The sum destined, according to the regulation of the sinking fund commission, to the diminution of the mass of assignats in circulation, consists for the year 1822 of 32,402,715 roubles. He observed, that the examination of the account presented by the commission would convince the council, that, notwithstanding an augmentation of the public debt, the payment of the capital and the interest was perfectly secured. Assignat Bank.-According to a statement under this head, the law prohibiting new emissions of assignats has been strictly observed, and the quantity now in circulation is 595,721,010 roubles. Loan Bank. The sums advanced by this bank in the year 1822, chiefly for assistance to manufacturing establishments, amount to 10,495,791 roubles 50 copecs in assignats. According to the account presented by the Bank, its profits amount to 8,557 roubles 334 copecs in gold; 81,681 roubles 18 copecs in silver; 1,444,284 roubles 82 copecs in assignats. Commercial Bank.-The capital of this establishnient, fixed at 30 millions, was completed in 1822. Its transactions during the same year extended to 185,230,858 roubles 72 copecs. The loans on merchandise exceeded those of 1821 by 4,366,552 roubles 31 copecs. There remain due on protested bills of exchange, the payment of which the Bank is prosecuting before the ordinary tribunals, 2,351,313 roubles 50 copecs. The profits of the Bank and its factories, deducting their expense, amount to 1,810,615 roubles 55 copecs. The Bank had in all its transactions strictly followed the prescrib ed rules; and the examination of the accounts showed that the total of the returns of that establishment and its factories, in the year 1822, is 890,079,035 roubles 10 copecs in assignats, and 6,900,616 roubles 31 copecs in metallics. The Minister concluded by saying, "Having thus presented to you a view of the operations of our credit establishments, I have to beg that you will bring to the examination of these accounts the same attention and impartiality which in former years so powerfully contributed to convince the public of the order observed in those establishments, and the scrupulous punctuality with which they adhere to the course originally traced out for them. For my part, I shall not fail to co-operate in every thing capable of supporting and consolidating them, by combining their future operations with the actual situation of affairs, with the experience of the past, with the beneficent inten. tions of our august Sovereign, and consequently with the public interest, as well as with the interests of individuals." PERSIA. The Persian Minister, Mirza Mahomed Saulit, having effected the object of his mission to this country,and made the necessary arrangements for his departure for Russia, in the Jasper sloop of war, has issued, as his last public act, an official noti fication from the Prince Royal of Persia, to the people of England, and the several other European nations, of which the following is a copy: "As many families from European countries have lately resorted, some to America and New Holland, Holland, and others to Georgia and Daghistan, as settlers; his Royal Highness Abbas Mirza, the Prince Royal of Persia, through the medium of his Minister at the Court of Great Britain, personally assures all those who may be inclined to take up their residence in his kingdom of Adzirbijan, of which the capital is Tabriz, that, on their arrival in the district of Sauvidgeboulogh, he will immediately assign to them portions of land, with residences attached, and every requisite for their comfort and subsistence. The soil will yield abundant crops of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, and every species of fruit or grain they may choose to cultivate; and the natural produce of the country exceeds that of any other quarter of the globe. Besides receiving grants of lands, such settlers shall, as long as they reside in Persia, be exempt from all taxes or contributions of any kind; their property and persons be held sacred, under the immediate protection of the Prince himself; who further engages, that they shall be treated with the greatest kindness and attention, and, as is the custom of Persia, be at full liberty to enjoy their own religious opinions and feelings, and to follow, without control or interruption, their own mode of worship. As all travellers who have visited Persia agree that it is the best climate under the sun, it is only necessary to state, by way of exemplification, that it is the usual place of resort for persons whose health has been impaired by a residence in India, and it rarely happens that such invalids do not speedily become convalescent from the change. "His Royal Highness, in issuing his commands to give publicity to these sentiments, is prompted by an ardent desire naturally to promote the welfare of settlers, and the improvement of his country; which he is convinced, from past experience, would be greatly ad vanced in knowledge, and materially benefited in every point of view, by a more extended and familiar intercourse with Europeans, and especially with those whom he has ever felt pleasure in designating his English friends.' "The undersigned, in thus promulgating the views and wishes of his Prince, in obedience to the positive commands with which he has been honoured, scarcely conceives it necessary to offer any observations upon the assurances given in this paper, as the charac ter of his Royal Highness is so well understood, and has been so duly appreciated by the subjects of Great Britain who have for years heen domiciled in Persia, and to which many authors both of that and other countries have added their testimony; but for the satisfaction of such individuals as may not have the facility of obtaining informa tion upon this point, the Prince's devoted servant and humble representative begs leave to state that his Royal Master has ever been characterized as amiable, just, benevolent, and honourable in the highest degree; though dignified in his deportment, extremely affable; proverbially of a liberal, enlight ened, and magnanimous mind; possessing great intellectual powers, which are nobly applied; a strenu ous advocate for pure morality, and religion without bigotry; the friend of the oppressed and needy; uniformly administering strict and impartial justice, but at the same time exercising his high preroga tive with the most merciful consideration; ardent in his endeavours to cultivate the mind, and improve the condition of all classes of his subjects, as far as the circumstances in which he is placed will admit; indeed, it may be said with truth, that he is pre-eminently distinguished for every virtue that is estimable in civilized society, or that can adorn and dignify the monarch or the man. "MAHOMED SAULIT. "No. 25, Great Coram-street, London, July 8." SOUTH AMERICAN INDEPEN DENCE. Preliminary Convention agreed upon between the Government of Buenos-Ayres and the Commissioners of his Catholic Majesty. The Government of BuenosAyres having recognized, and caused to be recognized, in virtue of credentials presented and legalized in competent form, Senores Don Antonio Luis Pereyra and Don Luis de la Robla, as Commissioners from the Government of his Catholic Majesty; and it being proposed to the said Senores, by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the said state of Buenos-Ayres, to agree to a Convention preliminary to the definitive Treaty of Peace and Amity which is to be concluded between the Government of his Catholic Majesty the Government of the United Provinces, upon the bases established in the law of the 19th of June of the present year; they, after considering and reciprocally discussing whatever they held to be calculated to conduce to the better adjustment of the relations of the said States, have, in the ex1823. and ercise of the character with which they are invested, and of the powers conferred on them, agreed to the said Preliminary Convention in the terms expressed in the following articles : Article 1. After sixty days, reckoning from the ratification of the present Convention by the Governments to which it applies, all hostilities, by sea and by land, shall cease between the said Governments and the Spanish nation. 