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cut off the enemy's retreat through Navarre, where they will be joined by other troops and the armed peasantry of that country; and the 6000 men that I expect to-morrow from Valentia, joined by 4000 men of the army formed on Catalay-ad, will, I trust, be able to overtake the enemy's rear, in order To chastise and prevent them from commiting on this march their usual robberies and vexations.-This fortunate event has been this day celebrated with the ringing of bells, and to-morrow the Te Deum will be sung to offer up thanks to the Most High.-It is of great importance to accelerate the meeting of the deputies of all the provinces of Spain, and I think it would be expedient to appoint for that purpose a day in the next month of September. I have given the same advice to the rest of the general and supreme councils in the whole kingdom; nd should you coincide with me in opinion on this subject, I hope you will acquaint me with it.-JOSEPH DE PALAYOX Y MELZI. Head-quarters, Saragossa, Aug. 13, 1808. Manifesto, dated Head-quarters, Saragossa, Aug. 15.

After so many days of pain and affliction, he period has at length arrived, which I could expect, from the firmness and valour with which you have defended this illustrious apital.-Having witnessed the shameful light of the French slaves, who have abanloned the artillery, ammunition, and proisions, which their detestable rapacity had leaped up, let us now perform our principal uty, and offer up thanks to the Omnipotent vho has inflicted condign punishment on hose wretched soldiers who profane the emples, outrage the sacred images of the Divinity; and are such strangers to morality, hat they are not worthy to have any interourse with the rest of mankind. Let us eave their emperor to the remorse and afflicions which are the lot of the wicked, and eseech the Most High, that he may vouchafe to bless again our arms, that the two rmies which are in pursuit of the fugitive obbers, may complete their destruction.The fields of Saragossa, its gates, and even ts streets, are stained by the blood of 2000 Frenchmen, who have paid with heir lives for the temerity of their chief. This is the fruit which the French have reaped from their entrance in Arragon. All Europe, nay, the universe, will hear with horror the names of their generals Le Febvre and Verdier, who, unmindful of the good Treatment which the French prisoners, and all the natives of France experienced in Arragon, have committed the utmost atrocities.

They very justly appreciated the difference

between the system of an ambitious and treacherous government, and that of a nation which cements its felicity by the fairest principles of justice, and considers not as real enemies those who took no share in the delicious combat of their government. France will long deplore the calamities which the war with Spain has prepared for her; and cannot recollect, without the deepest sense of shame, the means employed to carry it on.-Husbandmen, artizans, orphans, aged and religious persons, ye who have been reduced to indigence and misery in consequence of your fields being fired, your houses destroyed, and your property, which, however small, constituted your whole fortune and all your comfort, robbed by the French, be easy; you have the good fortune of living in Spain, and yours is the glory to have defended the capital of Arragon, whereby our enemy was prevented from desolating the rest of this beautiful province: you bore up with resignation under your sufferings, and disregarded your private interest in order to promote the general good. I cannot look with indifference on deeds of heroism like yours, nor omit any opportunity of procuring you relief. I have very particulatly charged the intendant general of the kingdom, D. Lorenzo Calbo, as soon as the most pressing occupation of the present period shall permit it, to relieve your wants by every means in his power; and I depend on the generous feelings of all Spaniards, and on the liberal sentiments of our beloved king, that all possible exertion will be made to indemnify you for your sufferings and losses.-PALAFOX.

Manifesto of the Junta of Seville, August 3, 1808.

