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as appears from the opinion of my lord Mountnorris, who considered the criticism so extremely clever, that after having read it, and the work to which it referred, chapter by chapter, he says, "I should have bought the one, but for the other;" which is equivalent to his having said, that he thought the volume, to which the criticism referred, not worth buying; and, if you think so, gentlemen, you will find a verdict for the defendants.

One of the Jury. Is there any thing in the defendants' book of a libellous tendency, by way of personal attack on the character of the plaintiff, unconnected with his publications?

If any

Lord Ellenborough.-Something has been eferred to of that kind; but nothing has been laid before us in proof of it. The plaintiff appears to be placed in a ridiculous tuation, in a groupe of figures. He might have been so described by words. thing had been said of this plaintiff reflecting on his character, unconnected with this book, I should have told you that, in my bpinion, it would have been a libel; but we have no proof of that.

One of the Jury.-If it be contended, that there is any personal reflection upon the plaintiff, in this book, unconnected with his ritings, we must go through the contents of it.

Lord Ellenborough.-We have no proof

that there is.

The jury without a minute's consultation, returned a-VERDICT FOR THE DEFEND

ANTS.

Lord Ellenborough.-I hope nobody will understand, from the result of this trial, that there is the least countenance given to slander nor to ridicule any author, any more than any other individual, unless such ridicule be connected with his works, and the author is embodied with his work; for courts of justice are as tender of the moral characlers of all men, whether they be authors or hot, as they are firm in maintenance of the fight of every individual, to give a free opinion on every publication of a literary

work.

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and reason, must have given him much satisfaction. These events are the more gratifying, inasmuch as he shall confess, that he had not contemplated Spain, as the country in which a successful resistance to France was most likely to originate. The grand aim of his essay was to awaken his own country to a sense of her danger, in trusting her defence too much to a standing army; as well as to the excess of her imprudence, and even criminal indifference, in suffering her ministers and parliament to evade, in respect of arming, the clear principles of the constitution, without remonstrance or expostulation. Those of our statesmen who talked of armed citizens being only "depositaries of panic," and of an organised population being to a regular army of invaders "an unresisting medium," may now feel that they have errors to acknowledge; but the author of the Ægis is well content with the Spanish illustration of his English text. It is not a little to his purpose that, prior to the fall of the Spanish Bourbons, and the Prince of the Peace, the armies of Spain had never been held up to us as models, formed in the school of the great Frederick; that the Corsican had artfully drawn the flower of the Spanish army, such as it was, out of the country, and employed it in the north of Europe; and that with his influence at Madrid, we may be sure that that army had, for a considerable time past, been neglected as much as possible. We knew not, indeed, any thing of its strength; but have seen no evidences of its having been considerable. It has been stated to us, that Castanos himself was at first only at the head of 3 or 4,000 men; and, either in postscript or a note to the letter of our own commissioner, Capt. Whittingham, reporting the surrender of Dupont and Wedel, we were told that one "half" of the Spaniards were peasant"ry." Be that, however, as it may,, we have grounds for understanding, that a junction of the English force of 6,000 men under Gen. Spencer was offered, but declined by Castanos, who felt justly confident of his strength; when we know the firm and dignified conduct of the Spaniards, in. declining English assistance for reducing the French fleet at Cadiz, our private intelli-, gence respecting a similar conduct in the. other case becomes the more credible. Had Spain been provided with a regular force, in any degree considerable, a place of such importance as Saragossa could not have been, wholly without them; and yet Palafox, Captain General of Arragon, in his letter

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to the council of Castile after the retreat of the French from Madrid, expressly says:

