twenty five shillings in their notes, and the other asking for aid from the public, as a pauper asks for parish relief. Will these Bank Directors do as Edward III. did? Will they petition the king for the release of the many poor wretches who are waiting the severe sentence of those laws, those acts, which are unknown to the ancient principles of Eng lish jurisprudence, and which have made it death to imitate their money, or to write their names at the bottom of a bit of paper? Will they do this? Will they ask for the mitigation of the sentence of only one of these unfortunate wretches? Or, will they, upon the very morning of the Jubilee, go and see them kick their last upon the gallows?-This is verily the most audacious insult that ever was attempted; and I cannot help looking upon it as a trial of what the people will bear, preparatory to some new and yet unheard-of act of oppression.-I should not wonder if they had it in contemplation to apply for a law to make it transportation to say that Bank Notes are at a discount; or something of that sort. In short, after what we have seen, on the part of these Jews and Contractors, there is nothing that ought to astonish us.

WM. COBBETT.

Botley, Thursday, 28th Sept. 1809.

STATE OF THE COUNTRY. Sir; Among foreigners this nation has been esteemed a nation of humourists; and, doubtless, if differing in judgment and reasoning from the rest of the world be genuine humour, there is no people under the sun who have an equal claim to the same title. We are separated from the continent by a channel so narrow, that but too many of our Southern brethren are within hearing of the cannon, and within sight of the illuminations of rejoicing for victories over ourselves and our allies; and yet by a strange perversion of judgment, we hug ourselves, and act as if the victories were our own, and the French, from a mistaken notion of politesse, had been at the expence of celebrating their own reverses. We send out expedition upon expedition, with the advantage of sending them whithersoever we list, and of attacking points the most unguarded; and yet, with this advantage, the engine but recoils upon the feeble hands that directed it, and each successive expedition returns more beaten, more dis

graced, and more confounded than that by which it was preceded.-With this accumulation of annual ignominy, instead of feeling humbled by our habitual blunders, and the awful judgments that await them, or, what is more to the point, instead of acknowledging that something must be wrong, and endeavouring to redress it, we grow more foul-mouthed toward friend and foe; we abuse the latter for beating us, and the former for suffering himself, like ourselves, to be beaten. With what efforts of panegyric, clumsy indeed, but well intended, was the patriotic Archduke celebrated but yesterday! With what virulence of invective is he persecuted to-day! It would appear that this prince anticipated with joy the defeat of his army, that he deliberately planned his own destruction at Wagram, and hastened to consummate it at the feet of Napoleon. The long, the laborious, the heart-rending services which he has performed for a corrupt system, to which, like all other champions in the same cause, he has fallen a victim, are forgotten. His former merits are as nothing; and he is now branded as a traitor by the humourous malignity of our hired and even unhired writers, and their too partial, credulous, or corrupt readers. Those on the field of action felt, and severely felt, that the hopes of Austria were lost at Aspern. The unbroken communication of Napoleon with the islands in the Danube, his tête-de-pont which stood in the face of the enemy unassaulted, and even without insult, and, above all, the fearful serenity of his mind, prove this defeat to have been achieved rather by the pens of English hirelings, than by the swords of our allies. Yet, placed as we are at a secure distance from the scene, we presume to call that Armistice infamous and unnecessary, to which a brave, a numerous, an almost numberless host, headed by a leader respectable for skill, and unimpeached for integrity, was compelled to submit. whose every scheme but heaps upon us treble confusion, are the first to join our voices with those of the enemy in stigmatising a nation for being vanquished after a struggle for independence. This it is, Sir, to be protected from invasion by local advantages, and the natural barrier of the sea-Glorious advantage! that we may look tamely on the wreck of empires, and join our reproaches to the vanquished, with the scoffings of the vanquishers!-Could a person be found,