The defence of our country, and of our king, that of our laws, our religion, and of all the rights of man, trodden down and violated, in a manner which is without example, by the emperor of the French, Napoleon I. and by his troops in Spain, compelled the whole nation to take up arms, and to chuse itself a form of government; and in the difficulties and dangers into which the French had plunged it, all, or nearly all, the provinces, as it were by the inspiration of heaven, and in a manner little short of miraculous, created supreme juntas, delivered themselves up to their guidance, and placed in their hands the rights and the ultimate fate of Spain - The effects have hitherto most happily corresponded with the designs of those who formed them. The provinces have armed themselves; some have formed large armies of veteran troops, and have uuited to them the enlisted pea

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sants; all, or nearly all, have fought and an alteration into them; the different preare fighting against the French in behalf of texts for this alteration; and, lastly, the their king, Ferdinand VII. with a valour final settlement which was made by the and a constancy, of which neither Greece, cortes of 1739, and which ought in future Hor Rome, nor any other nation of the to be the rule. But are we in a situation to world, had any idea. The French are really talk of these matters? Long live our king amazed and terrified, and the hopes of con- and indisputable sovereign Ferdinand VII. quering them are as sure as human certainty and long live his august brothers, heirs of can reach.-The only thing which can im- the crown, after his attested decease. Why pair or frustrate them, is discord, and the then anticipate those enquiries which can onwant of union among the provinces them- ly be necessary in default of these? selves. Hence the supreme junta paid its anticipation may produce, by the diversity first attention to remove that danger, with of opinions which it creates, a cruel diswhich view it printed and published the union, which, of itself alone, will utterly official paper, entitled Precautions, which it ruin the only aim and object which Spain at communicated in every possible manner to present has in view, and that is, its own enall the provinces of Spain. The bringing tire and independent preservation for its sothis plan to perfection, and carrying it into vereign lord and king, Ferdinand VII, and complete execution, is now more than ever his undisputed successors; and, with its necessary. Our enemies are anxious to king, the preservation of its own rights and foment our divisions. Human passions, Jaws, and the unity of the holy Roman Capersonal interests ill-understood, the igno- tholic apostolical religion, which it has glorance, the weakness, the blindness of men, riously professed and defended for so many may, perhaps, without their knowing it, ages. It is therefore, bo habsurd and danassist the evil designs of our enemies, and gerous to dispute about the succession in cases thus destroy a beginning so glorious, and evidently remote; all the provinces of Spain facilitate and consummate the entire ruin of ought to confine themselves in this respect to Spain. This it is that we are endeavouring this general expression-"Hereditary succesto guard against, urged only by the most sion according to the fundamental taws of the sacred motives, by our honour, by our loy-monarchy."-Not so is it with the second alty as affectionate subjects, by our duty as question moved by the various juntas of the Spaniards, by our faith as Christians; and kingdom, which certainly keeps the people here we protest before God and man, whose in a state of disquietude and agitation, is aid we invoke with all fervency, that we the continual object of public conversation, will write nothing but what is dictated to us and may produce division fatal to the gene. by the love of our country, the preservation rous design, and the virtuous obligation into of our king, and of our rights, not mingling which we have entered of defending ourselves with it any thing that appears to partake of against our enemies, and of preserving our passion, of interest, or of any other person- country, our king, our monarchy, our laws, al motive; but being always ready to hear and our religion. This second question is the opinions of the other provinces, and to is there a necessity for creating a supreme amend our own errors, wherever it shall be government, which may unite the sove shewn that we have committed any. Be it reign authority of all the provinces, till the chief care to avoid every thing which is the restitution of king Ferdinand to his not absolutely necessary, and which may throne This supreme junta declares serve to sow the seeds of disunion in the openly, that from the beginning to the provinces, and to excite divisions among present time it has been persuaded that such a them; and of this nature we esteem all con- supreme government is altogether necessary, versations about the royal house, and of the and that without it the country is in danger, order of succession in different families and its enemies will find means of completwhich derive a right from it. There is no ing its ruin; and the reasons of this deterperson so ignorant of the history of Spain,mination and declaration are so evident, and and of the manner in which the throne has present themselves with such clearness to been occupied, as not to know the changes the eyes of all, that they cannot fail of conwhich have taken place in the succession.vincing all who have the least notion of pubIt is also known what are the legislative pro- lic affairs, or a correct insight into the naceedings upon this point; what the manner ture of man, the passions which move him, in which endeavours were used to introduce and the order of human affairs in all ages. (To be continued.)

