this circum tance tends to show, that if the framer of the bill had given way to every adviser, he would have furnished a remarkable illustration of the fable of the man, suffering under the accumulated sin and sorrow of a double marriage. In short, we had ourselves, an intention of offering some suggestions on this bill, particularly on the clause relative to parsonagehouses, which, we fear, will suffer great dilapidation and decay from it; but, when we came to hear the opinions of others, we found, that if the advice of all of us were listened to, the bill would soon be reduced to blank paper. Agreeing, theretore, with this brother layman, that some law on the subject is absolutely necessary, and having got the better of our own desire to be heard in regulating the affairs of the Church, we hope he will not think it altogether unreasonable, if we exhort him to make a similar sacrifice. down on the subject, was found to be so clear, established by arguments so entirely incontrovertible, that to have proceeded to punishment would have been universally regarded as a most flagrant violation of justice in the present case, and would, moreover, have opened a door for endless complaints and unlimited ministerial oppression:-I beg to be understood as not to say this by way of boast. I am very far from wishing to be thought learned in the law, with which I never desire to have any thing to do, particularly with the law of libels; and, I only state my opinion as to the effect of my defence of MR. PELTIER, in order to remind my readers of what might have been done by his advocate at the bar.-With respect to MR. PELTIER, though he has, to the honour of the Attorney General and of the law of England, found personal protection against the vengeance of Buonaparté and the pusillanimity of our ministers, in property he must have considerably suffered. His time, his MONSIEUR TINSEAU has in the press, mind, his means, have been expended in a and, we understand, will publish, next week, long, anxious, and expensive attendance on, an" Apologie des Royalistes Emigrés, conand provision for his defence. His affairs "tre le libelle diffamatoire, publié sous le must have suffered much from the state of" nom d'Amnistie, par le nommé Napoléona uncertainty, in which he so long has been "Buonaparté, alias, Buonaparté d'Ajaccio, kept; and, though I know little, or rather" se disant Consul de France."-A work of nothing, of the intentions of himself and his this sort was very much wanted in this friends, I trust that there will be found libe- country, where very erroneous opinions are, rality enough to produce him a compensa- by some persons, entertained respecting the tion. That we should honour and cherish Amnesty of Buonaparté, which is, in reality, him, there can be no better proof, than that an act of cruelty and of perfidy. he is hated and dreaded by Buonaparté; and, when to this consideration is added that of his having suffered in our country and for our own cause, that cause for which we are now again at war, I should be ashamed to doubt of his obtaining, in some way or other, full and adequate reparation and reward. WM. COBBETT. NOTICES. VERITAS, on the Navy, shall appear next week without fail. The address TO THE PUBLIC, on the conduct of Lord St. Vincent relative to the Mediterranean shall also appear. THE SKETCHES OF SWENSKA, which we' noticed last week, as being for sale in London, will be found particularly useful in examining the views of Russia relative to France. We cannot but repeat, that every politician should be in possession of this book. Mark, too, the author's predictions with respect to the views of Russia, on the side of Turkey and India, and compare what he says, with the events now passing in that quarter. We have to apologize to our Readers for having almost entirely filled up this sheet with our remarks on different subjects, to the exclusion of more solid and useful matter; but, in our next, which will consist of two sheets, we hope to be able to inake reparation. * A LAYMAN, on the Clergy-Bill, shall be inserted, if we have room for some remarks, on it, without which it would be, in us, an ** The first Volume of this Work is unjustifiable act to publish it to the world. now reprinted, and will be ready for deliWe, too, could have wished the bill to un- very on Monday next.-Both FIRST and dergo some further alterations; but, the dis- SECOND Volumes, together with the forelike which we have to this measure, is found-going Numbers of the THIRD, may be had ed, in most respects, upon reasons exactly op- of HARDING, Pall Mall, BAGSHAW, Bow posite to those advanced by this writer; and Street, and RICHARDSON, Royal Exchange. LONDON, LONDON, May 28 to June 4, 1803. 