· than meets the ear, and that whilst he pretends to quarrel merely with tythes in the ordinary acceptation of the word, he in fact, means to convey a sly censure on administration, who have not only sanctioned, but adopted the principle of tything in an unli mited extent, by taking from the subject a tenth of the whole produce of the country of every denomination. O, ho! Mr. Slyboots!! 'OFFICIAL PAPERS. Letter from Count Bernstorff, Danish Minister for Foreign Affairs, to Baron Wetterstedt, First Secretary of the Cabinet of his Swedish Majesty Kiel, Oct. 17th, 1807. (Continued from page 320) The loyalty of the sovereign, whose intention it is thus attempted to calumniate, and the nature of the relations which subsist between Denmark and Sweden, sufficiently prove the falsity of that insidious assertion. But we shall feel great satisfaction to be authorised by his Swedish Majesty himself, to answer by a formal denial an insinuation more injurious to him, than it is to us. This, Sir, is the only motive which induces me to demand of you a frank and positive explanation on this subject take leave to request you will send it me by the bearer of this letter, Mr. de Holsten, Lieutenant of the Royal Navy.-I feel happy in having an opportunity of calling me to your recollection, and of offering you the assurance of my high consideration. Answer from Baron Wetterstedt, Minister of State. Helsinbourgh, Oct. 27, 1807. I had this afternoon the honour to receive, through Lieutenant Holsten, the letter which your Excellency has addressed to me, dated the 17th October-As the duties of my place do not allow me to deviate from the regular mode of official communication between the two courts, your Excellency will permit me to restrict myself entirely to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, and to express to you the happiness I feel in having the opportunity of renewing to you the assurance of the high consideration with which I have the honour to be, čzc. Note addressed by the Minister of State, Count Bernstorff, to Baron Taube, Chargé d'Affaires of his Swedish Majesty. Kiel, Νου. 5, 1807 : The annexed copy will inform Baron Taube of the object of a communication, which the Undersigned, Minister of State, thought it right to address to Baron Wetterstedt, First Secretary of the Cabinet, of his Swedish Majesty. The latter having judged a mode of communication inadmissible, which, from the absence of the Swedish embassy, and the interruption of direct correspondence with Stockholm, appeared to the undersigned the only way, and, at the same time, the speediest and most authentic mode of communication. It only remains to request Baron Taube will have the goodness to express to his court the wish contained in the note addressed to the aforesaid Baron.It is of material importance for the Danish government to be enabled to refute, in an authentic manner, an invidious charge, clearly destined to compromise a sovereign, whose loyalty is above all suspicion, to make him share in the odium, which attaches to a conduct equally atrocious and perfidious, and to produce a misunderstanding between' Sweden and Denmark. The undersigned requests Baron Taube to accept the assurance of his high consideration. Note addressed by Baron Taube to Count Bernstorff, Minister of State. Kiel, November 5, 1807. The undersigned Swedish Chargé d'Af faires has just received the note, with which his Excellency Count Bernstorff, has this day honoured him.-Although the events which have taken place, as well as the season, seem already to resolve the question which forms the object of your Excellency's note, the undersigned will take the earliest opportunity to bring it to the knowledge of his master, and flatters himself, he shall soon be able to return the answer.-The undersigned avails himself with pleasure of this opportunity, to request his Excellency will be pleased to accept the assurance of his sincere respect. Note addressed by Baron Taube to Count Bernstorff, Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, Kiel, Nov. 24, 1807. The undersigned has not failed to bring to the knowledge of the King, his master, the contents of the note which his Excellency Baron Bernstorff addressed to him, the 5th of November last, and of the copy which accompanied the same.-It is by order of bis court that the undersigned hastens to declare to the Danish minister, that all explanation with regard to the note above mentioned becomes superfluous, his Majesty being of opinion that he ought solely to be judged by his actions, which he shall always know how to justify-The undersigned having the honour to present this answer to Count Bernstorff, Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, begs leave at the same time to repeat the assurance of his high consideration. Note addressed by Count Bernstorff, Minister of State, to Baron Taube. Kiel, Dec. 4, 1807. FRANCE.-January 20, 1808,Motives of the Senatus Consultum upon the Con.. scription of 1809, declared by Regnaud de St. Jean d' Angely, Minister of State, Senators, when your wisdom called out the conscripts of 1808, your wishes were directed towards the peace which signal victories had prepared-you wished to ensure new means of conquering and pacifying.. The success surpassed your hopes the flames of war are extinguished upon the Continent -a durable peace has been sworn between the two greatest Sovereigns in the world, and Europe has time to breathe.