lations that are daily reaching us from Spain; while we see Buonaparte, like the destroying angel, sweeping away armies and spreading desolation over the land, and while we are trembling for fear that the next mail may bring us the sad assurance, that the bodies of some of our own countrymen, friends, and relations, have been trampled beneath the hoofs of his horses: in the midst of these tidings, is it not enough to sting one to madness to be gravely informed, that, on the 14th of November," his ex

cellency DoN JUAN HOOKHAM FRERE," upon being introduced to the Central Junta, delivered a speech, in which "he stated "the extraordinary complacency and flat

tering satisfaction, which he felt in the "honour granted him by the king, his

master, in appointing him his representa“tive near the august person of his most Ca"tholic Majesty, Ferdinand VII ?" It really makes one's feet and fingers itch; it sets one all in a twitter, to read this, at a time like the present. "Near the august per"son," indeed! Why, what more could we do, were we to study for years how we should furnish food for ridicule in the French newspapers?--Of a piece with these proceedings was the proclamation to check "the licentiousness of the press," of which proclamation it is by no means difficult to guess the origin. It was so exactly according to the taste of certain people; it was so like them; it was the very thing one would have expected from thein. Keep the people down. Keep their tongues and pens in order. Don't let them talk too much. Well, according to all appearances, the Junta may now issue as many proclamations as they please against "the licentiousness "of the press :" for, it is to be feared, that they will soon have little else to do.→→My decided opinion is, that the present disasters in Spain have chiefly, if not wholly, proceeded from the change of feeling in the people, produced by the change of language in their leaders. It was always obvious, to those who reflected upon the matter, that Spain, to avoid the embraces of the Buonapartes, must be thrown into a state of revoJution; revolution or King Joseph appeared to be the only choice for the nation; and, unfortunately, those who obtained the lead, resolved not, at any rate, to have a revolution. They resolved not to suffer the li"centiousness of the press." I, for my part, shall always think of that. I know what sort of folks those are, who talk about "the licentiousness of the press" in this Country and in America; and upon this knowledge I do, and must, form my judg

ment.- -As to the conduct of our ministers, in their military arrangements, I am not disposed to find fault with it. The Morning Chronicle does, indeed, use some very powerful arguments to show, that they might have acted more for the benefit of the Spanish cause ; but, the worst of it is, these arguments come after the event. It was all along quite clear, that we could do nothing, unless the Spaniards themselves were in great force, as to numbers at least; but, it would now seem; that the French have the superiority even in that respect. Therefore, the accounts, which we before received, about their numbers, were false, or those numbers have, of late, diminished, which diminution, if that be the case, must, I think, be attributed to the change, which, by the altered language of the Junta, has been produced in the minds of the people. The blame, due to the ministers, appears to me to be that of having royalized, if I may use the word, the Spanish cause. This is a subject well worth the serious attention of Parliament; but, astothe military part of their measures, it will be very difficult, I imagine, to make any blame stick to them.I could not help observ ing, in the Courier newspaper of Saturday last, a letter, said to come from one of our officers in Sir David Baird's army, who, after complaining of the lukewarmness of the Spanish people, and their backwardness to make exertions against the enemy, sys, "this is a miserable people, the French must "do them good." I really did wonder 19 meet with a sentiment like this last, in a ministerial newspaper. You see, how things strike even our officers, This gentleman seems to have a high opinion of the bengis of French fraternization. Is it any wonder, then, if great numbers of the Spaniards are of the same opinion? No, no: say what | we will, it does not necessarily follow, that the French must be hated by the Spaniards, because we wish it to be so.I do not yet give up the Spanish cause as lost, because the great dangers of the country may rouze the people; a truly revolutionary spirit may arise, and, in that case, the French may be defeated; but, it a king at all, there is, I think, but hule doubt, that Joseph Napoleon will be that king.