Printed by Cox and Baylis, Great Queen Street; published by R. Bagshaw, Brydges Street, CoventGaiden, where former Numbers may be had: sold also by J. Budd, Crown and Mitre, Pall-Mall.

VOL. XIV. No. 16.] LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1903. [PRICE 10D.

the London Gazette Extraordinary, in which were published, by the government, the several documents elating to the late Conventions in Portugal, the Armistice, which was the basis of all that followed, and raich, as far as it was deputed from, in the subsequent negociations, was rendered less injurious and disraceful; this Armistice, which was, on our part, negociated by Sir Arthur Wellesley, and which bore his gnature; this Armistice was published, was, by the government, communicated to the people of England, the French language only, while all the other documents were, in the very same Gazette Extraordinary, odshed in the English language only.

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act, a statement of which I have placed at he head of this present Number of ny work, should be constantly borne in mind y every man in this disgraced and abused ountry. It has been the subject of much onversation and inquiry; it was a thing, of which the ministers must have been desirous give, or cause to be given, a satisfactory xplanation; it is notorious, that a whole onth has now elapsed without the appearnce of even any attempt at such explaation; and, therefore, the public are jusfied in concluding, that their intention, om the first, wis to do all in their power screen Wellesley, let what would become t his associates in the never-to-be-forgotten rancaction. Whether they will persevere 1 this their evident intention we shall Don see; probably I shall be able to pereive it even before this article be finished; or, the hero of Oude being arrived, his ewspaper will not be long in making nown to us what we have to expect with spect to him.In the meanwhile, let s attend to some points which have escaped -The dispatch, giving an account of e victories in Portugal, were dated on the 2d of August; the bearer of that dispatch ould not have come away before that day; that very day the armistice was negociated nd concluded, and yet the bearer of the disatch brought no account of the armistice. Vas not this something very singular? Say, at the bearer was ready to come off in the Borning, and that the armistice was not oncluded until night. But, if there were vessel ready to send off with another aessenger at night, why was not the bearer ept until night, that the consequence of the icery as well as the victory itself might

ave been announced to us at the same ime? What injury to the service could ossibly have arisen from the delay of a ew hours in the departure of this messener Nay, what possible inconvenience ould have therefrom arisen? Sir Arthur

[578 Wellesley would not, indeed, have enjoyed the praises of this gulled nation for the space of a week; a strong and unjust public persuasion, in his favour, would not have been excited; but that is all, that is all the mischief that could possibly have arisen from the delay.But, was there a delay ? I doubt it. Did not the bearer of the dispatch bear also the account of the armistice, in substance if not in form? It is my opinion that he did. Ships do not move off at a moment's warning, like post-chaises. The armistice must have been concluded before the bearer of the bragging dispatch left Portugal; and, though it would have been of little use, perhaps, to send forward the document in due form, yet the substance of it might have been added to the dispatch, and it is not credible that it was not added. My belief, therefore, is, that the substance of the armistice was made known to Lord Castlereagh through the bearer of the dispatch; and that he, not being bound to communicate that substance to the public, suffered us to go on, for as long a time as possible, applauding the conduct of Wellesley.I do not wish to strain any thing. I have no other motive; I can have no other motive, than that of a desire to see impartial justice done; but, this appears to me to be the fact, and, if it be so, the public ought to bear it in mind; because it is a circumstance strongly corroborating the opinion, now generally prevalent, that the ministry, or a part of them at least, have intended and, probably, do intend, to screen Wellesley at all events.- From motives, which will, by-and-bye, become apparent enough, the friends of Wellesley are now questioning the practicability of reducing Junot within any reasonable space of time; and a correspondent, whose letter will be found in another part of this double Number of the Register, sets himself seriously to work to controvert the opinion which 1 gave, to wit, that, after reading Wellesley's dispatch, we had a right to expect, by the next arrival, an account of the unconditional