801] TO THE RT. HON. LD. HAWKESBURY, &c. MY LORD,-In my last letter (see p. 782), I endeavoured to exhibit a view of the consequences resulting from the treaty of Amiens, together with the conduct and motives of your lordship and your colleagues relative to that treaty. The second head of examination, that on which I am now about to enter, is, the prominent features of your misconduct, since the conclusion of the peace; and these I propose to consider in the following order: 1. The press; 2. the French Emigrants and Vendean royalists; 3. Switzerland; 4. French troops in Holland, and the Cape of Good Hope and other Dutch colonies; 5. Malta and Egypt; 6. Louisi ana. 1. The PRESS, my lord, has long been a favourite folly in this island; it has done infinite mischief; it has, beyond all comparison, done more harm than good, as to religion and civil liberty, as well as to politics. To the press it is that we owe the innumerable swarms of sectaries, who have, for an hundred and fifty years past, distracted the minds of the people, and in some instances, led them to commit the most detestable and horrid of crimes; to the press we owe all those hard-biting laws, which, though absolutely necessary for the preservation of the peace and the safety of the state, must be regarded as a considerable diminution of the civil liberty, enjoyed by the mass of the people, previous to the prevalent influence of the press; to the press we owe the American rebellion, the rebellion in Ireland, and to the press, the English press, the world owes the rebellion and the ursurpation in France. But, my lord, this most potent instrument, after having been employed in the work of irreligion, civil slavery, and rebellion, became, at the close of the last war, formidable to Buonaparté, not because he was an apostate, a rebel, an ursurper, and a tyrant; but, because, after having established his power, he had become the enemy of the press itself, from a suspicion, that it might produce, with respect to him, effects similar to those which it had produced with respect to his lawful Sovereign. Very easy, therefore, was it to VOL. III. [S02 perceive, that he would use his influence to the utmost, in order to silence, with regard to himself and his government, the press of England, and of America, but particularly that of the former country. This his inclination and intention I pointed out more than a year ago, even before the treaty of peace was concluded; and, I stated, at the same time, that he would certainly endeavour to silence also every member of parliament, who should dare to expose his views and justly characterize his conduct (1).--Thus, my lord, you were duly forewarned of this source of altercation and quarrel; and, therefore, it was your duty to have been upon your guard, and to have opposed a resolute or inflexible resistance, against the very first approaches of the ursurper's interference on the subject of the press. Do we find this resolution and inflexibility in your conduct, as exhibited in the correspondence laid before Parliament? No, my lord; we perceive you, in the first instance, adopting a tone well calculated to invite further interference, reiterated demands, and additional insults. If, in answer to OTTо's (your dear friend OTTO's) impudent request to punish Peltier, Cobbett, and Regnier (editor of the Courier de Londres), you had simply observed, that the courts were open, but that neither you nor your colleagues had, or could or would have, any thing to do with the matter, you would have heard no more of these complaints, or the dispute would have been brought to an issue, while the conquered places were yet in our hands; but, instead of this firm and dignified sort of reply, you fell into a strain of explanation made up of that pacific pusillanimity and hacknied pleaderlike equivocation, which are so disgustingly apparent in your letter to your friend OTTO of the 28th of July. This letter is a paltry apology for the existence of what is called the liberty of the press: you say, that it is impossible his Majesty's government (meaning the ministry, I suppose) "could peruse the article in question" (an article by Mr. Peltier)," without the greatest dis 66 "pleasure, and without an anxious desire, | "that the person who published it should "suffer the punishment he so justly deserves." Then, after lamenting the inconveniencies of prosecutions for libel, and the difficulty of obtaining judgment against the offenders, you conclude by stating that you have, with regard to the article complained of, referred the matter to the King's Attorney General, "for his opinion whether it is or is not a libel." So, my lord, after having declared, that you and your colleagues have read the article with the greatest displeasure, after having declared Mr. Peltier to be justly deserving of punishment, and that you anxiously desire to see him punished; after all this, you acknowledge, that you do not know, whether the article be or be not a libel, whether the publisher be or be not deserving of punishment, of that very