DAVISON has, at last, been tried. He has been found guilty. Well, this is something; and now, I hope, that refunding will follow, that the poor abused and cheated people may obtain, from this proceeding. a little, at least, towards defraying the expences of the Boards of Commissioner i

which have been created for the purpose of "detecting and bringing to light such frauds upon the public purse. Without refunding, I think little of the prosecution, or the verdict. Squeeze the purse, that's the way to make them feel. 66 I squeeze you, sponge, and you are dry again." -I shall be very anxious to hear the result of these proceedings. If I were a member of parliament, I would never rest, 'till I had the pounds-shillings-and-pence picture of the whole affair clearly before the public.

DAVISON is, however, a person, after all, it seems, of a most excellent character. His sponsors, upon this occasion, were numerous. I marvel that he did not bring his corps of "Loyal North British Volunteers," who inhabit about St. James's Square. He is famed for his loyalty; and, really, little frauds upon the public, if committed by so loyal a man, might meet with a lenient construction. Who knows but that he might have been tempted to add now and then a pound to the price of his articles, for the sake of acquiring the means of raising Volunteers, in order to keep out the French, and to keep down the wicked and seditious at home? We are told, indeed, by the disaffected, that the detected peculators are all famous for their loyalty; for their attachment to "regular govern"ment, social order, and our holy religion." Bat, while the truth of this is, and must be, confessed, it may be answered, that loyalty, like every other lofty virtue, subjects

the

possessor, or, more properly speaking, the professor, to the charge of some petty vices. Besides, who is to be loyal for nothing? Godliness, we are told, is great gain; and, is there to be no gain attached to loyalty? Is a man to be loyal, while others are disloyal, or while others are said to be so, which answers his purpose full as well, if not better, and is he to get nothing at all by it? The loyalty of my little friend, THOMAS FITZGERALD, the small-beer poet, is almost proverbial. He has written more verses against Buonaparte than any man Uving. If the Corsican's carcass had been assailable by doggerel, he would have been killed long ago by my little friend, whose attacks upon him have been truly bloodyminded. Accordingly, little Thomas has a pension of one hundred and fifty pounds a year, duly paid him out of the fruits of the people's labour. The disaffected may say, that the pay ought to have followed the service, and that Thomas's pension should not have begun, 'till after he had killed Buonaparte; but, with their leave, this is not fair. Soldiers are not paid thus, What

is to support the loyal man, while his work is going on? Mr. Dallas is an able lawyer, I have heard, but, he did not, I think, sufficiently dwell upon the uncommon loyalty of his client.- -The newspapers state that Sir Andrew S. HAMMOND, Sir Evan NEPEAN, MI. HUSKISSON, the Right Honourable Charles LONG, the Honourable WELLESLEY POLE, and LORD MOIRA, gave evidence to Davison's character, and, I dare say, not without quite sufficient reason. Why, under the late ministry, Lord Moira made him Treasurer of the Ordnance; and, now I think of it, I was threatened with a prosecution for a libel, because one of my correspondents inveighed most bitterly against the project, then much talked of, of making bim a baronet. "Sir Alexander Davison and the heirs male of his body lawfully "and loyally begotten!" I am in tribulation for his corps of Volunteers. They will now be just like sheep that have lost their shepherd. Aye, the disaffected may sneer; but, St. James's Square may yet rue the day when loyalty thus suffered in the person of one of its most famous champions.About the time, just mentioned; that is to say, the time of the baronet project, I remember some pompous accounts, that were published of “grand Dinners," given by Mr. Davison, to very distinguished personages. It would be curious to ascertain the probable cost of one of those "Grand Dinners," the motive of giving them being too obvious to become a subject of inquiry with any one at all acquainted with the movement of the wheels of the political machine. I never hear of one of those festivals, without reflecting on the distress and misery, which they occasion. Oh! how many wretched families have spent their winter evenings supper-less and fire-less to furnish the means of carouzing at "Mr. Alexander Davison's hospita"ble board," as the paid-for paragraphs in the newspapers termed it! "Hospitable

board," indeed! Are entertainments like these; entertainments furnished from such means; given from such motives; and received upon such implied conditions: are these worthy of the heart-cheering name of hospitality? Where is the sycophant; where is the loyalty-affecting hypocrite; where is even the hired editor or reviewer, who is bold enough to stand forward, and justify this abominable perversion of the use of words? For the last three years, the daily press has teemed with paragraphs, praising this, now-convicted man. The topics of praise have been of great variety; but, all the paragraphs have had for their

