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to cure (and towards which exposure is the ) A pretty compliment this for a magistrate, a first-step; for before proper remedies can servant of the crown, to pay to his master! be applied towards the cure of a disease, you An associate of the magistrates of Middlesex must be acquainted with its nature). And too, alarmed at magisterial influence becountry gentlemen of this description are the ing improperly applied! Your correspondent persons who have most influence in county has put the signature of a Kentish Magis affairs. It therefore does not by any means trate to his letter; but, I suspect that he is follow of necessity, that to excite disgust in not entitled to the character which he has country gentlemen is to do wrong. And, I assumed, or he never would have been ignohave my suspicions that in the instance al-rant that the charges which he has brought Juded to, though I have not any other knowledge of the transaction than what is furnish ed by your correspondent, that the country gentlemen (by which expression I mean the description of them above alluded to) found an opposition to their views to which they had previously received implicit obedience. All before was snug and confortable. They sailed on a smooth sea, not a breeze was stirring of public spirit to impede their course. It is, therefore, extremely natural that the gale blown up by the police magistrates, should have excited something like dissatisfaction in the minds of the country gentlemen. However this may be, Mr. Cobbett, and supposing the conduct of the police magistrates to have been as bad as the nature of the case could possibly admit of, can your correspondent unblushingly present the accusation of undue interference at elec tions. It is a rule in our courts of law, that a suitor for redress must come with clean hands. Then shall a person who classes himself with the magistrates of Middlesex obtain redress through your Register on the ground of improper interference at elections? The conduct of the magistrates on that occásion was such, that it no sooner presents itself than all other acts of that nature are lost. The stars attract attention, but no sooner does the sun make his appearance than they vanish from the view. But independent

ly of the impropriety of such interference, "it is improper and alarming that persons "appointed, paid by, and removeable at the "will of the crown, should act, much more

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preside, at the sessions of those counties "where their offices are situated; their so

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doing not only weakens, (I might say destroys) the benefit of an appellant juris"diction, but lessens the magistracy in the "eyes of the people." This, Sir, is your correspondent's statement, but what impropriety or alarm can arise, I confess I am utterly at a loss to conjecture, unless he means that if a person who holds a place under the crown, should follow the dictates of his own judgment when opposed to the interests of the crown, he will receive his dismissal. And, therefore, it is to be apprehended that he will not act conscientiously in his office.

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against the police magistrates, apply with equal force to the county magistrates. Are not the county magistrates appointed by, and removeable at the mere will of the crown, equally with the police officers? And do not county magistrates preside at sessions to which appeals from their acts must come, and where persons whom they have committed, and against whom they have received ex parte evidence must be tried? Your correspondent also states, that he has been at the Middlesex sessions when police magistrates exclusively occupied the Bench? Is not this a strong argument in favour of police magistrates? Does it not show that county magistrates neglect the duties of their office, and prove the necessity that persons on whom more reliance can be placed should have a power co-extensive with themselves? "But when they attend," it is objected "that they have undisputed powers of the bench." This I consider to be the effect of superiority of mind, which ought to give them the ascendancy. That they are supe rior in understanding, cannot be denied. The discovery of the guilt of Patch, who was convicted of murdering his master, proves the assertion. And many other instances might be adduced, but one is sufficient. It is foreign from my intention to enter into a discussion of the merits and demerits of our police system, for demerits I admit it has, though not of the nature mentioned by your correspondent. I mean merely to confine myself to answer the charges advanced by your Maidstone correspondent.-I am, Şir, yours.-R. R

E.

