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nent? With those very men, whose phari-sent; and, unless it be done soon, it will saical supporters have publicly declared be very difficult to do it at all. them to be" too bonest" to have any connexions with the continental powers? With the men, the "too honest men," who received Ceylon and Trinidad from the hands of Buonaparte, and who sent the Stadholder to seek, (for sacrifices made to us,) an indemnity in the plunder of our German allies? Where is the power who will deign to connect itself with a nation governed by ministers like these?-Let it not be imagined, however, that we are ever anxious about a mere change of ministry. We have certainly no private end which would be answered by such a change; and, as to the public, it would derive mery little, if any, benefit from a change of men, unaccompanied by a radical change, not only of measures, but of notions and of principles. We must have war with the Republic of France, or we must become a province, a military division (le 28 division militaire), of France; but, if that war is to be conducted upon the same principles, or rather the same noprinciples, that the last war was, we, for our parts, think it a matter of perfect indifference who are the men: the " respecta ble" sire of the Clerk of the Pells, or even the Clerk of the Pells himself, on whom the simpletons of Reading have just bestowed the honorary title of Captain of VoJunteers, would lead us under the yoke as well as any body else.

The affairs at the Diet of Ratisbon have assumed an aspect somewhat new; but, as -will be seen by a reference to the official 'papers (p. 522,) and to abridgement of the supplementary plan of indemnities (p 528), which, however, we do not give positively - as authentic, nothing decisive has yet been done. One article of news from Ratisbon, if it be true, is of great importance; that is, that the Elector of Hanover has objected to the supplementary plan.

The Mediterranean is now the interesting scene. Buonaparté certainly has an inten tion to make some bold push in that quarter; and we should not wonder to hear, by-and-by, that his fleet has sailed from Toulon, while he, by the tour which he is, about to make, fixes our attention on the sea-ports of the channel. The Mediterranean is open to him. Minorca and Elba are in his hands; our force in Egypt is reduced to a mere nothing; a few days fortunate sailing will again put his army in possession of Egypt, and that country, once re-possessed, will never again be evacuated, though another Lord Hawkesbury should obtain another stipulation to that effect. The re-occupation of Egypt by the French would be a just judgment upon this country, the people of which illuminated their houses for the treaty, by which their ministers most shamefully affected to obtain the evacuation, at the very moment when they knew that the enemy had capitulated, and who expressed no sign of joy, or of praise, when that capitulation was officially announced! A more striking instance of baseness and ingratitude was, perhaps, never exhibited by any nation in the world. When they regarded the evacuation as a boon granted by France, they were frantic with delight, they hugged the bearer of the tidings, they became his cattle, his beasts of burden, they licked the hem of his jacobin garment; but, when, a few days afterwards, they found that this same good had been obtained by the valour, the perseverance, the almost unheard of hardships, of His Majesty's army, the base wretches seemed to sicken at the sound; not a single shout of approbation, not a candle was lighted, on this account, in the whole kingdom of Great-Britain, except at the office of the Porcupine news-paper! Such a nation cannot stand! The example, the scandalous example, was, in both these instances, set by His Majesty's ministers; who, to celebrate their own disgraceful peace, expended thousands upon thousands of the public money, but, for the glorious campaign, by which Egypt was re-conquered, not a single penny! Of all the acts of an administration which has led us from disgrace to disgrace, this, in our opinion, was the most shameful.-It will take a great deal to wash us from these

We wish for some good from the change of ministry at St. Petersburgh; but, we want the evidence of some act to give us any reliance on aid to be expected from that court M. Markhoff is still at Paris; and the last note given into the Diet at Ratisbon, must have been approved of by the new ministry. These circumstances, particularly the latter, leave little foundation for hope from that quarter. It is possible, that the Emperor of Russia may yet be withdrawn from the politics of France; but we do not think it very likely at pre-stains,

Printed by Cox and Baylis, No. 75, Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Published by R. Bagshaw, Bow Street, Covent Garden, where all the former mumbers may be had.

VOL. 2. No. 18. ]

London, Saturday, 6th November, 1802.