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Regarding myself, I have been more critically situated than any other commander, being without a single soldier, and placed "within immediate reach of the enemy, "from my proximity to his frontiers, and "liable to be attacked from Catalonia, "Castile, and Navarre."-Although Spain, so different from the cases of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, was completely taken by surprize; and had her country, from Pampeluna to Cordova, absolutely in the power of French armies, and a French force also master of Cadiz, before she knew that Napoleon was her enemy; yet, to her immortal honour, we hear but of one instance of the armed population, which of course had been very hastily collected, giving way in battle; and even then the disaster produced no ill effect; the patriots soon rallied, and the French veterans were shortly after conquered and made prisoners. Even where the general was "without a single soldier," so far are we from hearing that his armed patriots were a mere depositary of panic,” that the French armies in their repeated attacks on Saragossa were uniformly repulsed with great slaughter; and Palafox was even able to make detachments" to Catalonia, Navarre, and other

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provinces," as he himself states. The French emperor indeed, like a certain English statesman, judging an armed population, to be " an unresisting medium to his invincibles, directs his deputy usurper to proceed to Madrid, and very coolly appoints the time for his arrival; but, by the countermarch which was so precipitate, as barely to allow time for packing up the stolen rega lia, it is probable those two great men, Napoleon and Mr. Windham, may by this time have changed their opinion, on the subject of "an unresisting medium." Very far am I indeed, from pretending to superior discernment; but, I lay claim to have pointed out ten years ago the right means of effecting the deliverance of Europe;" my words were these: "Turning then to the "map, we see Europe of a size to take care "of herself; adverting to the constitutions "of the governments which are opposed to "each other, we know, that it is by alliance, "not with the English treasury, but with "their own degraded subjects, the courts "of Austria, Germany, and Muscovy, may effectually withstand the arms of France. "Whether the frontiers of the republic be "marked by a Rhine, or a rivulet, it were "in the way of hostility, equally impassable

"to her, were but Germany a free and an "armed nation.*"

A stronger contrast, between the effect of right and of wrong principles of defence, than what we have witnessed in the north and the south, human history cannot afford. The instruction I hope, will not be thrown away upon us. Were the emperors Francis and Alexander, ruling over about sixty millions of the European population, to give their debased subjects real freedom, by the introduction of representative assemblies, like the cortes of Spain, or the house of commons of England, and were they likewise to organize what we call a posse comitatus, would not France be instantly stripped of all her terrors? Would she not then see sprung up around her from the south to the north of Europe, an adamantine wall of warriors; a wall she could not pass; wani ors she would have no stomach to provoke -Could any longer kings or emperors trem ble, when the Corsican lion put out a paw, or was heard to growl? And would they not then contemplate him with the same composure as we contemplate a caged lion the tower? Would the licentious soldiery France, half monkey half tyger, any longer scamper over all countries doing ridiculous mischief mingled with rapine and carnage, authors of human calamity, objects of bu man curses? Would her terrified tributarie any longer snbmit to her insufferable arr gance? Would any prince out of the pa of France thenceforth dare to play the ty rant? Would any people endure it? And would not the French themselves, too litt sedate for teachers of liberty, then be taugl it? The pillaging occupation of their a mies gone, they would no longer feel the curse of conscription. Their vain-glorica humour no longer played upon to the torment of Europe, and their energies compressed within national limits, those energies might be expected to recoil upon the artful tyrant who has misapplied them, extorting from him that sober, solid liberty, of which is craft, aided by their vanity and vices, has hitherto defrauded them.

Such, Sir, I take to be the rational pro cess for effecting Europe's deliverance; and as infallible as it is simple. On no other principles can it be effected. As to a mere balance of power between despots, to c that by the name of deliverance, would be a profanation of the faculty of speech by which we are distinguished from brutes. I on right principles we cannot be aiding a

* Appeal, 2d edit. p. 269..

extending true deliverance beyond the Py- | wrong. If too inveterately despotic to

rennees, let our country cease to mingle in the counsels of despotism; let her decline its pernicious alliance; let her not repeat her expensive follies, by joining in its corrupt and hateful projects; let us leave the weak and the wicked to fight themselves the battles of their own selfish ambition; cleaving with warm affection to our new allies, and giving them our best counsel and our best aid towards the establishment of their liberties.

