be? Will he say, that the electors do really hereby obtain the opportunity stated above? I think, he will not; for it is impossible for him to produce me a single instance of a member of parliament having been prevented from again entering the walls of the House after having accepted of a place of profit under the Crown. It is notorious, that the vacating of the seat, upon such an occasion, is a mere matter of form. The Secretaries of State, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the rest of them, are appointed without any one entertaining the smallest doubt of their being again returned. Nay, when a change of ministry takes place, during a session of parliament, is it not notorious, that "the Opposition," as it is called, the regular body, upon the opposite benches, abstain from all warfare, till the enemies arrive; and do we not always hear it said, that such an one cannot come into the engagement till such a day, because, until that day his return cannot arrive? That this is the fact no one can deny. But, whether it be so, or not, Mr. Herbert is left in a dilemma, if he approve of the law as it now stands; for, suppose the people to obtain an opportunity of rejecting the member that becomes a placeman, and suppose them to reject him, of which the letter of the law implies the probability and even the propriety; suppose the electors of all the members, composing a new ministry, to reject them upon the score of place, and supposing there to be no good-natured, modest gentlemen, to give up their seats and their constituents to them; in that case, we should lose the amazing benefit, which Mr. Herbert perceives in the having of the ministers in the House; and, on the other hand, if this be impossible, or, if there be not the smallest chance of this, the law with respect to re-election is ...; and, those, who affect to see a security for the people in it, are . . . . . what I need not describe, and what I will not describe in terms other than those, which they so richly deserve. I will not wrong my thoughts by the using of words, which would be an inadequate expression of them. But, the debates, Mr. Herbert says, would become frivolous and unimportant, if the king's counsellors and servants were not in the House. The debates! All is debate. Why, there is a standing order of the House against publishing any debate; and, moreover, any member may, whenever he pleases, cause the galleries to be cleared, and the doors to be locked against all spectators and hearers. It is, to be sure, a very valuable thing that we possess; a mighty thing for our liberties, that any one member, either of those for Old Sarum, without even a seconder, may, at any time, totally deprive us of. But, Sir, why should the Debates become of no importance; of no interest at all to us, if the ministers and other placemen were kept out of the House? They might, indeed, be of little interest to those, who are now seeking for place through the means of debates; but, to the people: is it possible, that you can think, that the discussions of men, who were the real representatives of the people; who could scarcely have any views towards gain of any sort; who would be under no temptation to vote this way or that way to serve themselves, or to serve a party: is it possible, that you can think, that the discussions of such men would be less interesting to the people, than the wranglings of two parties, always opposed to each other, taking opposite posi tions in the House as naturally as two hos tile armies, and well known to be contend. ing for the places and emoluments which the Crown has to bestow? No, it is not possible; I assert, that it is not possible for you to believe, that the discussions of an assembly where, upon all great occasions, it is known before hand of which side each member will speak and vote; where it is known before hand what the result will be: I assert it to be impossible for you to believe, that the Debates of such an assembly, can be so interesting as the debates of an assembly, where there is no such foreknowledge, and where there is known to exist, generally speaking, nothing to bias the judgment of the members. You must have observed, Sir, the difference, which, in point of interest, is excited by the speeches of Barristers and that of the Judge. The cause of this is, not the supe. rior ability of the Judge, for such is not always the case; not the novelty of the matter, for that has been already amply detailed; but solely the persuasion, that what is said by the Judge proceeds from an unbiassed mind. And, Sir, for this same reason, the debates of an assembly, not divided into regular parties, would, in the same degree, excite an interest greater than that which is excited by the debates of the House of Commons, as that House is now filled.As to the advantage of questioning the ministers face to face," they were so questioned, when they were excluded from parliament. They were 88 sent to the House by the king, to bear his | Messages; to ask for Money in his name; and to give such explanations, as the representatives of the people required at their hands. There is, surely, nothing difficult in this. It is the regular and natural course of proceeding; but, can any one pretend, that it is natural; can any one pretend, that it is not a monstrous absurdity, that ministers, that the servants of the king, or, indeed, that any body else in this world, should be called to account by themselves; that they should sit in judgment, and vote, and assist in the deciding, upon the merits, or demerits, of their own conduct; and especially when it is known beforehand, when it is acknowledged to be essential to the very system, that they have, and must have, a majority in their favour, it being, according to that system, impossible for them to hold their places any longer than they have that majority? "Tremble at the awful moment of meeting an able minority!" You surprize me, Sir. What have they, as long as they can preserve their majority, to tremble at ? When did you see a ministry tremble, except for the loss of their places? And why should they? But, if