We,

whom the fame of occurrences for these last 15 years had not reached, he would doubtless expect, from the tenor of language held in this country, that while continental armies were repulsed at all points, the British held good more than their ancient fame, by an unbroken series of brilliant exploits. How eagerly would he listen, how hang upon the lips of the narrator! With what delight would the latter dwell upon one splendid, and efficient battle, in Egypt! I use the term efficient; for if the end be not answered, the exploit is to be numbered with failures. With what emphasis would he enforce, and vary this one, and almost only one tale, and with what despair would he cast his eye over the long catalogue of calamity and humiliation which truth would compel him to produce! I talk not of skirmishes, but of those encounters, which by their magnitude contribute to the mastery of empires-and of these, from the abandonment of the Toulonnese, whom we had sworn to protect, to the late childish business at the Scheldt, the general tenor has been failure, disgrace, defeat. Let us throw a hasty glance over these most distressing items of national disaster. Believe me, Sir, it may be of use--it may lead us to a detection of errors, and a developement of a wicked system-for, although a casual accident might befall; continued, and unvaried disaster in our military attempts, cannot, when we consider the transcendant bravery of our troops, be attributed to ought else but a depraved and wicked system. But if no other end be answered by the recital, owing to that blindness which refused the offered light, it may at least teach us humility, and a fellow-feeling for the partners in our misfortunes. Let us sec.-Dunkirk! and our consequent retreat.-The Helder! and that immense host, which the French with a force totally disproportioned in numbers, compelled to escape by capitulation-The above are princely trophies! Ferrol! or the manoeuvres of Sir James against open gates. Poor Sir James! he had the treasure in view, but from a sort of false modesty relinquished that and the peerage for a secure asylum in the ships. Buenos Ayres! It was an easy thing-any body, as in the latter case, was fit to command.-You had only to shew yourself; the Spaniards were poor creatures even at home, and in those parts were as easy to drive as their Merino sheep. Besides, the blessing of an English governor, (for government is a term obsolete in the colosies)

would alone, one would think, bring them over. Those stupid ideots of Spaniards thought otherwise, and so, as they would not yield to general Whitelock, general Whitelock yielded to them, and thus narrowly escaped a peerage. I pass over the last deplorable business in Egypt gder general Wauchope, and the gallant skirmish (for it was no more) at Maida; since neither the loss of the one nor the gain of the other were of a scale of magnitude sufficient to influence the destiny even of a province, and much less of a nation. The first was one unvaried tissue of disaster to ourselves, the latter was glorious to ourselves, and only disastrous to our wretched allies, whom we seduced, and, as usual, abandoned to destruction. Copenhagen! I do not imagine the greatest amateur will insist much on the ***** committed on Copenhagen, I am willing to pass it over, or even to number it, with splendid events, if it be insisted on, because it succeeded.

We went to ***** **; neither did we come empty away. The part of ***** was not ill sustained, and the prayers of the fleet, no doubt, called down success upon our arms in this pious undertaking. I am aware that some difference of opinion prevails relative to this business; but, upon the whole, I am inclined to think it will not be an unentertaining supplement to some future edition of the history of the Buccaneers. To this brilliant list, add the consequences of the affair at Vimiera, by which we gained the distinguished honour of submitting our fleets to the use of the French, and of elevating our naval men to the rank of carriers to an enemy from a country where all was hostile, to a country where all was friendly; from difficulties, dangers, an exasperated mob, an enemy far superior in numbers, scanty supplies, and an untenable position, to the safety and plenty of a land that should recruit them for our destruction. Of the three remaining exploits, our flight from Salamanca to Corunna, our victory at and flight from Talavera, our late grand achievement at the Scheldt, which must have caused more Dutch women to miscarry than was ever known before, let the amateurs select which is their favourite.All this is wondrous. But, Sir, next to the exploits themselves, the wonder is to observe with what address the memories of them are erased from the minds of men. A theatre, demolished, or rebuilt; a Mrs. Clarke; a Jubilee; a contest between Mrs. Dickons