punishment, which you anxiously desire he should receive! That this proof of so complying a disposition was well calculated to produce a renewal and perseverance in those attempts, which the French Consul had already made against the press, is certain. When the insolent commissary of prisoners perceived, that you and your worthy colleagues were so ready to join in the condemnation of the persons he accused, and especially when he found you, merely to humour his master, anxiously desireus to punish that which you did not know to be a crime; thus encouraged, it was no wonder that he should rise in his demands, and that he should have the audacity, in his letter of the 17th of August, to give to his complaints a retrospective extent, embracing those persons who had "written "volumes to prove the necessity of the last "war against France," the suppression of which also he would have demanded, and, perhaps, not without success, if you and your colleagues had not feared the consequences as to your own persons. It is not, however, as a cause of adding to the misunderstanding, and, finally, as contributing towards the rupture which has now taken place, that I am now to consider your letter of the 28th of July; but, as discovering a disposition, on your part, to shackle the press, for the purpose of preserving the friendship of Buonaparté; and, this disposi tion is, I think, clearly manifested by your expressing the opinion of His Majesty's government that Mr. Peltier deserved punishment, and by declaring your anxious desire to see him suffer punishment, before you had been able to ascertain whether the act he was charged with was a crime or not. This is the ground of accusation against you, a ground,' too, which gathers great strength from the subsequent proceedings against that injured gentleman; for, we now know, that, in consequence of the complaints of the French Minister, Mr. Peltier has been prosecuted for the pretended libel laid to his charge, that the prosecution was grounded upon the precedent cases of Lord George Gordon and Mr. Vint, that the Attorney General stated the relation of an historical fact not to come within the just causes for such a prosecution, and, it is notorious, that the matters for which Lord George Gordon and Mr. Vint were prosecuted were, in the strictest sense of the words, relations of historical facts; yet, upon this ground, and in virtue of this doctrine, we have seen Mr. Peltier convicted under a strong charge from the Bench to that effect; but, after an investigation of his case by the public, and after all hopes of keeping peace with Buonaparté had vanished, we have seen the Attorney General refrain from demanding judgement, and we must now regard Mr. Peltier as legally discharged. These cir cumstances, viewed in conjunction with your letter of the 28th of July, amount to an irrefragable proof of your desire, if not of your intention, to impose shackles on the press, unwarranted by the law of the land. 2. THE FRENCH EMIGRANTS AND VENDEAN ROYALISTS you did not, my lord, consent to drive out of the country; this act of abominable despotism, to which you were moved, was not consummated; but, in your letter of the 28th of August, to suppose the case of the Princes of the house of Bourbon being induced to quit Great Britain; your words are: "His Majesty has no desire, "that they should continue to reside in this country, if they are disposed, or can be "induced to quit it;" which appears to me to amount to a pretty clear indication of your intention to urge them so to do; or, in other words, to oblige them to do it, if they should not take the hint in due time.-As to the wearing of the insignia of the orders of French nobility, your lordship thought, that the persons so doing did wrong, though you happened to have no law to prevent, or punish it: It might be more proper if they all abstained from it." And why? why more proper? Because their Sovereign was in exile, and because a rebel had usurped his throne? Was this the reason? Was it thus that you would, under similar circumstances, evince your fidelity to your Sovereign? God send you may never be put to the trial, and let all the people say, Amen! This is a tolerable good criterion whereby to judge of your lordship's notions of nobility, of the obligations of honour and of alle giance. Were I your King, you most assuredly would never be exposed to the temp tation of committing the base act, here recommended to the French nobility. What a figure does this nation make, in the papers now before Parliament! Never surely was degradation half so complete! But, the worst act of all was, the promise to transport GEORGES and his fellow Royalists to Canada. This is denied, or, at least, qualified; but, will any one believe, that the French minister would have spoken of the promise in such confident terms, if no such promise had been made? I know, my lord, that an