there were a House of Commons, without placemen or pensioners; consisting of men not capable of being placed or pensioned; if the race could not be for power and emolument; if the members could not, in the future, discover any motive for indulgence, and lenity with respect to the past; then, indeed, wicked or foolish counsellors would have good cause to "tremble at the awful moment of meeting," not an "able minority," but an honest majority, in parliament, who would not waste their time in making long lawyer-like speeches, in order to shew their fitness for conducting wars and negotiations; but, who, having only their own good, as connected with that of the public, in view, would busy themselves in doing that which belonged to their of fice, as guardians of the public treasure and the public liberty.If the House of Commons contained no placemen; if it were unmixed with the servants of the king; if it were composed of men who never could touch the public money, can it be believed, that the public money would not be better taken care of? Besides the incompatibility of the two situations, in this respect, is it not evident, that a man, who has, for one half of the year, to fight daily battles in the House of Commons for the preservation of his place, lect the duties of that place? Is it not evident, that, if a man be compelled to give his mind up to debate and the preparation for debate, the duties of his office must be left to underlings, or be wholly neglected? Nay, is it not evident, that, if the possession of the place is to depend upon Debates in the House of Commons, he will fashion his measures and especially his appointments and other favours to that mould which is likely to insure him the greatest number of friends in that House; which fashioning would be useless for his purpose, were the members and the rela tions of the members incapable of receiving emoluments from the public purse ?The king, too, would, if this were the case, be left free in his choice of servants. He would not be compelled to take into his council a whole pack together. He would not be compelled to consider who could make the best, or, rather, the longest, speeches, and who could carry with them the greatest number of votes. He would be free to select whomsoever he thought most able and most trust-worthy; while the Commons, on their side, could have no reason for undue bias or partiality, in this respect, at the same time, that, if the king had counsellors, whom they disapproved of, they would, at all times, have the power of censuring them, of impeaching them, or of causing their removal by following the old constitutional course of refusing money; which is now, all the world knows, a power that is never exercised, nor is it ever thought of being exercised. Is there an evil we complain of, or feel, which cannot be traced to this source? Let Mr. Herbert review all the circumstances, which led to, and which have followed, the Cintra Convention; and, I am persuaded, that, whether in the appointments, the progress of the thing itself, or the proceedings consequent upon it, he will clearly discover the prime cause to be that very system of things, of which he professes himself to be an advocate. If the war-minister, or all the ministers together, had had no debatings and dividings to look to; if they had had nobody but their master to obey; no families or particular individuals to conciliate or gratify; they would have acted upon the evidence of their senses; and being men of common discernment at least, they could not have greatly erred. But, hampered, perplexed, divided in their feelings, as they constantly are, with duty on one side, and powerful importunity, not to say menace, on the other, is it any wonder that they so frequently yield to the latter, and that, of that yielding, we have so frequently to suffer and to blush for the consequences? Such are the reasons, which induced me to propose the pledge, at Winchester; and, with me, at least, these reasons will continue to operate, until I hear something more forcible opposed to them, than what I have yet met with in any writing, ancient or modern. for us or for Spain any thing but disappointinent, loss, and disgrace, though they themselves had an army of two hundred thousand men, capable of being sent to Spain, with more than a sufficiency of ships to transport it thither, and safely to land it, at a time when a Frenchman dared not show his head upon the Peninsula.———— Now, when our armies are retreating for SPANISH REVOLUTION.-Sir John Moore's their lives; when they are hard pressed dispatches, "extracts" from which were for their very existence; when, according published in last Tuesday's Gazette, after to the dispatch of Sir John Moore, they having been kept close from Sunday noon, are daily and hourly harrassed in their show most clearly, I think, that our army rear, and when the enemy's swiftest troops was in a perilous situation, at the close of almost surround them; now, forsooth, the the last month, and prepare us for hearing impudent hireling writers dare bid us look of a very calamitous result of the cam- for hope to the South. Just as if any resistpaign. I have heard of a letter from the ance would be made to an army that will, Marquis de la Romana to Sir John Moore, in all probability, not have left a British speaking of the disposition of the people of soldier in the whole of Spain and Portugal. Spain; but, of that letter it would, I sup- Just as if the spirit of the people of Spain pose, be unwise to give us a sight, until, would rise after that. But, there is no at least, the course of our preparation is measure to the deception, the falsehoods, somewhat further advanced. The procla- the lies, the frauds, that are practised upon mations, however, of ROMANA and PALAFOX this cullible nation." Extracts"! Why do enable those amongst us, who attend a extracts? Why did you not give us the little to authentic documents, to form a whole of Sir John Moore's dispatches? pretty accurate judgment of that disposi- You were afraid of the cost, perchance? tion, which, according to evidence now re- Careful of our money, ah? Useless to ferred to, is far from being what it has waste it upon paper and print, when we been described by our ministers and our want it for so many other purposes? Cry news-papers.