sailed from Leith
in the beginning of June, with a full cargo, consist-
ing of settlers (many of them persons of considerable
property) and various stores and merchandise. They
would not, of course, reach the Mosquito shore till
some time after it had been abandoned ; but this cir-
cumstance would probably induce them to detain the
vessel until they saw how the land lay. We understand
vessels are even, at present, preparing to take pas.
sengers for the same quarter; but surely a pause
must now occur, at least until the difficulties of the
undertaking be fully ascertained, and ample means
employed to guard against a fate similar to that of
the emigrants by the two first vessels.
• The Caledonian Mercury, in allusion' to part of
the preceding statement, has since published the fol.--
lowing contradiction :
" In contradiction to a statement, in the Greenock
paper, which was copied into the Mercury of Thurs-
day, saying that Mr. Halley committed suicide in
despair, we are requested to insert the following ex-
tract of a letter from Mr. J. Douglas to MI s. Halley,
in Edinburgh, dated River Belize's Mouth, Mir
29, 1823 :
t
: (Signed) J. Donn Las.' "
nAcperrune2d4:oaftsterarean, thillatneMssro.f Hteaulldeayyds.i_ed
s'on"l:hAtilrAsduaAy morning,
li—lamc°

AMERICAN PCNS.—Mr. CLAY, an eminent states-
man of North America, is supported by one party as
a proper person to fill the .office of President of the
United States, whilst his claims-to that honqur are
resolutely denied by another party. At a public
dinner at Delaware, Ohio, the following toasts
were given in allusion to 'this Gentleman's name:
By Captain E. Muscat—" The Clay of the West. It cum.
bines properties suitable for the inostsetined vessels.of Gower's.
ment !
Ily Sot ostots SMITH, Esq.—" The next President. May he
be composed of more durable materials than Clay!"

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ADJUSTMENT OF SPANISH AFFAIRS.

The Joffrnd do INbad of Saturday, which arrived
last night, not only pUblishes the Duc d'Angouleme's
Decree from Andujar, 'but also gives some remarks,
from which it would appear that the authenticity of
that document cannot be doubted. " The Journals
of yesterday," it observes, " circulate the strangest
news. They endeavoured at first to discover in the
Ordonnance of the Duc d'Angouleme a source of di-
vision between the French troops and the Royalist po-
pulation of Spain. Let them not flatter themselves
with this hope. If the Prince Generalissimo, strictly
adhering to the maintenance of his word and to the
honour of our army, hai issued an adonnance from
Andujar on his part, the Regency also, on their part,
have passed a Decree for liberating all those prisoners
who had not been arrested in virtue of a mandate
emanating from the tribunals. These two Decrees
have given pleasure to the friends of order and jus-
tice. Tnis agreement of the military with the civil
authority has put an end to deplorable excesses—has
restored confidence, and disarmed party.
It was remarked, that the arbitrary arrests which
took place in several of the provinces, in spite of the
orders of the Regency, were executed by blind Revo-
lutionists, who had suddenly become ardent Royalists.
Neither the Duc d'Angouleme nor the Government
of his Majesty has forgotten the pledges they have
given. Never will they capitulate with the Revolu-
tionists—never will they treat with the Cortes as a
body politic. They doubtless desire that Spain should
be free—that she should prosper beneath the shade
of institutions equally remote from despotism and
from anarchy--but they have no pretensions to im-
pose laws upon her. It is for King Ferdinand, with
the advice of his Councillors, to adopt what he shall
deem to be expedient for the welfare of his people. If
we rightly remember the official papers published in
London, it appears to us that the French Govern-
ment had thought the most proper means for termi-
nating the troubles of Spain would be, perhaps, to
grant an amnesty, and to re-establish the ancient
Constitution of the State—that is to say, to convoke
the ancient Cortes. This idea appears to us at mice
generous and reasonable. As for the rest; let us wait
for the events at Cadiz—let us have patience a few
days longer, and we shall know the result."
FROM TUE CONSTITUTIONNEL.
" No doubt remains with respect to the negociasions
destined to terminate the Spanish war. It is even
generally thought that they draw towards a conclu-
sOn. The wisdom, the moderation of the Pi ince •
Generalissimo have therefore triumphed over the vio-1
lence of the fanatical party. The Peninsula will riot
he deprived of the advantages of a Representative!
Government, and of the constitutional guarantees
which secure the prosperity and liberty of nations.—
In the present state of parties in Spain, such a con-
clusion could alone appease hatred, disarm re-actions,
and prepare peace for the future.
" Nothing would be done—civil war would not even
be adjourned, if the men who look upon every con-
cession made by power as an act of weakness, every
liberal institution as a revolutionary one, every idea
of toleration as a crisae, preponderated in the pub-
lic councils of Spain. Nothing would be terminated'
if the spirit of re• enge survived after the establish-j
ment of the new Representative Government, and if
the furious passions of a piny had more authority
than the common law. The restoration of order,l
confisience, and credit, can only be founded on jiis
tice, and on the recognition and protection of all le-
gitimate rights.
66 In vain did the fanatical journals undertake to
disguise facts. They would have wished, for reasons
which are easily understood, that the Regency alone
should have been invested with theright of dictating
conditions to its countrymen, and the measures which
it has already adopted indicate what would have been
the nature of those concessions. Our fanatics will
not see, or rather will not own, that it would have
been impossible for the Regency to pacify Spain.—
No treaty can exist between despotism on the one
side, and liberty ou the other—between fanaticism
and the spirit of toleration. Consequently do we find
that the first conventions concluded between several
Spanish Commanders and the Prince Generalissimo
have been in formal opposition to the Decrees of the
Regency, and the intentions which it had so frequently
manifested. From the existence of those conventions
it was not difficult to foresee what kind of arrange.
ment would terminate the struggle, and the inutility
of the efforts of the fanatical faction to preserve its
domineering influence."
The following is an extract of a letter, dated Ma-
drid, 11th August, which we received yesterday:-
6' There is an understanding between all parties that
a Constitution is formed and agreed upon for Spain ;
but it is in some respects so hostile to the present sys-
tem of the Royalists and Clergy, that the French
dare not venture to expose their plans, until the force
in Madrid shall be augmented to at least fifteen thou-
sand men. At present there are not here more than
three thousand effective troops. The new Constitu-
tion or Charter, embraces the French and English
systems combined. It is understood that the King
will remain at Cadiz until the new arrangements
shall be consolidated"
Extract of another letter, dated Madrid, Aug. 12:
I shall state what appears to be the decided opi-
nion of every one that knows the present state of the
country. That even supposing the French army get
possession of the King's person, and reinstate him on
his throne at Madrid, yet that still they will be very
far front having obtained the object that brought
them into Spain. For so great has been the number of
the discontented increased in every quarter of the
kingdom, by the conduct of the Regency and their
subaltern agents, and the natural inertness of the
peasantry is such, conforming itself so readily to every
the most sudden change, that unless there be a long
continued occupation of the country by foreign troops,
there is not only a danger, but a certainty of daily
troubles and insurrections, which at first, though par-
tial, cannot long be restraine.! from becoming gene-
ral. The only means of obviating these troubles, and
at the same time dispensing with the presence of fo-
reign troops, is by some reconciliatory arrangement
guaranteed by a foreign and neutral power. But such
an arrangement can only be entered into with the re-
spectable and enlightened part of the nation ; for, as
to the Army of the Faith, and those.who think with
them, they could not make a stand of 24 hours, once
that thehench army shall have recrossed thaidassoa.