endeavour was made to accomplish this promise, and you as well as I know that it failed. To comment on this attempt would be useless: the naked fact is all that is wanted, and that I am sure you dare not deny; if you should, an exposure, not less Complete than that respecting the Maltese deputation, shall very soon make its appearance. It is not unnecessary here to observe, however, that this nation was bound, not merely by the ties of gratitude and hospitality, but by bonds still more powerful, to protect all the Vendean Royalists, and to make an ample provision for their future support. People in general seem to imagine, that the poor miserable pennies, bestowed as a sort of alms, accompanied with all the insolence of office, are to be regarded as a favour towards these gallant gentlemen; but, the fact is, that this nation was bound by the most sacred obligations to make stipulations for them in the treaty of peace, obligations which were basely set at nought. If Oxford and his colleagues deserved impeachment for their conduct towards the Catalans, what, my lord, do the Richmond Park Ministry deserve for their conduct towards the Vendeans? 3. SWITZERLAND, like every other country whereunto France extended her encroachments, was an object worthy the attention of a British ministry; but, having made a remonstrance in favour of the Swiss, how came you to be satisfied without a satisfactory answer, and even without any answer at all? The remonstrance was made on the 10th of October, 1802. Yet, after this you not only kept peace, but proceeded in the surrender of the conquests then remaining in our hands; But, what strikes me as the most singular in this remonstrance, is, that it was grounded on the principles of the treaty of Amiens as viewed in conjunction with the stipulations of that of Luneville, when it is well known, that, during the debates on the former of those treaties, you yourself had declared, that its stipulations were in no-wise connected with those of the latter, and that upon this very ground, you opposed the laying the treaty of Luneville before the Parliament, when a motion for that purpose was, on the 6th of May, 1802, made by Lord Temple, which motion was by your means negatived by the last com. plying parliament (2). 4. FRENCH TROOPS IN HOLLAND. You complained of the French troops remaining in Holland. The ground of your complaint existed the moment the treaty of Amiens was concluded; yet, from an examination of the papers; in which we are told to look for a justification of your conduct, we find that no remonstrance was ever made on this subject till the month of February, 1803, and even then incidentally; yet you proceeded in the restoration of the Dutch colonies, including the Cape, when you must have known, that the mother country was garrisoned by French troops, and was, to all intents and purposes, an appendage of the French empire. On the 17th of October, you gave orders, in consequence of the French incursion into Switzerland, with which the Dutch had nothing to do, to retain the Dutch colonies: the Cape was retained, or rather, as it happened, recaptured. On the 14th of November you instruct Lord Whitworth to remonstrate about the French troops in Holland; yet, with this proof of your knowledge of the subjugated state of Holland before our eyes, we see you, on the very next day, the 15th of. November, sending a counter order to give up the Dutch colonies, and the Cape amongst the rest! Holland being, then, on the 15th of November, in exactly the same state with respect to France as she was in on the 17th of October, it follows of course, that, if she was independent at the later date, she was so at the more early. This, therefore, is the dilemma, to which you are reduced if Holland was independent, you were, on the 17th of October, guilty of a most scandalous violation of the treaty of Amiens; and, if she was not independent, you knowingly surrendered, on the 15th of November, the Cape into the hands of France, and that, too, after having had repeated and very recent proofs of the hostile intentions of that power. 5. MALTA AND EGYPT.-Your conduct with regard to Malta, as far down as the treaty of Amiens inclusive, has been amply exposed in the publication of the authentic papers relative thereto. The subsequent transactions, the abolition of some of the langues, the consent to a mode of electing the Grand Master unknown to the treaty, together with all your various pitiful subterfuges about guarantees, are they not written (2) See Debates, Register, Vol. II. p. 1235. in the book which you have laid before Parliament, and are they not too ridiculous to merit particular animadversion. But, Malta considered as the out-work of Egypt, and by that means of India; Malta, considered as the final cause of the rupture, and as the ostensible object of the war, cannot be separated from Sebastiani's Report, which