1 Spain, having for her salvation snatched up her arms, has at this moment actual freedom. The mode of its presesvation is simple. She has only to give permanence to her arms-bearing, by an organization of her population to that end, on the principles of an English posse comitatus; and to renorate her cortes on principles equally simple. These being the foundations on which her future liberties must stand, her first cortes ught to assemble under instructions from their constituents, to make these the primary objects of attention, as the fundamentals of heir recovered constitution. Spain, so actng, will have nothing to fear from France, #though abutting upon her very soil and tertory, all the way from the Bay of Biscay the Mediterranean sea, a distance (accordto some maps) of nearly three hundred niles. Could this be the case with any desjotic government so circumstanced, whose ubjects felt no interest in its defence? But med, free, and proudly independent, may pain stand, despising the Corsican's utmost ower, as much as she must abhor his perdy, and disdain his alliance. What she as to expect, should her arms and her freembe again neglected, she well knows. ith such an ally, so strong in Europe, so ch in America, and with the command of e ocean, we may be well content. But e must recollect that England is only sepated from France by a channel, which, as barrier, is more easily passed than the Pyhnees; and that, unless we benceforth enwith this ally the virtuous lists of emulan, in perfecting our own security through medium of arms and liberty, we shall ther do our duty to them, nor to ourselves, to our posterity.

So acting, how could England and Spain long without peace? And so continuing act, must not such peace have in it the inciple of permanence, whatever might the conduct of other powers? Should the despotic sovereigns be too void intellect, and too much the tools of corpt statesmen, to be capable of acting ht, that ought not to induce us to act

make their people free, let them, say I, remain themselves the slaves of the Corsican! Not with my consent should in that case an English guinea be spent, nor a drop of English blood be shed, to better their condition. If too much of tyrants to give, for the sake of their own emancipation, freedom to their people, they deserve to be hurled from their thrones, and the sooner the better. Should that happen, their subjects might probably enough be roused, as the Spaniards have been, to assert their own rights. Tame and patient under the tyran. ny to which by habit they have submitted, French impertinence and insolence might prove a cure for their phlegm, and provoke them to an overwhelming resistance; which must produce that deliverance of Europe, of which their contemptible sovereigns had been incapable.

The distinction between spurious and ge nuine wisdom, which is so beautifully inculcated in Scripture, was never perhaps more conspicuous that in what we have witnessed, touching Europe's deliverance. Sovereigns, statesmen, generals, and the sages of diplomacy, having neither thought nor cared about honesty and morality, much less the liberties of mankind, and being confounded by the failure of all their unnatural projects, are completely bewildered: but the moment it is taken up by a people, as a question of human right and human feeling, the mystery vanishes, and the practicability of the object with ease and certainty becomes manifest. This is one of those things which, although long hid from the wise and prudent, is now revealed to babes.

As expeditiously as could reasonably be' expected, we see all the provinces of Spain about forming a common junta, for giving union and consistence to measures for the common good; and things everywhere tending also to the formation of one grand. national cortes. But, recollecting what the sword has done for them, they inust never forget their obligations to it. Between defence by laws, and defence by the sword, there is this distinction: the former can be managed, and is best managed, by representatives; but the latter cannot. The nation which hires a soldiery to fight for it, gives itself masters instead of engaging servants. Legislation is the office of the few, selected for wisdom and honesty, and requires only periodical meetings in a single ball or chamber: but defence, whether against riot, insurrection, rebellion, or invasion, is equally the business and the duty of all who are able