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active, roguish agent out of doors, manage their business so adroitly as to extort some thousands from the honest and industrious

tated. Hitherto Providence has blessed our undertakings. Without injustice, without any ground of reproach from any of the other Powers, we succeeded in keeping up a good understanding with the whole of them. This state of peace and tranquillity is suddenly annihilated. The English Government, after having long neglected its own

part of the community. These swindling adventurers have no intention of satisfying their claimants. Their only object is to receive all they can, and the moment the ballot commences is the signal for winding up accounts, shutting up their offices, and de-interests by a shameful inactivity, and after camping with the cash. It is a fact, that, at the period when the army of reserve was set on foot, a notorious swindler, now dead, made more than £1,500 in about five months, by robbing livery servants, mechanics and shopmen of their hard earnings, without finding or ever intending to find, a single substitute for any person who insured with him. One High Constable realized a handsome fortune by insuring; and now lives in the stile of a nobleman. When Mr. Yorke, as Secretary at War, was apprized of such inproper practices, he endeavoured to stop them by a clause inflicting a penalty of £100, on every High Constable taking insurances. This, permit me to say, has been completely evaded. A confidential person is now employed, who, with the assistance of some of the clerks, acting under the court of lieutenancy, realise very considerable sums without the possibility of detection; the opportunities they have of exonerating their subscribers from the effects of the ballot, (at least for a time) must be evident to every one. The drawing takes place. Some of their customers are fixed on. The return of non est inventus on the back of the precept is received as a matter of course without any further investigation. The penalty is now doubled. Twenty pounds instead of ten pounds. Of course, all the tricks alluded to will be played off with redoubled vigour. Yours.-A. C. R.

PUBLIC PAPER.
WAR WITH DENMARK -Declaration puk-
lished by the Court of Denmark against
England.

All Europe is acquainted with the system which Denmark has followed, during a period of 15 years of war and disturbance, with unceasing perseverance. The rigid observance of a free and impartial neutrality, and the conscientious fulfilment of all the duties belonging thereunto, have formed the object of all its wishes and all its efforts. The Danish Government, in its reiations and connections with other States, has never lost sight of that simplicity, which was insepara ble from the purity of its sentiments and its love of peace, and which it cannot be suspected of having once changed or debili

having betrayed its allies into a vexatious and uncertain struggle, has suddenly developed all its power and activity, to attack a neutral and peaceable State, without any complaint. against the same. The means for dissolving the ancient and sacred connections which united Denmark to Great Britain, have been prepared with as much secrecy as promptitude. The Danish Government saw the English ships of war upon their coast without even the conjecture that they were to be employed against Denmark. The island of Zealand was surrounded, the capital threatened, and the Danish territories violated and injured, before the Court of London hað made use of a single word to express the hostility of its feelings.. This, hostility, however, soon became evident:-Europe will with difficulty believe what it will hear. The basest, the most violent and cruel object which could ever have been taken up, has no other foundation than some pretended information, or rather that of a mere rumour of an attempt, which, according to the Engish Ministry, was to have taken place, in order to draw Denmark into an hostile alliance against Great Britain - Upon these pretended grounds, which the least degree of discussion immediately would have shewn as being founded upon arbitrary measures alone, the English Government declared to the Court of Denmark," in the most imperious manner, that in order to secure its own interests, and to provide for its own safety, it could leave Denmark no other choice than a war, or a close alliance with Great Britain. And what kind of alliance did they offer? An alliance, the first guarantee of which, as a pledge of the subjection of Denmark, was to have delivered up all her ships of war to the British Government. There could be no hesitation as to the alternative that was to be adopted This opening being made, as scandalous in its offers as in its menaces →→→ as offensive in the manner as in the thing itself-left no room for negociation. The most justifiable and rooted disdain naturally absorbed every other feeling. Placed between danger and dishonour the Danish Goverrment had no choice. The war commenced: Denmark was by no means blind to the dangers, to the losses with which she

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confine myself solely to a retrospect of the
recent atrocious conduct observed by that
nation in every quarter of the globe. Years
after years have set in and passed, during
which all Europe has witnessed the English
Government using every means it can in-
vent, for cementing and propagating its de-
testable tyranny, availing itself of every cir-
cumstance favouring such a purpose; stoop.
ing to practices the most vile and infamous,
setting aside the most sacred principles of
the rights of man, and trampling upon all
the usages and customs, for many ages uni-

lized nations. Far from proceeding either
in carrying on war or negociating peace,
with that noble frankness and good faith,
the characteristics of nations generous and
brave, it recurs to dark artifices of fiction
and seduction, to dazzle a
unwary, who are weak
confide in his perfidions

corrupt the 'to trust and se.