and Madame Catalani; ora Duel between | two such men as Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning, a something, and an any thing, is sure to interpose between the just indignation of a brave and insulted people, and neetches by whom they have been succesively disgraced. With what horror must the cabinet have read the Convention of Cintra, had it not been smothered in the fumes of Covent Garden theatre? With what dread would they have listened to the groans of a suffering people for their heroic countrymen who fell useless'y, or returned fugitives from the Spanish campaign, had not those groans been converted into laughter by the royal Love-letters! How might they have felt, when a poor old man who had retired from all public employment, on the plea of years, and infirmities, was called upon to fill a place, of all others requiring the greatest activity and ability, that of Commander in Chief, had not their sense of feeling been deadened by another blow yet more violent, in a grand expedition, and the appointment of a bran new general (for warfare can alone make an old general, and not years, as is usually supposed in this country) to command it-and how might their attention be rivetted to this last, the consummation of indignities, which has been purchased by the blood or by the diseases of more than half that immense force, were not that newly goaded attention diverted from his dreadful blow, to the rise of prize at a theatre, to Catalani, John Kembl, a Jubilee, or a Duel between the NOODL and DOODLE of our Cabinet! Oh, this as foul! this is indeed very foul! but worse may yet await us. But two days ago it was announced that Lord Cochrane, who has well merited the hatred of certain cautious and prudent men by the uniform success attending his enterprizes, transacted business in company with the hero of Ferrol at Lord Mulgrave's office. I am not initiated in the mysteries of cabinets; Would to God there were no mystery in them, but all was plain, open, honest, and intelligible; but I do confess to you (impossible as it may appear) I read a fearful omen from this strange alliance of men so totally dissimilar, engaged in the same business. Is the Ferrolian chieftain really about to relinquish the peaceful occupations in which he is born to shine, for the dangers and mishaps of another essay in the art of war? Is a peerage so necessary to human happiness as to induce him to change his very nature, and rush through

ways so dangerous to explore? Of the fact I am ignorant; I should have read of Sir James and Lord Mulgrave to all eternity, without even thinking of such a thing as war. But the name of Lord Cochrane puts it naturally into one's head, and as late events shew nothing to be impossible, I formed a most dreadful divination that another judgment impended over us.—At present I shall say no more; but in taking my leave, I call on you, and every man, who is not absolutely hired and engaged to plot his country's downfall, to arrest the attention of Englishmen, and to fix it on one, or on all of the disasters to which a nation, the most gallant in the universe, has been bowed, by the folly or the vora city of their guardians; to evince to them, in the clearest light, how much blood has been shed, what diseases contracted, what treasures exhausted, in foolish and vain expeditions, which could not have been more disastrous, if they had been planned for the sake of the contractors whom they enrich, the court generals whom they are intend ed to ennoble, and the scorn and laughter of an enemy who rises in vigour and in pride from the successive defeats and disgraces which we purchase to ourselves at this dear rate. Yours,

BRITANNICUS.

JUBILEE PROPOSED. SIR; As the present age will ever remain conspicuously memorable in the annals of the Christian æra, when posterity revert to this eventful page, will not the independence that this island has maintained, amidst the fatal wrecks of power that we have witnessed, be revered and glorified? Does not this part of our retrospect afford matter of exultation that, though we have been so long menaced with destruction by most inveterate enemies, yet we have, under the auspices of our God, preserved our valued country, secured her pre-eminence, and, amidst the blessings of liberty, enjoy the blissful reign of peace within her borders? During the awful calamities that have afflicted such an extensive portion of the civilized world, has not our munificence and succour to the oppressed been manifestly exemplified? Though this auxiliary sort of warfare has been very prejudicial to ourselves, yet we are not compelled to become fugitives; we are not subject to the sanguinary laws of tyranny and despotism; we are not the victims of that vengeance which has been