evident object the causing it to be generally believed, that Mr. Davison was a most liberal and loyal and benevolent man. Το exhibit all the marks of liberality, loyalty, and benevolence, having such means in his hands, was very easy; and, if the people, in every part of the country, could see to the bottom of things, they would find, that no small part of what they term liberality and charity, is little more than a trifling per-centage of what is derived from their labour and privations. Even the praises, the nauseous printed flatteries of this man Davison, have, in fact, been paid for by the people; by the very people, whom they were written and published to deceive.Take, this man's wealth; see the amount of it; and then consider how many of those, who now live in misery, it would, if added to their present means, make comfortable. How many hungry bellies the interest of it would fill for ever; in how many families it would change water into beer; in how many fire-less hearths it would make a chearful blaze; in how many cottages it would eke out the scanty day-light of winter. This is the true way, in which to view the effect of these accumulations of the public means, in te hands of individuals; for, disguise the ting how we may, it is luxury, which is the great cause of misery. When the few destroy, by themselves and their idle retinue, a great portion of the products of the earth, there must be less than sufficient for the many. That there must, and ought to be, gradations in society we all know. They are necessary to the very existence of society; but, is it, therefore, necessary or right, that one man should, by the means of taxes raised upon the labour of the community, be enabled to consume the fruit of the abour of thousands, and that, too, without any corresponding services rendered to that community? Let us suppose, for instance, that Davison has a fortune of twenty thousand pounds a year, which may be about the mark, and that this fortune has come out of the taxes. This twenty thousand pounds a year is so much taken from the means of enjoyment in the community at large. View it as taken from a hundred gentlemen; each of these have so much the less to use himself, and, of course, so much the less wherewith to give unto them who need. I shall be told, perhaps, that the power of giving and the act of giving, in such cases, only change hands; but, besides that such a change is injurious to the former possessors, the objects of benevolence are also changed. The superfluities of fortune, instead of being used for the relief of

unfortunate merit, go to support the idle and the vicious; and, of course, to foster and perpetuate vice.The splendour of the metropolis, the increase of houses, of carriages, of scenes of amusement, of expences and luxuries of all sorts, in that all-devouring place, have their rise, princi pally, in causes such as we have now been contemplating. The wealth of the whole kingdom; that part of the fruit of all its labour and industry and ingenuity; that part of these, which ought to go to the providing of assistance to the unfortunate, and to the procuring of a small portion of general convenience and pleasure; all that part, is drawn up to the metropolis, through the cliannel of taxation. One such man as Davison takes away the conveniences and the pleasures and the voluntary alms of several parishes. This is the scourge, under which we smart, and under which we shall smart, till a constitutional reformation in the Parliament take place, till those, whose office it is to take care of the people's money, be no longer suffered to receive from the king's servants a part of that same money.I know very well, that the ge neral herd, in imitation of that of the forest. I will now stand aloof from Davison; now disclaim him, and swear they never tasted of his dinners. But, the people ought to be upon their guard against da they ought to look upon him as one way amongst the numerous herd; they ough not to join in any cry against this particul man; they ought to be fully aware, that, however great and numerous the frauds that he may have committed, those frauds, al put together, do not amount to a fraud so great and so wicked as the single fraud, attempted by those, who would make the uninformed part of the people believe, that he is the only, or the greatest, peculator; they ought to look upon Davison as a sample rather than a singularity, and to bear is mind the old saying: "as is the sample s "is the sack."