was threatened by this war. Attacked in the most unexpected and dishonourable manner, exposed in a separate province, and in a manner cut off from all the means of defence, and forced into an unequal contest, she could not flatter herself with escaping a very material injury. Unspotted honour, however, still remained for her to defend, as well as that reputation which she had earned as the price of her upright conduct.-Denmark, therefore, flatters herself that, on the part of the Powers of Europe, she will not appeal in vain. Let impartial Cabinets judge whether England was under the political ne-versally received and observed aniongst civi cessity of sacrificing another State without hesitation, to her own safety; a State which had neither offended nor provoked her. Depending upon the justice of her cause, trusting in Providence, and in the love and loy. alty of a people to a Prince, whose mild sceptre, under Providence, is swayed over an united, brave, and faithful people, the Danish Government flatters itself that it will be able to acquit itself without weakness, of the hard and painful task which has been imposed upon it by necessity. The Government of Denmark believes it has a right to reckon upon the interest and justice of the Cabinets of Europe, and they particularly hope for the effects of the same on the parts of those illustrious Sovereigns, whose objects and alliances have served the English for a pretext, and to give a colour to the most crying act of injustice, and whose object is to offer England the means of making a general atonement for an act of violence, which, even in England, every noble and generous mind will disown; which deforms the character of a virtuous Sovereign, and will ever remain a scandal in the annals of Great Britain.

FOREIGN OFFICIAL PAPER. BUENOS AYRES.-Manifesto of his excellency the Viceroy of Peru, on the Capture of Buenos Aures by the English.

[From the Peruvian Minerva.] Although I am convinced, the perusal of the three proclamations, published at the city of Buenos Ayres by the English General Beresford, must have filled with indignation the breasts of all his Majesty's loyal subjects, and particularly of those who enjoy the happiness of inhabiting this metropolis, so much favoured and distinguished by our Sovereigns; yet I cannot refrain from indulging myself in pointing out to my countrymen, the venom, hidden under the hypocritical professions of the enemy, therein contained; for which purpose, without recurring to any other arguments, I shall

Such is

the object of the three proclamations which I have mentioned; to lull to sleep the understanding of the inhabitants of Beenos Ayres, with hopes of an imaginary happiness; to blindfold them, that they may not perceive the abyss of evil which surrounds them: to cover, as with a garland of flowers, the iron chains which their oppressors have prepared for them; to stupify the native energy of those active Spaniards; to alienate from their hearts, if it is possible, the love, the fidelity, and gratitude they owe to the most benevolent and just of all Monarchs; to prevail upon them, for ever, to lay down their arms, nor think of avenging themselves and retrieving their lost honour, but solely to aspire to the felicity of being numbered among the vilest slaves of the Tyrant of the Seas. From these motives, they speak of the great advantages which they pretend would result from an alliance with Great Britain: under that Government, they say, oppression is unknown; they promise immediately to free their commerce from the heavy duties and imposts to which it has been subjected, to respect the Catholic religion and its holy Ministers, and that the local laws and national customs shall remain untouched and they conclude with stating, that their only object is to protect the Eastern coasts of South America, and render it a country the most prosperous in the universe. But where is the man of sense and judgement, who does not immediately discover, under such affected expressions, the vile language of hypocrisy and fiction, so foreign to the intrepid soldier, and natural only to the cowardly legions of those sordid islanders? Where is the man