2. In consequence, the General of the forces of his Catholic Majesty at present in Peru, will continue in the positions which he shall occupy at the time of the convention being notified to him, saving the particular stipulations which, for reciprocal convenience, the adjacent Governments may propose or accept, for the purpose of improving their respective lines of occupation during the suspension of hostilities. 3. The relations of commerce, with the sole exception of articles contraband of war, shall, during the period of the said suspension, be fully re-established between the provinces of the Spanish Monarchy, those occupied by the armies of his Catholic Majesty in Peru, and the states which ratify this convention. 4. In consequence, the flags of the respective States shall be reciprocally respected and admitted into each other's ports. 5. The relations of maritime commerce between the Spanish nation and the States which may ratify this Convention, shall be regulated by a special Convention, the framing of which shall be entered upon in pursuance of the present convention. 6. Neither the Authorities ad2 K ministering ministering the provinces of Peru in the name of his Catholic Majesty, nor the adjacent States, shall impose on the trade of each other higher duties than those which may exist at the period of the conclusion of the present convention. 7. The suspension of hostilities shall subsist for the space of eighteen months. 8. Within the said period the Government of the State of BuenosAyres will negotiate, through the medium of a plenipotentiary of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata, and conformably to the law of the 19th of June, the conclusion of a definitive treaty of peace and amity between his Catholic Majesty and the States of the American Continent to which the said law refers. 9. In case of the renewal of hostilities, such renewal shall not take place, nor shall the relations of commerce be interrupted, until four months after the intimation of hostilities. 10. The law existing in the Spanish Monarchy, as well as in the State of Buenos-Ayres, respecting the inviolability of property, even though it may be an enemy's property, shall have full force, in the case of the operation of the preceding article, within the territories of the Governments which may ratify this convention, and reciprocally. 11. As soon as the Government of Buenos-Ayres shall be authorised by the House of Representatives to ratify this convention, it will negotiate the accession thereto of the Governments of Chile, Peru, and the other united provinces of the Rio de la Plata; and the Commissioners of his Catholic Majesty will, at the same time, take every means for giving to this accession, on the part of the authorities of his Catholic Majesty, the most prompt and complete effect. 12. For the due effect and validity of this convention, the necessary copies shall be signed and sealed on the part of the Commissioners of his Catholic Majesty with their seal, and on the part of the Government of Buenos-Ayres with the seal of the Department for Foreign Affairs. Buenos-Ayres, July 4. BERNARDIN RIVADAVIA, of July current is preliminary, that there shall be voted, by the American States recognized independent, in virtue of the said definitive treaty, for maintaining the independence of Spain under the representative system, the same sum of twenty millions as that which in the month of March last was supplied for destroying it by the Chambers of Paris. Buenos-Ayres, July 4. RIVADAVIA. DECREE OF THE KING OF SPAIN upon his Liberation by the French Troops. The scandalous excesses which preceded, accompanied, and followed the establishment of the Democratical Constitution of Cadiz, in the month of March 1820, have been made public, and knowu to all my subjects. The most criminal treason, the most disgraceful baseness, the most horrible offences against my Royal person-these, coupled with violence, were the means employed to change essentially the paternal Government of my kingdom into a democratical code, the fertile source of disasters and misfortunes. My subjects, accustomed to live under wise and moderate laws, and such as were conformable to their manners and customs, and which during so many ages constituted the welfare of their ancestors, soon gave public and universal proofs of their disapprobation and contempt of the new Constitutional System. All classes of the State experienced the mischiefs caused by the new institutions. Tyrannically governed, by virtue and in the name of the Constitution, secretly watched in all their private concerns, it was not possible to restore order or justice; and they could not obey laws established by perfidy and treason, sustained by violence, and the source of the most dreadful disorders, of the most desolating anarchy, and of universal calamity. The general voice was heard from all sides against the tyrannical Constitution; it called for the cessation of a code null in its origin, illegal in its formation, and unjust in its principle; it called for the maintenance of the sacred religion of their ancestors, for the re-establishment of our fundamental laws, and for the preservation of my legitimate rights-rights which I have received from my ancestors, and which my subjects have soleinnly sworn to defend. This general cry of the nation was not raised in vain. In all the provinces armed corps were formed, which leagued themselves against the soldiers of the Constitution: sometimes they were conquerors-sometimes they were conquered; but they always remained firm to the cause of religion and of the monarchy. Their enthusiasm in the defence of objects so sacred never deserted them under the reverses of war; and preferring death to the sacrifice of those great benefits, my subjects convinced Europe, by their fidelity and their constancy, that although Spain nourished in her bosom some unnatural children, the sons of rebellion, the nation in general was religious, monarchical, and passionately devoted to its legitimate Sovereign. The whole of Europe-well aware of my captivity, and of that of all the Royal Family, of the deplorable situation of my loyal and faithful |