DOW

MAJOR HOGAN'S APPEAL. — In anothe part of this sheet will be found a letter from Major Hogan's publisher, from which it appears, that the Major himself is in America, whither he went some time after his pamphlet was published, and whence be is expected to return, in the space of twe or three months. This circumstance of the Major's being in America does, indeed, alter the case. It totally does away ground of that reasoning, whence I drew the conclusion, that his relation, as far as belong ed to the Bank Notes, was false. Before we come to such a conclusion, upon such ground,

the

we must see the Major in England again; or give full time for his agent's receiving his instructions upon the subject. There certainly is a good deal of reason, in what the Publisher says, as to an objection to make the numbers of the notes known; but still, I think, it would be safe enough, if there was a proviso for proving the property to be that of the claimant.As to the probability of a woman's doing what is ascribed to the "female in a dashing barouche," it is hard to say what is, or what is not, probable amongst such persons. But while the improbability has been urged, on this side, it has always appeared very odd to me, that nothing has been said of the improbability, on the other side. As to the fact of the strumpet's going to the newspaper office and to Frank's Hotel, there can be no doubt, and, indeed, no such doubt has been start ed. This fact being admitted, we have to inquire, whether it be probable, that such a woman was employed so to act by Major Hogan ? In the first place, what motive could he have for taking so much trouble and running so great a risk? Not to recover his rank in the army, which he had quitted, and from re-entering which he might be well assured, that such a device would, for ever prevent him. There appears to have been no possible motive of gain, which could have actuated him. Revenge, then; sheer revenge must have been the motive, if he really did commit the act. Revenge is a very powerful feeling; it will carry a man very far; some men much farther than gain will carry them; indig nation, rage at what the party conceives to have been gross ill-treatment from irresistible power, will, I allow, be very apt to set a man's wits to work to find out the

means of vengeance, and will greatly tend to make him set risks of all sorts at defiance. But, after all, I cannot see, for my life, how the Major could hope to gratify his vengeance from this scheme. I can. not see, why he should have hoped to do, with this scheme, what might be left undone by the other part of his narrative. Grant

ing, however, that revenge did set him to work, it must be allowed, that he took time to reflect about it; it must be allowed, that there was much of craft and invention in his conduct. Well, then, would such a man readily commit himself to the hands of a strumpet, who, the very day after she had received a reward from him, might, and, in all probability would, betray him for a much greater reward? Was the strumpet his own mistress? Such persons are not famed for their fidelity, es

pecially to gallant men, who are bound across the Atlantic ocean. Besides, there was the "dashing barouche" to hire; there were a coachman and a footman to engage to secrecy, a sort of gentry who are not very apt to hold their tongues for a trifle, when they become possessed of saleable knowledge. Major Hogan must have been nearly a stranger in London. Was it not a difficult thing for him to set to work and produce this equipage of barouche, lady, and servants? It is, I am told, very easy to trace hundred pound bank notes; but, would it not have been much easier; nay, is it not much easier now, to trace the barouche, lady, and servants? The waiter at the hotel took in the letter. He says he took it from such a person, with such an equipage; and, if he was bribed to tell a lie, can it be believed, that, especially now when the Major is gone abroad, he could not be induced to tell the truth? Let it be observed, too, that, if a sham lady and servants, it was to such people, that the Major had confided his four hundred pounds. Is it probable, that he would have done this? Is it probable, that a man, capable of such a deep-laid scheme, would have entrusted four hundred pounds to such keeping? But, the great thing of all is; the striking fact is, that the lady, barouche, and servants have not been found out, in a town where there is such a police as now exists in London. It is notorious, that the most artful and experienced swindlers cannot, for any length of time, escape this police, the officers of which, when once laid upon the trail, however cold the scent, however stale the bannt, do, ninety-nine times out of every hundred, discover and hunt down their prey. To me, tharefore, it is matter of great astonishment, and so, I think, it must be to the reader, that the lady and her equipage have not been yet discovered; that is to say, upon the supposition, that they were hired by Major Hogan. There appears to have been, upon this occasion, as strong motives for the vigilance of the police, as ever existed upon any occasion. No one will doubt of the power of the parties interested to set the police at work. The detection and exposure of the imposture, if it was one, would have been worth fifty millions of the paragraphs of hireling writers, in newspapers, pamphlets, magazines, and reviews. Yet, has the police not stirred, that we have heard of; yet, has there been no endeavour, that I have perceived, by a public offer of reward to "the lady or servants to come forward and make the discovery. This cannot fail to have great weight