whose blood does not boil on hearing the sacred names of protection, humanity, and benevolence, pronounced by a government, stained with recent robberies, perfidies, and murders? by a goverment which does not cease sowing the seeds of discord and rebelhion every where; by a government which has so lately before our eyes kindled a fire in the fairest part of the globe [alluding to Europe], whose provinces we have so recently seen inundated with streams of the blood of its inhabitants?-by a government, which has so basely forsaken its allies, by hastily withdrawing its troops from all those parts where any of the invincible battalions of Buonaparte made their appearance ?-by a government whose friendship has proved so baneful and ruinous to so many powerful Princes, and covered with mourning and desolation the immense countries situated between the fertile banks of the Adige, and the frozen lakes of Bohemia?-by a government, lastly, which has so long endeavoured to erect the throne of tyranny upon the spoils and tombs of all other nations, and which of late years, has not even, shrunk, in the face of the whole world, to adopt, as a basis of its machiavelian, system of politics, the plan of perpetual war; a plan at. which humanity shudders; a plan which posterity will record and hand down to our remotest descendants, as a memorable monument of the ferocity and barbarity to which egotism and a thirst for monopoly can precipitate a nation which lents its ear to. no voice, but that of its arrogant and unnatural avarice?-Generous men of Lima! Let us fling far from us, with that contempt which they so well deserve, those infamous proclamations, with which the English General pretends to surpise the innate fidelity of our countrymen, who inhabit the. banks of the river Plata. Letuslook upon them as an insult to our honour, as an attempt against our happiness, and a plan directed to the destruction of our native land.-Merchants, the same men, who now pretend to have possessed themselves of Buenos Ayres, solely with a view of protecting our commerce, are the same who have precipitated it into a state of ruin, so prejudicial to your useful speculations, and to which you see it reduced. They are the same who commenced the present hostilities, by capturing three of the King's frigates, and blowing up another. They are the same who seized upon your defenceless ships peaceably navigating the seas, under a confidence that the Spanish flag, which they displayed in the air, would protect them against all injuries from a nation with which we were not then at war. A general indig nation was manifested by all the Cabinets of

Europe, but even this was insufficient to induce those avaricious and cruel islanders to restore the treasures which they had so unjustly taken, with the blood of so many innocent victims.-" Spaniards! That per fidious nation which now pretends to appear to the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, as of all others, the most humane, is the same which, not six years since, sent a squadron and an army before Cadiz, at a time when the plague reigned within its walls, spreading horror and destruction, The English Admiral, who, from his cabin windows, could feast his eyes with the spectacle of mountains of corpses, yet unburied, and the gloomy light of the funeral piles, yet had the courage to challenge our valiant chief to surrender, or to prepare himself to suffer all the rigours of the war. The commander of a Moorish corsair, having fallen in with a convoy, carrying victuals and medicines, at the expence of the Pope, to the city of Marseilles, then infested by destructive plague, not only refrained from capturing those ships, but spontaneously convoyed them to the port of their destination; and the English Admiral, on a similar occasion, threw balls and' shells into Cadiz, with an intent of reducing it to a heap of ruins.— Spaniards! Those who now publish a law at Buenos Ayres, enjoining slaves to obey their masters, are the same who fomented, and still continue to encourage, in the island of St. Domingo, the most atrocious rebellion recorded in the annals of nations. We have all witnessed that, while the sanguinary. Dessalines, at the head of innumerable bands of assassins, marched along the coasts, with the murdering steel in one hand, and the incendiary torch in the other, with fire and sword, spreading desolation, déstruction, and death wheresoever he went, an English squadron vigorously blockaded the capital, in order that no one solitary victim might escape the African fury.-Indians! You who are such interesting objects of the tender care of our most amiable monarch! That nation, which has taken possession of Buenos Ayres, has ever treated the Aborigines of America and Asia with the most inhuman cruelty. When, in the course of the last century, they found it impracticable, by force of arms, to subjugate the brave inhabitants of the Flos ridas, they concluded a specious pace, and, during that peace, regaled them with poisoned liquors and clothes, which caused death without number. Their East India Company has already extirpated the greatest number of the mild inhabitants of Malabar, Bengal, and Coromandel, and would extir. pate them all by one single blow, if they re