[ Price 10D

CONTENTS.-Reading Ball, 545. Let. Amsterdam, 548. Ext. M. Chron. 554. Tr. bet. Fr. Pru. and Bavaria, 559,
Note M. Hugel, 560. Lugano, 561. Ligurian Rep. 561. Switz. 562, 563, 564. Ext. from the Moniteur, 565.
Summary of Politics, 568. Switzerland, 569. Royalists, 570. Ext. Mr. Pitt's Speech, 574.
545]-

READING BALL ON THE PEACE.

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Naturally desiring to make our nexions as extensive as possible, for the sake of intelligence, we are happy that the article, which we copied from the Morning Post, relative to Mr. Addington's ball at Reading, has procured us a new correspondent, and we hope for a continuation of his favours. Mr. Tietenser will permit us just to hint, that he seems to have taken up the matter a little too seriously, though his anger is highly honourable to his feelings of friendship. Upon one point we cannot forbear expressing the very great satisfaction which we have received from the following letter. It would have been an unpardonable mockery and profanation, a cant of hypocrisy no less foolish than impious, had Mr. Addington in the most distant manner, represented the treaty of Amiens as a blessing from Divine Providence, at the very moment, when he was on the point of declaring, that, after an experiment of less than six months, he himself finds that treaty to be incompatible with our safety and independence; and instead of a blessing, to be one of those visitations of divine wrath, by which the destruction of a fated people is sometimes prepared, through the instrumentality of the weakest and most contemptible creatures among them.

Reading, Nov. 2, 1802. Sir,-As an inhabitant of Reading, and a friend of the minister, whose "respectability" has been repeatedly testified even by you, certainly not one of his greatest admirers, I call upon your justice to allow me a corner of your next number, in consequence of a letter in your last, which you professed to have copied from the Morning Post.

The conduct of that newspaper, Sir, with regard to Mr. Addington, has been particularly unjustifiable. It has been marked by that kind of unfair license which the pretended" Lover of Truth and Decorum," with so much reason, whether he meant it or not, has censured and condemned. Not once or twice only, but almost perpetually, it has been made "the vehicle of grave and

[546

"circumstantial misrepresentations." What a strange liberty was taken, not only with of a whole fraternity of worshipful men, no the name of that gentleman, but with that longer ago than last Michaelmas day. Did not that editor, for two or three days together, fill half his columns with notices and paragraphs about a goose feast at Apothe caries' Hall, in honour of Mr. Addington and the peace? And when this was formally contradicted, in a paper dated from the ball itself, had he not the impudence, in opposition to this grave authority, to forge a contradiction to that contradiction, and sign it with a long string of fictitious stewards? Of a piece with this, was another silly attempt, which was made about the same time, from the same quarter, to impose on the credulity of the public. When the state of Europe required all the attention and vigilance of our cabinet, and every body knew that they were constantly meeting; when Mr. Addington's assistance colleague Lord Hawkesbury, in settling the was indispensably necessary to his worthy commercial arrangements that were to sesidious machinations of our rivals on the cure our navigation and trade from the inother side of the water; when, I will take most careless of his duty, much less such a upon me to say, Sir, that no minister, the minister as Mr. Addington, could have stirred from Downing Street even to Richmond Park, a ridiculous story was malignantly told, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, forsooth, was amusing himself with playing the part of the lowest Custom-house officer, chasing Kentish smugglers, and seizing moonshine, mundungus, and smouch. To be sure there was much affected praise of his generosity in giving up his proportion of the good things which thus fell to him, but this I have not the smallest doubt was meant as a sly allusion to the Clerkship of the Pells, which he so prudently secured for our present young captain. Well then, could you have supposed it? After all this unwarrantable indulgence of fancy, a plain, literal, harmless fact, which was witnessed by hundreds, is to be called into question. How can the reader of that prostituted

journal know, in future, what to believe, or disbelieve? For my part I can hardly credit that it has so extensive a sale as it boasts!