to use a weapon; and is not perfect, unless there be permanent and equal preparation at all times and in all places; according to the admirable principles of our posse comitatus. Every country must have arms and laws, that is, its sword and its parchments. If the parchments be stolen, the sword compels the robber to surrender them back: but when the aword is once stolen, the robber is sure to take the parchments also; and a government once become despotic, soon becomes weak. Always keeping in mind that the superior energy of the French army was the immediate effect of liberty, and was afterwards kept up by genius, feeding its vanity with victory after victory, over armies which had not a like energy, let us turn our attention to the states which France had to encounter. Had the feeblest of these, Prussia, been free, we may easily conceive, from what we have seen in Spain, that her repose would not have been disturbed; whereas, notwithstanding the high reputation of her troops, we have seen her conquered eyen before the enemy entered her territory; and that, by a force not consisting of one Frenchman to fifteen Prussians capable of bearing arms. To humble Austria, took only one ipan to twenty, of those which freedom would have brought into the field; as to reduce Russia herself to a condition so dependeat that a saucy Frenchman, at St. Petersburgh, was more like the prime minister of the Czar, than the ambassador of another state, did not require one French soldier to thirty fighting men of those Rus ians who were able to draw the sword. Such is the radical weakness of despotic governments!

While warring only with brother despots the Corsican, Sir, seems the very enchanter of a romance. He smites the pompous ma chinery of his foe, it is shivered to frag. ments, and he marches onward, as though none had opposed him. But the moment he meets armed freedom, he is constrained to halt, his enchantments fail, and victory, under whose guidance he had been the Scourge of tyrants, now waves the banner of liberty in hostility, his legions are given to the edge of the sword, or to captivity, and himself to shame and anguish of soul; those very, legions which had mowed down as stubble the regular defenders of despotic thrones become themselves stubble to embattled patriots. Thus the chains, with which the perfidious Corsican thought to have irrevocably bound to his footstool the Iberian nations, there to administer to his restless ambition, are suddenly snapped asunder, and the whole secret of Europe's deliverance is seen to be-arms and liberty;

-a secret, the earlier knowledge of which might have saved our country hundreds of millions, streams of blood, and no small mortification: and what must it not have saved to the suffering continent?

After the full light which the magnificent atchievements of the Spanish patriots has cast on the questions of national defence and European deliverance, we must be curious to observe the future conduct of our own statesmen, relative to those objects. Will they be any better disposed than heretofore to a right system? Will they open their eyes to the truth? Or, will they obstinately shut them, and resist conviction, by still appearing ignorant that liberty is the proper motive, and arms in free hands the proper means? If they cannot shew tha the former is not the right motive, and the latter not the right means, how can they avoid using their honest endeavours to reform the infamy of our elections, to purge the land of its abominable borough corrup tions, and to renovate the ancient vigoa of the constitution, in its posse comitates

Keeping in mind, that a balance o despotisms is not a deliverance of Europe, hope that Englishmen will be no mot taxed, for hiring emperors to fight in cause, in which triumphant success woun only rivet more closely the fetters of thei own miserable subjects.-I. remain you obedient servant, J. CARTWRIGHT

September 6, 1808.

OFFICIAL PAPERS. RUSSIANS IN FINLAND -The following extracted from one of the official Report describing the hideous Proceedings of t Russians in Finland. Dated Wasa, Ja 14, 1808.

As soon as the Swedish troops we known to approach Wasa, the civil gove nor, Emine, and the commandant of th town, major-general Kniper, as well as l deputy major Stegeman, decamped, so th major-geneial Demidoff had the comman there during the engagement; when th was over, and the Swedish corps had treated, the inhabitants, who had been e posed to all the horrors and mischief of Constant fire of musquetry and cann which killed and wounded many in the houses, expected some respite; but alm immediately after, general Demidoff g orders to plunder the town, which was do in the most cruel and diabolical manner, u der his personal direction and presence; as that of the civil governor Emine, and gea ral Kniper, who had returned, when the found that their army had retained poss

