Star.
London, England, 1810-10-18 00:00:00

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i• thaiiiiri, tliirtives. 17. . . ,
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Fraticisquet, a Chief of Banditti, wagon the 4th of ; ! • . : .••••=11.0 ••••••
Ibis month at Tomilloso, with 400 Men and two ! I, . . THURSDAY, ocnaßEß. lap
ialeces of cannon. A detachment of the re,ojment of 31-. LAC— Holiday at the tlanh, Ezthcqur, and !tom-Ofilee
IBaden, which was in that quarter, was ordered UV . Yesterday was settling day at the Stock Exchange, in orankras.,
make a retrowade movement, in order to attract the Every thing went off moodily. The bargains by the bonze of
enemy from Villa-tibia.
,Francisquet fell into the Messrs. Comasuto awl Co. were all fulfilled.•
Ki.., THE STAVE LOTTERY WII.I. BEGIN AND MUSH
snare, and, when he discovered his imprudence, it •
-S
was too late to escape. He was brought to action ! DRAWING TO ORROW.
by 400 of the Nassau infantry and 60 cavalry. The :
Farther accounts may be expected in less than
affair lasted only a quarter of an hour, but,• in that ..
twenty-four hours from Lord WELLINGTON, the wind
short, period• the enemy lost 180 killed, and had a
number of wounded. 'Among the latter is Francis- . being now perfectly fair. In the mean time we have
quet himself. The two cannon and all the ammuni- . inserted in another column some letters brought by
tiOn fell into our hands. M. de Kruse, who commands ' the GLEANER from Officers belonging to his Lord-
the regiment of Nassau, merits the highest praise. i ship's army, and which partly serve to fill up the
chasm in the official dispatches, and to explain some
1 points respecting the position of the allied army.—
It appears that the main body crossed to the south-
ward of the Mondego ; -but there are about 11,000
men in front of Coimbra, and it is understood that
the French will not be quietly allowed either to occupy
that town or to cross the Mondego. They were on
the 30th ult. at Avelans, about 20 miles from Coim-
bra. MAssENA, therefore, has not yet accomplished
his object ; on the contrary, he has been completely
foiled ; and should Lord WELLINGTON chuse to retire
without fighting another battle in this quarter, it will
be *holly matter of choice with his Lordship, and
certainly not of necessity.
The circumstances and prospects of the allied army
arc certainly much improved. By the reports of
Lord WELLINGTON, and from all the statemeats which
have ever been published up. to the present day, it ap..
pears that MASSENA entered Portugal against him
with an army of 70,000 men. However impatient
others might have been for a general action, we al-
ways thought that the English Commander acted
with prudence in not rashly bringing against these a
force of which so large a proportion consisted of du-
tried Portuguese ; and, that he deserved praise rather
than censure for leaving Almeida to its fate, under
such circumstances.—And now mark the result :
MAFSF,S A is, at this moment, in a situation some _
what similar to, but much worse than, Lord WEL-
LINGTON'S former one ; let us see how he extricates
himself :—He is on a remote frontier, and with an
inferior army, and that army with nothing but the,
ground it covers, as Lord Wraaaxcero:: stated in his
dispatches ; while his Lordship has an open and
fi iendly country .to retire through. The original)
SEVENTY THOUSAND French, exclusive of all other de.,
duct:ons, sunk by the single battle of Busaco to sixry
THOUSAND ; and, supposing any fresh tupplies to have
arrived from France, yet these, and more, must be ex-1
pended upon the garrisons of the captured towns, and
in supplying the places of those who fell in the capture of
them. Against these SIXTY THOUSAND, if there are in
truth so many, the British General is able to bring into
the field THIRTY-EIX THOUSAND English, and FORTY-Fivs,
THOUSAND Portuguese troops of the line,. the latter
tried and "found wort of contending in the raals wigs
the former ;" in all, EIGHTY-ONE THOUSAND men.—
There are besides these, the Portuguese maaia FlFTY-
moult THOUSAND in number, and the ordenanza ; whom
Lord Wcr.r.txcrox describes as having " h trassed the
flanks and rear of MASSENA'S army, (even) in his ad.
Vance from Celerico to Viseu :" how will they infest
him in his retreat ? His communication with Almeida,
too, (as his Lordship's dispatches likewise inform us)
"is completely cut off." T. all these ciicumstances
must be added the natural despondency created in
the tninds of his men by the signal overthrow at
Busaco, wherein they lost more than a seventh part
of their whole body. Lord WELLINGTON retreated be.
fore an army that had not defeated him, and that
could niit defeat him; MASSENA will have to escape
from one by which he has been already beaten.

MOUNT VESUVIUS.

NAPLES, SEPTEMBER !4.