tients, of a certain description, as is well known, in this neighbourhood; and no doctor ever sent out more cured, whatever malicious people may say. Some of these, wishing to show their gratitude, first started the idea of paying a compliment to his son, on the occasion of the preliminaries of peace. The ratification, however, not coming as was expected, the moon, which governs all these meetings with us in the country, was a little too much in the wane for that month. Parliament met, and the definitive treaty hung on hand till the season for balls was past. At the commencement of the present season, the persons who had first set it on foot, thinking it better late than never, resolved to pay the compliment to Mr. Addington, at a time when he was perfectly at leisure to be present. This, Sir, is the plain unadorned tale. The account which has been given, I can seriously assure you, is substantially true: only I must correct one trifling error. Mr. Addington is too good and religious to have so

With his known candour, he said that he was an humble instrument, not in the hands of Divine Providence, but of Mr. Pitt's prudence. The origin of the mistake is a little ludicrous.

Suffer me now, Sir, to consider a little the mock arguments that are produced against the reality of our late ball. It is represented, truly, as a gross blunder to pay the people the compliment of being the authors of the peace "just at the moment "when they are beginning to be heartily "ashamed of it." A pretty sort of blunder indeed! On the contrary, if it be true, that the people really are beginning to be ashamed of the peace, I cannot conceive any finer stroke of policy, than for Mr. Addington, at that very moment, to persuade them, if he can, that it is not his shameful work, but their own. As to the coarse sarcasm levelled at the "vigour of the present go"vernment" I shall only say, that I trust no man of common sense will value it three skips of a flea." Mr. Addington's speech, however, is said to have been a repetition of an old House of Commons address. Per-lightly taken the name of God in vain. haps it may, Sir: it sounded, I confess, to my thinking like something I had read. Did the writer immagine then, that we are such country bumpkins at Reading, as to be ignorant that what is called an address of the House of Commons is the language of the minister himself? And pray what language should a man use but his own? Aye! but truly it was bad taste to talk on such a subject to "an audience of dancing "misses and negus swigging fiddlers." As if, truly, the young ladies whom this anonymous assassin (I wish they had him within the reach of their nails) so flippantly calls" dancing misses," had nothing to do with the subject. War, Sir, almost to a proverb, makes husbands scarce; and surely the ladies of Reading, like all others, may be allowed to feel a little interest in a peace. The other part of the audience, to which an objection is captiously made, are necessary persons at a ball, and if they swigg negus only, they are likely to keep themselves sober, which is not the case with the noisy, riotous crew, hiccupping out pricked port and brandied sherry at the Shakespeare Tavern; to whom certain parliamentary seceders are in the habit of addressing those harangues, that for ten years together, have been so ostentatiously detailed in the Morning Post.

You expressed a desire, Sir, to ascertain the fact respecting our ball. It was simply this. The Doctor (I mean the father of my friend Mr. Addington) had a great number of pa

I hope I have not been too harsh in my comments upon the pretended Lover of Truth and Decorum. His letter is dated from this place. It is unpleasant to mention names, where there is not positive proof; yet I cannot help hinting that there is, not a hundred miles from this place, a certain unpopular character, commonly distinquished all over this country by the name of Massacre; and we are very well informed here what visitors were at his house at the time. For my own part I shall not conceal myself under a feigned signature. My name and family have been long publicly known in this place. I am, Sir, your obedient humble Servant,

TO THE EDITOR.

J. Tietenser.

Amsterdam, 26th Oct. 1802. SIR,-About 14 months ago, I was informed by a friend at Paris, that the British Ministry were upon the eve of concluding a peace with the French Consulate. Alarmed at the terms, I wrote, on the 1st day of September 1801, a letter, wherein I sketched out the then visible consequences that were inevitably to ensue-the said letter was in serted in the Times of the 23d September, under the title, "Reflections on a Peace with

France." If you will, Sir, take the trouble to read it over, you will, I presume, allow, that I had some knowledge of the characters with whom your ministers were negotiating; and you will then perhaps excuse the liberty I take in addressing to you the few following remarks upon the present state of affairs.*