-But there is a government to which the repose of Europe is despair, to which peace is terror, to which discord is necessity, and war hope. England has replied to the offer of a generous mediation offered by the Emperor of Russia, by carrying fire and the sword into the ter ritories of his most ancient ally, by profess ing more solemnly contempt of the rights of nations, by proclaiming more inhumanly the principle of eternal war. The indignation of all Sovereigns has replied to the in-. The undersigned, Director of the Department of Foreign Affairs, has had the honour to receive the note, which Baron Taube had the goodness to address to him on the 24th November, in order to declare that the court of Stockholm deems it superfluous to give the demanded explanation to the disposition which the English minister has thought himself authorised to send his Swedish Majesty with regard to Denmark. The Danish government thought to render a service to the Court of Sweden, by offering an opportunity to refute a charge which it felt inclined to consider as calumnious, and which, so long as it remains undenied, cannot but compromise him against whom it is preferred. The said government is the more surprised at the refusal of the explanation solicited, as this refusal is but too liable to be considered as a tacit acknowledgment of the intentions which were announced to him in an official manner by the intimate ally of Sweden.And these pretended intentions being altea-jurious manifestos, to the cunning declarady hostile against Denmark, she was the more of opinion that she owed it to herself to demand from the Swedish government a denial thereof, without waiting, that actions should furnish the necessary information on the subject. The reasons which occasioned the above demand existing still in all its force, the undersigned is authorized to expect here, and requests Baron Taube will have the goodness to support it at his court. He has the honour to repeat, on this occasion, the assurance of his high considera tion. Note addressed by Baron Taube to Count Bernstorff-Kiel, Dec. 21st, 1807. The undersigned has brought the note to the knowledge of the King his Master, which Count Bernstorff had the goodness to address to him the 4th of December, touching the explanation required by the Court of Copenhagen, with regard to a pretended denunciation of intentions entertained by Sweden, to occupy the island of Zealand with Swedish troops. The King avoided once to explain himself on this subject; but as the Danish government required an answer, the undersigned is ordered to declare in an official manner-That had his Majesty judged it necessary to occupy Zealand with his troops, jointly with those of his ally, he should have done it; and the King wishes that he may never find himself in the case to regret that he acted otherwise. The undersigned has the honour to renew to Count Bernstorff the assurance of his high consideration. tions, to the barbarous acts of the Cabinet of has the disposal; and that our armies, more formidable than ever, should be ready to carry into her possessions our victorious and avenging eagles Such, gentlemen, are the motives which have determined his Majesty to demand a new conscription.-The levy of the preceding year has been, as you foresaw, the pledge of continental peace-the levy of this year will be the presage of a maritime peace. The pillage of the arsenal and port of Copenhagen-the emigration of the Portuguese fleet, have not yet left the Continent without ships. Our legions can yet reach the English militia; Ireland may yet hope for succour against oppression; India may yet expect deliverers; and while our ancient phalanxes shall march to hasten the days of justice, new legions of young warriors shall be trained to discipline and to battle, under the paternal eye of those warlike magistrates, of those senators generals, who with so happy a zeal have already formed brave men to replace those whom war has snatched from the country, or who have been restored to their families.-His Majesty will have a superabundance of means to realise his pacific views, or to execute his warlike projects. To the powerful armies of his faithful allies, his Majesty will unite, for common defence and triumph, so formidable a mass, that success will not long be doubtful.-So just a cause will not be vainly defended by so much force, and protected by so many powers. A league so imposing in its elements, so generous in its policy, so just in its objects, so great in its means, will at length bring back our enemies to justice through fear, or to submission through victory. HOLLAND. pate all the doubts that might exist with respect to our intentions, and to prove to Eu-. rope, in the most signal manner, our attachment, and that of our people, to the common cause; have decreed and do decree as follows:-Art. I. From the publication of the present decree all the ports of our kingdom shall be shut against all ships, whatever be their denomination. Those only are excepted from this disposition, (and provisionally till a new order,) of which mention is made in the 2d article.-II. Armed ships of our allies are not included in the exclusion directed by the preceding article. They may enter and quit our ports, and bring in their prizes by conforming to the ordonnances issued relative to the entrance and departure of ships of war.