251

POLITICAL REGISTER.-Commercial Regulations in St. Domingo, &c. [416

quired not their labour in the manufactories of their richest stuffs. That terrible famine is still recent in our memory, when millions of Indians perished, and which being foreseen by the English factories, they timely stored all the rice, and other provisions, hich the scanty harvest of that year had yielded! Indians! wheresoever the English nation has gained a footing, your's has been enslaved, reduced, and destroyed without mercy. All you people, inhabitants of Peru! let us, on this important occasion, display all our loyalty and courage. Let us speedily. wash away the foul stain cast upon the arms of Spain by the surrender of Buenos Ayres. Let us instantly fly to arms, in the defence of our holy faith, and of our beloved sovereign; and let us plunge into the deep cur rents of the river La Plate those outcasts of smugglers and pirates, who having by surprise possessed themselves of one of the most interesting parts of America, diffident of the power of their arms, and in dread of our just vengeance, now attempt, by means of the detestable artifices of seduction, to induce us to forego the performance of our most sacred and inviolable duties, and to turn deaf ears to the pathetic and penetrating voice with which our country now calls upon us for assistance.

COMMERCIAL REGULATIONS IN Sr. DOMINGO. The Council of State, upon the proposition of the President and Generalissimo of the Land and Sea Forces of the Island of Hayti, enacts the following law : Art. 1. from the first of July next, the duty of ten per cent. laid by the 1st article of the decree of the 2d of September, 1806, is and shall be suspended upon the exportation of sugar, cotton, and cocoa. It shall only be retained upon coffee. 3. It shall hereafter be lawful for vessels of every description, foreigners or others, freely to export sugar, cotton, and cocoa; upon which article it is forbidden to exact any duty whatever. 3. The duty of one-fourth, imposed upon the produce raised by the farmers of the State, by the 5th article of the decree relating to the mode of renting the national domains of the 22d December, 1794, shall be hereafter abolished. 4. The farmers of the State shall be subjected to no other charges than the payment of the rent of their farms. 5. The superintendant General of the Finances is strictly enjoined to carry the above into execution-Done at the Cape, the 20th June, 1807, 4th year of indepèn dence.-A. Vernet, Jean Phillipi Daux, Juge Fleury, Maguy, Secretary, Toussaint Brave,

Raphael Manuel, Paul Romain, Chairman, Martial Bresse, Jean Baptiste. We, the President and Generalissimo of the land and sea forces of the state of Hayti, have sanctioned and do hereby sanction the present law, and direct, that the seal of the state shall be thereunto affixed, and that the same be published and carried into execution throughout the territory of Hayti. Given at the Palace at the Cape, 21st June, 1807, 4th year of Independence. HENRY CHRIS

TOPHE.

AMERICAN VESSELS. The following, Let ter has been transmitted to Ireland and circulated there :·

Whitehall, 23d July, 1807.-My Lord, I have the honour to transmit to your Grace the copy of a notice given by the Commissioners of the Customs to the merchants concerned in the trade with the United States of America, and to the masters of all American vessels, informing them, that according to a determination of the Lords of his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Coun cil, ships being American property, but not the built of America, or condemned as prize within the United States, sailing under sea letters, cannot be considered as American vessels, and consequently entitled to import into this kingdom, under the 37th Geo. III, cap 97, which Act was continued until the 1st June, 187, by the 46th of his Majesty, cap. 16, and the regulations contained therein, directed by his Majesty's Order in Coun cil, dated 27th May, 1807, to be duly ob served until other provision should be made; and directing the officers of that revenue to conform to the above determination of their Lordships, so far as they were or might be respectively concerned; and I have to request, that your Grace would give directions for promulgating the same among the merchants in Ireland concerned in the trade with the United States.-At the same time, in order to prevent inconvenience to the mer chants from the said determination not having been sooner made known to them, I beg leave to recommend to your Grace to give directions for admitting to entry such Âmerican ships of the above description as may arrive in the ports of Ireland prior to the 31st of Oct., after which day the rule that ships being American property, but not of the built of America and sailing under sea letters, should not be considered as entitled to import under the Act 37th Geo. III. cap 97. should be invariably adhered to. I have the honour to be, &c. &c.-HAWKESBURY.

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