with the public, in favour of the truth of Major Hogan's statement. There cannot have been less, supposing the thing to have been an imposture, than six or eight persons in some measure acquainted with it. Major Hogan must have hired the barouche and horses; for what person would have let them to a woman, who could have been engaged in such a service? The two servants must recollect the expedition. The heroine herself together with her companions, or servants, at home. This affair has made so much noise; it has been so long a matter of public conversation; that, one would think it almost impossible, that all these parties should have kept the secret, until this day, especially as there were such strong temptations to a disclosure, and no temptation at all, in any one, except the Major himself, to prevent such disclosure. This was my reasoning before I started the question about the publication of the numbers of the banknotes; but, as that was pointed out to me as quite effectual to ascertain from whom the notes came into the Major's hands; as I could see no reasonable objection, which the Major could have, to such publication; and, as he neither published the numbers, nor took any notice of my hint, I concluded that he dared not try the experiment. But, if it be true, as I must suppose it is, and as I am now, for the first time, informed, that he was gone abroad before my hint was given, this conclusion of mine was, of course, premature.It is very desirable that the truth of this matter should be ascertained and publicly exposed. If the Major has really trumped up the story about the lady and the notes; if his revenge has carried him so very far, it is proper that it should be known; and, it appears to me, that nothing is more easy than for the police to find out the heroine and the attendants. I cannot refrain from again expressing my smpdze, that, upon the supposition of the thing being an imposture, no one of the parties should have yet made a voluntary discovery. They must all have heard of the noise made by their calling at the hotel; the calling there must be fresh in their memory; they must all be aware of the advantage to be derived from turning evidence; the sea is between them and the Major; amongst the vilest of man and woman kind they must necessarily be; and yet, they do not, there is no one of them that does, come forward with a discovery. Supposing, therefore, the thing to be an imposture, there must be, in the composition of these persons' minds, a most uncommon mixture of baseness and of honourable feeling.

On the other side, upon the supposition, that the Major's statement be correct, there is little or no chance of a discovery; for, as my correspondent observes, as to the tracing of the notes, you are liable to be stopped by any one of the possessors refusing to tell how he disposed of them, or any of them; besides which, the possessors may not be in the kingdom, or, if in it, not to be found; to say nothing about the circumstance of people's forgetting, or never looking at, the numbers of the bank-notes that fall into their hands. Then, the woman, if the story be true, having her own carriage and servants, there would be no coach-master to trace her to; and, though the servants of such a person are not likely to be remarkable for their fidelity, they would be under no temptation to betray their mistress, or employer, there being no chance of gaining by their treachery, while there would be a pretty good chance of their losing by it. Such is the light, in which I view this matter. I must confess that I felt great plea sure at hearing a sufficient cause assigned for the not publishing of the numbers of the notes; because, I should have been greatly mortified to find, that a gentleman of such excellent character as Major Hogan appears to be; that so worthy a man and so very meritorious an officer, should, though from a sense of ill-treatment, have been induced to go so far as to state and to promulgre, under his own signature, a deliberate and long-intended falsehood.

**

The POOR WATCHMAKER OF A ROTTEN BOROUGH," in his enumeration of national calamities and disgraces, has overlooked one, which is greater than any of the rest, but which I need not name, when I add, that it is its existence which prevents me from giving to the world bis excellent and admirable letter. This is our curse; this is our political pestilence. Every word he has said ought to be read by every man in the kingdom. Let us hope, that a time may come, when the public may read this very letter; and, in the meanwhile, let us not fret ourselves much as to what so engages the hopes and fears of the coffee-house politicians. Oh! how gladly would I drag forth the "rascals, who gloss over their treasons "to their country by high-sounding decla "rations; raising one hand high with energetic enthusiasta, vowing their eternal vengeance on the French tyrant, while "the other is actively rummaging the pub"lic pocket!" But, I will keep his letter treasured up for the use of family and friends; and I beg him to accept of my best thanks for taking the trouble to commu

THREEL!