- The "loyal," indeed, are your mercy, my lord, I was not before vomiting forth flames of furious abuse aware of your œconomical turn. The against those, who venture to express whole must come at last. We must have doubts as to the goodness of the disposi- it; and if you give it us not, Buonaparté, tion of the people of Spain; but, that in his neighbourly malignity, certainly abuse will not alter the fact; and, more- will give us something that will answer over, it may become difficult, by-and-by, to the same purpose. -Sentiments, resemreconcile it with any defence of the move-bling those expressed in my motto, have ments of our army, and, what is more with been repeated by me so often, since the these abusers, of the conduct of the minis-resistance to Napoleon began, in Spain, ters, whose sole ground of defence, if I am that I am almost ashamed to repeat them; not very greatly deceived, must be, that but if our worst enemies repeat their lies the people of Spain were, after all, found daily, I see no reason why I may not not to be much disposed to resist Buona-weekly repeat truths. "Spain has been parté. This will, after the manifold assertions made respecting the unanimous zeal of the Spaniards in the cause of their "beloved Ferdinand VII," be a most humiliating confession; it will be a fearful confession to make to the people of England, Ireland, and Scotland; but, the ministers have a choice of evils: they must make this confession; and they must also confess that they have, in this respect, been grossly deceived; or, they must confess, that they have had so little skill and energy, that, with a whole nation of eleven millions on their side, and with the complete command of all the sea-coast of the country, they have been unable to obtain lost from the dread of liberty," said a correspondent, the other day; and, really, I am much afraid, that this will prove but too true. What Napoleon has promised in his decrees, which will be found in another part of this sheet, the Junta should have promised before, and why they did not, will, perhaps, hereafter come to light. Are we told, that the people of Spain did not wish it? That they did not desire to see the Council of Castile, the Inquisition, and the Monks, put down? Besides the utter improbability, of this being, under any circumstances, true; we have the evidence, in the negative furnished by Napoleon's Decrees; for, we may be sure, and espe cially if we believe him to have made | false promises, that those promises accord with the well-known wishes of the people, or, at least, of that part of the people, which it is of the greatest importance for him to have on his side. There is no denying this. The more we are convinced f his faithlessness; the more we are convinced of the truth of the assertion, that he will stick at nothing to secure success, the more complete our conviction must be, that the prevailing wish of the people was, and is, that that should be done, which he has now promised to do. Our news-papers accuse him of baseness, in making promises, which he does not mean to fulfil; but the question is, can they accuse him of making promises, which he does not think likely to insure his success in conquering Spain? They must do this, and then no soul would be fool enough to believe a word they say; or, they must admit that what he has promised, is consonant to the wishes of the people; and, if they make this admission, they will have to answer the question: why did not we and the Junta make similar promises ?- -A population of eleven millions, in a country like Spain, is not to be subdued by arms, if they have arms to defend themselves with, and hearts to use them; but, a population of ten times as many millions, if indifferent to their fate, is, what Mr. Windham described it, an " unresisting medium." If, therefore, we found, that promises, such as those now explicitly made by Napoleon, were necessary to rouze the people to arms, we should as the condition of our aid, have insisted upon the making of those promises; or, we should never have attempted to send an army to Spain. It appears to me, that the very best that can be said for our not having insisted upon this, is, that we were not rightly informed upon the subject; that we were not duly apprised of the people's wishes. This is, at all times, a poor defence for men intrusted with the affairs of a nation, and particularly for men, who, it is notorious, had all the means of correct information completely in their hands.-A fraud! a fraud! I see a new fraud approaching, and I beseech the reader's attention to it without delay. While our troops were said to be advancing, they were, by all the newspapers, said to amount to 45,000 men, and those of Romana to 20,000; but, now, the retreat being sounded, ours are brought down to 35,000 men, and Romana's army is sunk out of sight. This is a nice coun terpart to the sinking and raising of the numbers of the French in Portugal. And yet these same editors have the assurance to prefer the charge of falshood against Napoleon's bulletins; and, what is worse, gravely to sermonize upon the immorality of such falshoods!About two weeks ago, we were in high glee, that Sir John Moore, joined by Romana, was about to envelope and capture, or cut to pieces, the corps of SOULT, which was said to be unsupported; but, now, we can most manfully revile Napoleon, because he has, "in such a cowardly manner," drawn together his whole force to march against "our little army."- -Not a word do any of our intelligencers give us about the Duc d'Abrantes, who is, however, in Spain, with the eight or ten, and not the twenty-seven, thousand men, who ought to have been with him in England. Not a word about him. That is a sore point. But, in spite of all this disguise, his corps makes part of that army, before whom Sir John Moore is retreating to the coast; to that very coast, whence we carried the Duc d'Abrantes to land him in France.