was the principal ground on which you resolved, as you say, not to give it up. When, therefore, did you first hear of this report? In January, 1803. But, my lord, though you had not seen the report before January, you were, as appears by your letter of the 30th of November, at that more early period informed of the arrival of Sebastiani in Egypt; and who can doubt, that you were by the same means, duly informed of his offensive language, and of the evident object of his mission? Yet, after the receipt of this information, you not only gave orders to evacuate Egypt, but we find you professing an intention to lose no time in evacuating Malta also! With this evidence before our eyes, can we possibly regard Sebastiani's Report, which only gives a detailed account of the least hostile part of his conduct in Egypt; is it possible that we can regard it as being, with respect to the present war, any thing more than a mere pretext, a mere disguise to the real motives, by which you and your colleagues were actuated in deferring the surrender of Malta? These motives were, first to have something in hand, as a security against the consequences which you expected to arise from your retention of the Cape, if that retention happened to take place; something about which to make a quarrel, whereby to form a plausible pretext for the arming of the country, if the news of the retention of the Cape should arise previous to that of its final surrender, and which pretext was at last brought forward in the message, which His Majesty was advised to send to the Parliament on the 8th of March. I have, my lord, before given it as my decided opinion, that the news of the retention of the Cape, was the immediate cause of the message, which opinion has not been, in the smallest degree, shaken by the papers before Parliament, notwithstanding the 18th of March is stated to be the day, when you received the dispatch of General Dundas, giving an account of his having executed your orders for that retention. You do not say, nor can you say, my lord, that you did not, through another channel, receive more early information of that event. You dare not say, that you did not receive the intelligence, on which you acted, on the 5th or 6th of March; and I say, that I am fully persuaded you did, a persuasion which is not at all impaired by any statement made by the present ministry, that ministry who denied having any official document relative to the laws and constitution of Malta; that ministry who have declared that they never heard of the Maltese deputies having been refused an official audience; that ministry who are now accused to the world, and with every appearance of justice, of having suppressed a very material part of Lord Whitworth's note to Talleyrand of the 10th of May, which note they present to the Parliament as being entire: by any statement of such men, my opinion, as to the matter in question is not to be altered, and I remain fully convinced, that if the order for the final evacuation of the Cape had overtaken the order for its retention, the hostile message would not even yet have reached the houses of Parliament.-There were, however, other motives. A war was necessary for the purpose of creating circumstances sufficient to render the financial statements of Mr. Addington no longer applicable. The deficit, the alarming deficit was discovered. No hopes of a commercial treaty could be entertained. In short, the whole finance system, the whole of the system for "husbanding our resources against another "day of trial," had proved abortive. Instead of increasing the "capital, credit and con"fidence," which were to give us strength and security, the peace was found to have placed the funds absolutely in the power of Buonaparté, who, through that channel, drew from us the means of maintaining the army destined to invade and subdue us; and thus "the horrors of war" became necessary to prevent the approaching and greater horrors of peace. It was not, therefore, for the possession of Malta, and, through it, for the defence of Egypt and the security of India that we were called on to arm; but, generally, to put an end to the peace, and particularly, to be prepared for the consequences that might result from the intelligence of our having retained, or recaptured, the Cape of Good Hope. 6. LOUISIANA is the last topic, on which I proposed to speak to your Lordship; and, a very important topic it is.-I stated, in my former letter, the advantages which our enemy has derived from the cession of this colony, in consequence of the peace: I am now to show, how this might have been prevented, and what advantages we might have derived from a more speedy termination of that peace. The Louisiana expedition was ready to sail at the moment when the King's first message was delivered. If we had brought the negotiation to a close immediately, and had had a small squadron to, |