-III. Ships of the allies or neutral powers, which may enter our ports to avoid the danger of the sea, shall have no communication with the interior of our kingdom. They shall be subjected to quarantine, and be under the most severe superintendance. The commandant of the port shall make them put to sea as soon as the weather shall permit.IV. Fishing boats are under the direct superintendance of the civil and military authorities upon the coast. These authorities shall take care, on their responsibility, that no communication take place, by means of the fishermen, with the enemy's ship and other ships. To that end, there shall be placed as a sentinel, a soldier on board each fishing boat. On the return of the boat, the sentinel shall make his report of what has passed during the fishery, contrary to the dispositions of the present decree, and the owner of the boat and crews shall be prosecuted with all the rigour of the laws. Given at Utrecht, 23d January. FRANCE. Decrees for raising Conscripts and for uniting certain Countries with France.-23d Jan. 1808. The Conservatory Senate assembled to the number of members presented by act 90, of the act of the Constitution of the 22d of Frimaire, year 8, having considered the project of the Senatus Consultum, drawn in the form prescribed by article 57 of the constitutional act of the 16th Thermidor, year 16-After having heard on the mo tives of the said project, the orators of the Council of State, and the report of the Special Commission nominated in the sitting of the 16th of this month; the adoption hay -Commercial Decree.-Jun. 23, 180S. Considering that every European nation eught to co-operate with all its might to the triumph of the cause of the continent, in a contest which will not be of long duration, and whose result is not doubtful. Considering that our particular duty as well as the dearest interests of our people command us to accede in all points to the desires of his Majesty the Emperor of the French, our illustrious brother, and even to surpass his hopes. Considering that the indemnity and relief which our kingdom has a right to de-. mand and expect depend entirely upon the powerful intervention of France. Considering, in five, that however great the sacrifi-ing been discussed with the number of vo ces ces hitherto made by this country may be, and however painful its situation, both under the relations of commerce and those of finance, it is of much greater interest to dissi prescribed by article 56 of the orgonie Senatus Consultum of the 18th of Thermidor, year 10, decrees as follows-Art. 1. Eighty thousand Conscripts of the Conscrip tion of the year 1809, are placed at the dis-reserve to himself the empire. In this posi posal of government. 2. They shall be taken from among the youths born between the 1st of Jan. 1789, and Jan. 1, 1790 3. They shall be employed, should there be occasion to complete the legions of reserve of the interior, and the regiment haying their depôts in France-The present Senatus Consultum shall be transmitted to his Imperial and Royal Majesty. We require and command, that these presents, sanctioned by the seals of state, and inserted in the Bulletin des Loix, shall be addressed to the courts and tribunals, and administrative authorities, that they may be inserted in their respective registers, and observed, and caused to be observed; and our Grand Judge, the Minister of Justice, is charged to superintend the publication. NAPOLEON. By another Decree of the Conservatory Senate, in the same form, and in a like manner signed by Buonaparte, the towns of Kehl, Wesel, Cassel, and Flushing, are to be united to the French Empire. Kehl to the department of the Lower Rhine; Cassel to the department of Mount Tonnere; Wesel in the department of the Roer; and Flushing in the department of the Scheldt. FRANCE.- -Report of the Minister of Foreign Affairs relative to Portugal. Made in Oct. 1807, and published Jan. 24, 1808. There is no sovereign in Europe who does not acknowledge, that it his territory, his jurisdiction should be violated to the detriment of your Majesty, he would be responsible for it. If a French ship were seized in the port of Triest, or Lisbon, the government of Portugal and the sovereign to whom Trieste belongs, would have to consider that violence and damage done to your Majesty's subjects as a personal outragethey could not hesitate to compel England by force to respect their territory and their ports: if they adopted a contrary conduct, if they became accomplices of the wrong done by England to your subjects, they would place themselves in a state of war with your Majesty. When the Portuguese government suffered its ships to be visited by English ships, its independence was violated by its own consent, by the outrage done to its flags, as it would have been had England viclated its territory and its ports.-The enemy ought to be placed in a state of interdict, in the midst of the seas, of which he pretends to tion, all powers could and ought to expect from each other a mutual support -And at what a moment did Portugal betray the cause of the continent? Ought England to expect still to have an ally, when, exercising her violence on every sea, she menaced the new world as well as the old; attacked, without any motive for aggression, the flag of the Americans, and dyed their own shores with their blood-when, scandalously famous by the disasters of Copenhagen, which she sur prised in the midst of peace, she sought, in the pillage of her arsenals, for some sad and bloody spoils.But the scandal of this understanding between the Portuguese governnient and England may be traced to other times. When England meditated, in 1803, the rekindling in Europe that war which your Majesty has so gloriously terminated, she sent a fleet to Lisbon; the ministers had conferences-time has developed the object and the result.