sion of the place. These scenes of murder, wanton cruelty, and devastation, continued until the 30th of the same month, without the least intermission, except for a few hours, while lieut.-gen. Rajewski happened to stop in his way through the town, who expressed his utmost detestation at their conduct, and gave orders that the sacking and plundering of the town should cease; but he had no sooner left the town, than these murderous proceedings recommenced, and the soldiers divided themselves into larger and smaller bodies, and thus occupied the whole town. Their usual mode of procceding was, to fire a volley of musquetry through the windows of the houses, and then to rush in, and with the bayonet destroy whoever was to be found that had not time, or could not hide themselves in the cellars, under straw or rubbish in the barns, outhouses, lofts, or garrets, and afterwards to plunder and carry away whatever was of any value. All windows, furniture, china, glassware, and every article that could not be removed to answer any of their purposes, were broken and utterly destroyed, and all this under the eye and presence of the officers, who went about, and encouraged them, calling out dobra (bravo), raruscho (charming). No distinction whatever was made as to churches or a hovel, between the highest or lowest of the people; ladies of distinction, women and children of all sorts, the sick and wounded, the aged and prisoners of war, all fared alike, all were treated in the most inhuman, cruel, and detestable manner, and all were plundered. The supplications, upon their knees, with tears and intreaties of many of the most respectable ladies in the town, to obtain safeguards, was treated by that worse than wild tyger gen. Demidoff, and that complete monster in human form, governor Emine, who were galloping through the streets to give vigour and activity to the havoc and devastations carried on by the soldiers, with a broad grin of contempt, or the most brutal conduct, and at best with unmanly threatenings, "that if they ventured to say a word, the town should be burned, and levelled with the earth."-As a barefaced excuse for these cruelties, and for this irreverence to the Swedish nation, the Russian commander alledged that some of the inhabitants of the town had fired from their houses on the Russian troops-an accusation equally false and ungrounded as the report circulated by some evil-minded persons, that the inhabitants of the town had fired from the windows on the Swedish troops. All weapons in the town and belonging to private persons were long before

taken from the inhabitants, so that none of them had a single fire arm left.-In the country about the town, the conduct of the enemy was no less cruel and barbarous; they plundered and burned villages, destroyed fields and meadows; insulted the unhappy inhabitants; inconsolable widows and mourning children; fathers, sons, brothers, and friends, carried away and punished in the most abominable manner; grief, lamentation, misery, and despair, and the town itself, formerly so flourishing, now plundered, are the first objects that present themselves to the traveller, and inform him by what sort of enemy these places have been visited.--N. E. VON SCHOULTZ.-Dep. Id. lieut. of the county of

Wasa.

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PORTUGAL. Proclamation by the Commanders in Chief of his Britannic Majesty's Forces, ewployed to assist the loy al Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Portugel. Dated Lavos, Aug. 4.

People of Portugal,-The time is arrived. to rescue your country, and to restore the government to your lawful prince. His Britannic majesty, our most gracious king and master, has, in compliance with the wishes and ardent supplications for succour from all parts of Portugal, sent to your aid a British army, directed to co-operate with his fleet already on your coasts.-The English soldiers who land upon your shores, do so with equal sentiments of friendship, faith, and honour.-The glorious struggle in which you are engaged is for all that is dear to man, the protection of your wives and children, the restoration of your lawful prince, the independence, nay, very existence, of your kingdom, and for the preservation of your holy religion objects like these can only be attained by distinguished examples of fortitude and constancy.-The noble struggle against the tyranny and usurpation of France will be jointly maintained by Portugal, Spain, and England, and in contributing to the success of a cause so just and glorious, the views of his Britannic majesty are the same as those by which you are yourselves animated. (Sigued) CHARLES COTTON, ARTHUR WELLESLEY. Proclamation of the General commanding the Portuguese Army, to the Soldiers of the French Army in Portugal.

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Soldiers of the French army! The moment is now arrived to speak openly to those who hitherto have refused to listen to the language of reason. Open your eyes, Soldiers, to the deep abyss of evils which have grown under your feet, through the foolish ambition of your emperor, the in

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