The recent eruption will make the year 1810 an
epoch in the annals of Vesuvius, on account of the
ree-oner in which it began, and the disasters it has
produced. It is considered as a very extraordinary
circumstance that this eruption was not preceded by
the usual indications ; every convulsion' of Vesuvius
being previously announced by the drying up or the
wells of Naples. This phenomenon did not take place
on this occasion, and, to the great surprise of the in-
habitants, Vesuvius began to emit flames on the night
of the 10th of September.
On the morning, of the 11th, the flames became
more intense, and the lava began to flow from the east
and south-east sides tit the mountain. Towards even-
ingethe cr4Alegration increased, and about twilight
two grand 'streams of fire were seen to flow down the
ridge of the volcano; night produced no change ii
this state of things.
On the morning of the 12th a hollow sound was
heard, and has always been increasing; the fire and
smoke have- equally augmented in- intensity; and.
towards evening the horizon was obscured. The
breeze, usual in these parts, having blown from the
south-east, dissipated the accumulated clouds. The
mountain continued to vomit lava and a dense smoke,
; which even at a distance was strongly sulphureous ;
the hollow noise in the sides of the mountain conti-
nued to increase.

Curious to witness. as near as possible one of the
most astonishing phenomena of nature, and forgetting
the misfortune of Pliny, I set on' from Naples, and
at eight in the evening I reached Portici. From thence
to the summit of the mountain the road is long and
difficult. About half way there is a hermitage, which
has long served for refuge and shelter to the traveller
—a good hermit has there fixed his residence, and
takes cane to furnish for a moderate sum, refresh.
ments, which to the fatigued traveller are worth their
weight in gold. The euvirrms of this hermitage pro.
dtice the famous w ine Lachryma Christi.—
From the hermitage to the foot of the cave, there is a
long quarter of a league of road, tolerably good ;
but in order to reach from thence the crater, it is ne-
cessary to climb a mountain of cinders, where at every
step you siiik up to the mid-leg. It took my com-
panions, myself, and our guides, two hotirS to make
this ascent ; and it was already midnight when we
reached the crater.

The fire of the Volcano served us for a torch ; the
noise had totally ceased for two hours; the flame had
also considerably decreased : these circumstances aug-
mented our security, and supplied us with the neces-
sary confidence in traversing such dangerous ground.
We approached as near as heat would permit, and
we set fire to the sticks of our guides in the Lva,
which slowly ran through the hollows of the crater.
The surface of this inflamed matter nearly resembles
metal its a state of fusion ; but as it flows it carri::s
kind of scum, which hardens as it cools, and then
forms masses of scoria, which dash against each
other, and roll all on fire, with noise, to the foot of
the mountain. Strong fumes of sulphuric acid gas
arise in abundance from these scoria, and by Eteir
caustic and penetrating qualities render respiration
difficult.

• ..e • • I' •
• •

We seemed to be pretty secure in this situation, an• 11
were far from thinking of retiring, when a frightful
explosion, which lannched into the air fragments of
burning rocks to the distance of more than 100 toises,
reminded us of the danger to which we were exposed.
None of us hesitated a moment in emLracing a re.
treat, and in five minutes we cleared in our descent a
space of ground which we had taken two hours tl
climb.

We had not reached the hermitage before a noise
more frightful than ever was heard, and the volcano,
hi all its fury, began to launch a mass equal to some
thousand cart-loads of stones, and fragments of bnim
ing reeks, with a projectile force wbicb it would be
difficult to calculate. As the projection was vertical,
alinost the whole of this burning mass fell back again
into the mouth of theyolcano, which vomited it forth
anew to receive it again,. with the exception of some
fragments which flew off, to fall at a distanee, and
alarm the inquisitive spectator, who avoided them ;
as, on public fetes, we aVoid the handle of the rockets
in. our fireworks.

After this Paper was at Press, the following intel,
ligence was received in town from F.ilmouth :

" FALMOUTH, OCTOBER 16.

" The Nocton packet, from Cadiz, is arrived here ;
she sailed on the Bth instant on the 7th a vessel ar-
rived at Cult* from Uslion, from whence she sailed
on the 3d instant; the Master brought -the account
Ihe action of the 27th' Olt, and states; that on the
2d instant another engsgeinent took place, in which
the French lost 20,000 in killed andwOunded."

The ISth commenced with nearly ihe,same appear•
antes as those of the preceding day: The volcano'
was tranquil, and.the lava ran slowly in the channels'
which it had formed during the night ; lAA at four in
the afttrnocin, a frightful and continued noise, accom-.
!sallied with frequent explosions, announced a new
eruption ; the shocks of the volcano were so violent,
that at Fort de L'CEti, built upon a rock, where I
then was, at the distance of near four leagues, I felt
oscillations similar to those produced- by an earth.
quake.

About fiveso'clock the eruption commenced, and
' continued during the greater part of the night. This
time the burning matter flowed down all the sides of
tke mountain, with a force hitherto unprecedented ;
ail Vesuvius was on fire, and the lava has caused the
greatest losses ; houses and whole estates leave been
overwhelmed, and at this day families in tears and
reduced to despair search in.. vain for the *,,nheritance
of their ancestors, buried under the &owing lava.
At ten at night, the hermitage was. Ito longer ac.
cessible,; a river of fire bad ohstrutted the road. The ,
districts. situated on. Ate south-east quarter of the i
mountain had stiU'more•so ‘niFer. Mtitint Vesuv.
was no longer any thing btit one vast s.tm e, *tad the
seaman at a great distance might rinqinplate, at his
'leisure, this terrific illumination of natia* &c. -
. .