-Have not the English squa dron sent to the River Plate touched at Ja neiro? Did not the troops sent to Buenos Ayres and Monte Video receive provisions from the Brazils? Those distant succours may have escaped the attention of Europe; but she saw Portugal receive and victual in her ports the English ships destined to blockade Cadiz, to attack Constantinople and Egypt; those which were to land troops in Naples to stir up revolt; those which were to introduce English merchandize upon all the coasts of the Mediterranean, though Portugal knew all the ports in the South were shut against them.-A French consul, whom Portugal had acknowledged and admitted to the exercise of his functions in the port of Faro, has been taken from his house by the intendant of the customs, sent to prison, taken out only to be exiled, and the Portuguese government refused for three months to repair that outrage.-Protestations of neutrality ill concealed this hostile conduct. The court of Lisbon should have ex plained itself without shuffling. Your Majesty proposed it to accede to the system of the continent, and had it done so, you would have forgotten every thing.-Far from deferring to your Majesty's proposal, the Por tuguese government had no other solicitude than that of informing the court of London, of tranquillising England relative to her interests, of guaranteeing the safety of the EngJish and of their property in Portugal. (To be continued.) . Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75. Great Queen Street, and published by R. Bagshaw, Brydges Street, Covent Garden, where former Numbers may be had; sold also by J. Budd, Crown and Mitte, Pall Mall VOL. XIII. No. 10.] LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 5, 1808. [PRICE 10г The civility of this man is wonderful: he sparcs us the trouble of contradicting him, by contradicting 3531 If The part of your pamphlet, which remains to be examined, is, as you state, intended to show, that a peace with France, to be made as soon as possible, upon the terms before proposed by her, is absolutely necessary to the safety of England, and that "nothing but a political suicide, a "total incapacity to meet the bounties of "Providence and to improve its blessings, "can induce us to hesitate for a moment, as "to the course we ought to pursue." you had, by any regular chain of reasoning, founded upon admitted, or notorious, facts, endeavoured to make the truth of these assertions apparent, it would have required but a short space, wherein to answer you; but, you have mingled, or, rather, mashed up, so much of history and of other matter along with the argument which you employ, that, after much pains taken to pick out the latter from the former, I find myself obliged to follow you through thick and thin. Amongst the fatal consequences of the Danish expedition, you mention our loss of all continental allies. "In every contest," say you, "that may henceforth take place "between France and England, British courage alone must be employed, and British blood must flow. We are now effectually deprived of those powerful allies, "who hitherto engaged the attention of 86 our enemies, and rendered the continent "the theatre of war." Sentiments of the same turn are expressed by you elsewhere, and, it must not be forgotten, that you set a high value upon Hanover (a-thing which France has to offer us), and tell us, that, if we had but accepted of Napoleon's terms of peace, we might have had our share of influence upon the continent. This is your language, and these are your sentiments, when you are endeavouring to impress your readers with an idea of the evils of the Danish expedition, and to induce them to believe, that the terms of peace, which were offered by France, were such as we ought to 66 66 68 [354 have accepted of. But, by-and-by you have to say something about continental connections, as considered with regard to the peace that may now be made; and then, it being your object to induce us to insist upen nothing that Buonaparté is likely to wish not to grant, your sentiments are quite altered; and you tell us, that you hope, that "foreign subsidies will never again be advert"ed to, but to be execrated." In another place, that, "if, instead of blindly aiming at continental influence and connections, we duly estimate our own interests, importance, and security, we may regard all "the efforts of France to rival us, as a ma"ritime power, without dismay. The ba"lance of power, that chimerical source of "war and blood-shed, now exists not even "in name. Let us attend more to ourselves "and less to our neighbours." All this would have been very well, if it had stood pamphlet with your affected lamentation at by itself; if it had not appeared in the same the fatal consequences of the Danish expedition, amongst which you number the loss of powerful allies upon the continent," which loss has left us, for our defence, "British courage and British blood alone." But, you had two purposes to answer, and but one matter to work upon. You wanted to persuade us that the Danish expedition had produced a fatal consequence to us; and you also wanted to persuade us, that leaving the whole of the continent with all its ports and arsenals, in the hands of Napoleon, would not be at all dangerous to us. To effect the former purpose, it was necessary to set a high value upon the aid we derived from continental connections; to effect the latter purpose, it was necessary to decry those connections, and to represent England as self-dependent for her safety. You wanted to blow both hot and cold, aud, if you had (poor gentleman!) but one mouth, it was nature's fault, and not yours. Our 46 But, we are now coming to a passage, at have invoked the genius of the the penning of which you must certainly rand, and at the conclusion of which you great Talleymust have bridled up your head, with a selfM A |