---Seeing that we have Sir John Moore's dispatches in so mutilated a state, it is hardly fair to judge of them; but, it does really surprise one to hear him talk, as if what he had done ought to enable the Spaniards in the South to do something. Poor fellows! they saw him approach near to a corps of the French army, and the moment the main army of the French began to move, they saw him retreat, pushing away as fast as possible towards the coast. What "profit" were they to derive from this? It is a sad mockery; but we have not the whole of the dispatch.- -The public should be upon their guard against the accounts of the "brilliant affairs" of this or that detachment. I have no doubt that our soldiers are better than the French soldiers. They are cooler and stronger, and I verily believe more brave. But the words "fine fellow" and 66 gallant fellow," bestowed upon two or three men of interest, in letters from the army, like those that gave us an account of Sir Arthur Wellesley's Protest, will be no consolation to me, and, I think, will be no consolation to any rational man, for the waste of so much of our national means, and for the disgrace of being driven out of Spain, with an army of 45,000 Englishmen, without one single engagement with the enemy. LIBEL LAW. -When I was in London, a few days ago, a Number of the "Satyrist" was put into my hands. This work was mentioned, and a description of its authors was given, in pages 397 and 398 of the last volume of the Political Register. I then noticed their unjustifiable, their indecent and vile attack upon the wife and family of sir Richard Phillips, and said, that I had been told, that they were a nest of turned-off, half-starved authors. I now find, that I was very correctly informed; but, in the Number, which I have last seen, there is something so very infamous, that I cannot forbear pointing it out for the reprobation of the public.- -The editors inform their readers, that MR. FINNERTY is under prosecution for a libel by the Attorney General for having edited the pamphlet of Major Hogan. Then they proceed to state certain things against him, all calculated to render him an object of public hatred and scorn, and, of course, violently to prejudice against him those persons who may happen to be the jury upon the trial, than which, surely, nothing can well be more wicked. Not content with this, however, they assert, that he has fled from the country, thereby giving a hint to the Attorney General, if he were so disposed, to cause the gentleman accused to be arrested, and imprisoned until the trial. The bold and unqualified manner, in which this assertion was made, led me to fear that it was true; but, upon inquiry, I found it to be false, and, since that inquiry was made, I have seen Mr. Finnerty, who was in town, I understand, all the while, and who was, as usual, engaged in his business, which is of a nature not to admit of his remaining within doors for any length of time. So that it is almost impossible, that the falsehood should not have been wilful, and uttered with the malignant view above described. “Heav'n has no curse like love to hatred turn'd, "Nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd." And, I hear, that there are some authoresses engaged in this work, who though never scorned by men, perhaps, have been scorned by the press, a lover whose rejection they do not less sensibly feel.- -At any rate, whether proceeding from the pen of a scorned authoress, or from that of a scorned author, I think, it will be admitted, that nothing ever was more diabolical. So base an act, to endeavour to excite, by known falshoods; deliberately to sit down, and, by such means, excite a deep prejudice in the minds of those, on whose good or bad opinion, might depend the liberty or im I prisonment of the person attacked. have now had a pretty long intercourse with the press; but, except in America, I certainly never did meet with any thing so wicked and base as this.These vermin have, I find, long been attacking me, and I was shown, in London, several of their placards, against the walls, with my name in it. As the means of exciting curiosity, and of getting a few shillings, this might be well enough; nor am I, as far as relates to myself, at all disposed to blame them; leaving them to answer for their wilful falshoods, I grudge them nothing that they can get by me, to whom they cannot possibly do any harm. But, Mr. Finnerty is less known; with him the case is different; and, therefore, for his sake, and for the sake of others, whom they may calumniate, I will just state to the reader, that they have, in the most unequivocal terms, and in the boldest manner, asserted, that I DESERTED from the army. Let the reader now peruse the following authentic documents, which were long ago published; and then I am sure he will want nothing more to satisfy him, as to the degree of credit which is to be given to any thing which they assert. By the right hon. major lord Edward Fitzgerald, commanding his Majesty's 54th Regiment of Foot, whereof lieut. gen. Frederick is colonel.These are to certify, that the bearer hereof, WILLIAM COBBETT, Serjeant Major in the aforesaid regiment, has served honestly and faithfully for the space of eight years, nearly se ven of which he has been a non-commissioned officer, and of that time he has been five years Serjeant Major to the regiment; but having very earnestly applied for his discharge, he, in consideration of his good behaviour, and the services he has rendered the regiment, is hereby discharged.— Given under my hand and the seal of the regiment, at Portsmouth, this 19th day of December, 1791. EDWARD FITZGerald. "Portsmouth, 19th Dec. 1791.--Serjeant Major Cobbett having most pressingly applied for his discharge, at major lord Edw. Fitzgerald's request, general Frederick has granted it. General Frederick has ordered major lord Edw. Fitzgerald to return the Serjeant Major thanks for his behaviour and conduct during the time of his being in the regiment, and major lord Edward adds his most hearty thanks to those of the General." Botley, 12th January, 1809. |