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surrender of the French. Did any one imagine, that, by the next arrival," I meant, or could mean, the very next vessel that should come into port from the shores of Portugal ? I meant, by the next bearer of dispatches from our army; the next bearer of any intelligence of importance; and, I appeal to the language of the press, at the time Wellesley's dispatch was received, for a proof that such was the expectation generally entertained.--But, was it a reasonable expectation? That is the question; and it is, observe, a question which lies entirely between Wellesley and the public, the other commanders having had no hand in the bragging dispatch. My correspondent now tells me of twenty or more than twenty thousand men, whom Junot had under his command. But, Wellesley told us, that, with half his force, before he was joined by Burrard, he beat "the whole of the French force, commanded

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by the Duc Abrantes in person."` Ishould like to have seen him when he penned this last quoted sentence. By the Duc d'Abrantes in person!' How he braced up, I dare say, and repeated the words to himself, with an air of pomposity so inseparable from his sect. "In person!" Why, if there had been an army of a hundred thousand men, commanded by emperors, the language and manner could not have been more pompous. Some one has observed, that the giving of this title to Junot proceeded solely from the vanity of Wellesley; as if nothing short of a Duke were worthy of the honour of measuring swords with a Wellesley; and, indeed, it seems difficult to attribute to any other motive, this cutting and flagrant insult to a prince and a people, whom we went out to rescue from insult and oppression. To return from this digression: it matters little what were the numbers of Junot's force at the date of the negociation; for, whether many or few, "the whole" of his force had been beaten by "one half" of the force of Wellesley, and we know, that the force of the latter became double in number, or nearly double, previous to the signing of the Convention. It is a fact pretty generally known, that when transports are demanded, double tonnage is expected. Besides, the number is now swelled out with all sorts of persons, persous, who, observe, shut up in forts, would have been a dead weight upon him; and yet my correspondent chooses to believe, that Junot could have brought twenty thousand men into the field, though it was positively stated, that he retreated with his whole force before one balf of Wellesley's army; that is to say,

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before less than nine thousand men. After all, however, we return to the point: be his force what it might, the whole of it was beaten by about one third of the force that we had at the time of making the Convention; the whole of it was beaten but the day before by one third of that force, amongst whom were the very men who had beaten him; this is the fact, or.... Wellesley told this nation, this credulous and abused nation, a shameful lie. -Well, says this new defender of Wellesley, but of what avail would have been a superiority of force? We should not have made Junct surrender any thing the sooner on account of great superiority of numbers. —— No ? Why then, the complete power of cutting off succours and of preventing the chance of sallies would, in the hands of our generals, have been useless? Besides, what are this gentleman's ideas of a siege? It is, for the most part, a very vulgar affair; an affair much more resenibling ditching and draining than any thing else; and, as two labuttiers will do twice as much at ditching in a day than one labourer will do, so thirty thousand men will, in the same space, do twice as much at making trenches, approaches, and batteries, as fifteen thousand men. have, moreover, the authority of that great man, Sir Hew, one of whose motives for coming to terms with Junot was, that there was a doubt, whether Sir John Moore's division could be landed at the time. Now, acceding to the notion of my correspondent, more men were not only not necessary, but absolutely useless for the purpose of any operation that could, at the time alluded to, be in contemplation.But, for the pur pose of storming, would not superiority of numbers have been an advantage? has not this mode of attack yet found its way into the practice of our armies? Why do we raise all these men; why do we pay ten thousand officers; why have we a staf superior in numbers, and very far superior in expence, to Buonaparte, if we are never to hear of any enterprize of this sort? The greater part of the forts in Portugal, if my information be correct, were things to be taken by storm, with the loss of perhaps a thousand men for each attack of this kind; and, it will require very ample and very credible evidence to convince me, that, with such an army, with thirty thousand men, so able-bodied and so accustomed to labour, with such a train of artillery, and with the whole of the strength, labour, and resources of the country at our disposal, not to mention a considerable army of Portuguese actually embodied; it

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will require much indeed to convince me, that, with such means, our generals might not, in the course of one week, have carried a mine ander the rampart of Junot's strongest fortress There would have been no regular investiture necessary; no line of circumvallation; none of the precautions usually adopted in cases of regular siege; because sallies and succours were out of the question. Did ever man conceive, that, under such circumstances, a breach could not be made in six days? Never; and, when my correspondent reminds me of Saragossa and other open towns, which have exhibited to the world instances of long and successful resistance, my answer is, that it has not been owing to the strength of the place, but to the strength and courage of the defenders. Let him shew me an instance, wherein the assailant had, with a third of his force, beaten the assailed but the day before, and had all the country around for friends, while his enemy had nothing but enemies within and without; let him shew me an instance like this, wherein a successful, of a long, defence has been maintained, and I will say, that he has advanced something worth listening to; but, for an instance of this sort he will search history in vain.As if for the purpose of furnishing us with a striking instance of the miserable shifts, to which the partizans of Sir Arthur Wellesley are driven (for he must, at last, stand responsible for the Convention), this writer reminds me, that the people of Lisbon, the dear good folks of Lisbon, were at the mercy of Junot; and, that it was our duty to prevent him, by any means whatever, from committing any cruelties upon them, which cruelties he might have committed, if we had refused him such terms as he demanded. It is pity that this argument has been so long delayed; for it would have applied equally well against sending the expedition to Portugal, where it has, at an enormous expence, purchased us deep disgrace, and done infinite injustice and injury to our allies of Portugal, Spain, and Sweden. Indeed, it would apply against every attempt to drive the enemy out of any town or place. It is a sweeping argument; the universal argument of the coward: "I would attack you, but I am afraid of the consequences." What! did not Junot well know, that, at last, he must become really responsible for all the cruelties he committed upon the people of Lisbon? Did he not know, that we had cords to hang with and muskets to shoot with? Or, was he apprized, by any means, that we were so gentle a people, or had committed our armies to the care and command of generals so

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gentle, that he had only to play the bully, the robber, and the murderer, and had no, thing to apprehend in the way of retaliation? Judge, reader, of the badness of a cause, in support of which such an argument is resorted to.--But, as the reader will perceive, we are now, it seems, to answer those who defend the Convention, not those who execrate the Convention and defend Wel. lesley. Reader, we have heard the defenders of Wellesley assert, in the most posi tive manner, that he protested against the Convention, and against any compromise at all with the French; that he had nothing to do with negociating the armistice which he signed; that the French general wrote it out with his own hand; that Dalrymple, at Kellerman's request, commanded Wellesley to put his signature to it; and, that, after very earnest remonstrances, he finally yielded obedience to the hateful command. Those defenders have plyed us with disser tations upon military discipline; they have told us, that absolute power in the chief and implicit obedience in his inferiors are the soul of an army; and, calling in the terrible to the aid of the persuasive, they have reminded us, that if poor Sir Arthur had disobeyed the mighty Sir Hew, the latter might have run him through the body! Did they not assert and reason thus the gaudy, chariot-lounging, the painted and piano-playing strumpets about town, who, as part of their regular calling, deal in the pathetic as well as in lies, trumped up a story of Sir Arthur's going upon his knees to prevail upon Sir Hew not to bring such a disgrace upon his country. Did not his defenders say, that he was to be considered, as to the Armistice, as no more responsi-, ble than the clerk of an attorney or a banker, who signs a document or draft in the name of his master? Did they not. throw all the blame, all the responsibility,, upon Sir Hew, whose fame they blasted, and whose carcase they threw down before. us, to be trampled and spit upon? Did they not, in support of their great assertion respecting the Protest, first publish and theu quote, as from vouchers of undoubted authenticity, numerous extracts of " letters from the army," the whole of which extracts spoke of the famous Protest, blained Sir Hew and Burrard, but were particularly strong and clear as to the Protest? Every sycophant in London had this Protest upon. his lips. Protest, Protest," the gallant Sir

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Arthur's Protest," the "Conqueror of "Vimeira's Protest!" This was the cry, through the regions of Whitehall, and was faithfully echoed by the punks of the squares.

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