MR. EDITOR, For this some time past, particularly since the armed insurrection in Switzerland, we have been amused with the grumbling, shouting, and howling of John Bull; all the late cordial confidence in the Prime Consul, seems to have rusted into distrust and jealousy; that pacific republic, which, but the other day, was held out by the British Ministry in the midst of a deluded Parliament, as on its knees before the altar of Jesus Christ soliciting reconciliation with God and man, is now, in all your public papers, represented in its natural Jacobin attitude. Pray, Sir, by what supernatural power has this wonderful change in the construction of John's eyes been brought about? We dare swear, that, from the innermost recesses of Buonaparte's soul, to the public demeanour of his meanest subject, there is not a hair-breadth of change, neither in the religion, morality, nor in the politics of France, since the 26th Oct. 1792, to this 26th Oct. 1802. In 1792, 'the creed of every Frenchman in France, was, que "les rois sont dans l'ordre moral, ce que "sont les monstres dans l'ordre physique." The Jacobin Club canonized Ankerström for having delivered the world of one; and decreed, that the Divinité was the author of the droit de l'homme, by which code all kings should be extirpated. The first position is, Sir, the creed of nineteen twentieths of the people of France at this moment; and Buonaparté has assumed to himself the honour allowed to the Divinité in the third.

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To see in all your London papers long chapters upon the terrors of Buonaparte, upon the opposition of the French to his measures, upon the bravery and patriotism of a deluded rabble in Switzerland, and upon the present military spirit of Austria,

Before we received this intimation, our attention had been directed to the Letter in the Times, and, from its language and sentiments, we at once concluded, that it was written by our valuable correspondent "SwENSKA," through whose means we were enabled to communicate to the public the projected new division of Germany, ten days before the ministers themselves were acquainted with it. (See p. 129.) The same correspondent obliged us with another letter (See p. 355.), which contained some excellent remarks. His letter in the Times we shall re-publish in our next sheet.

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sickens common sense! It is extremely distressing to see, that that deadly ignorance which pervades every country on the continent of Europe, should have overshaded Great Britain also! Do, Sir, for the sake of your country, tell your men charged with its preservation that no man was ever more master of his own household than Buonaparté is master of the French Republic. A parole d'ordre, will, at any moment, raise the nation in a mass; and march them to murder Swiss, Germans, Turks, Russians, or even their friend Mr. Addington, without a grumble; nor will officer, soldier, peasant, or mechanic, ever ask or care where they are going nor with whom they are to fight. Instead of being satiated with revolution and war, both are become necessary aliments to that ferocious community. The Swiss rabble do not merit the sympathy of their neighbours, nor if they did, could any power or powers save them, if the Consul has a mind to subdue their country. Austria is no longer a military power; that country has neither government, money, nor bread: the Austrians and Hungarians must either turn out and new-model their present ministry, or that ministry will deliver them into foreign subjection.

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What we have here stated, are real and bona fide facts: and if Lord Hawkesbury has different information, he is imposed upon. His lordship's diplomatic agents abroad are, with few exceptions, poor insignificant gentry; their reports cannot be depended on-they have no means of obtaining information. In friendly countries, while there were countries friendly to Great Britain, your missions, for many years, espe cially during the revolution, have been generally filled with men who have given to us foreigners very ridiculous ideas of John Bull. We might refer you to many gentlemen on his lordship's diplomatic list, who could give the most unequivocal testimony, that, had there not been a premeditated plan to insult the several sovereigns of Europe, and to hold up John Bull as a most indecent animal to the derision of foreigners, they had never been sent out of their country. Ignorance,

* These remarks, though severe, are but too well founded. What are, with some very few exceptions, our present, or, indeed, generally, our late diplomatic corps? Are they like the diplomatic corps of any other nation? The powers of Europe send great men as ambassadors; men fit to be ministers at home. America sends the leading members of her Congress; her chief justice, her governors of states; in fact, the greatest men in the country, instead of the least-It was an even chance whether CHARLES BELOE, Esq. was employed

mean ostentation, immorality, and awkward espionage, are the leading characteristics of Eritish modern diplomacy: they can give you no account of foreign states, for foreign statesmen cannot have any confidential intercourse with men whom common decency obliges them to despise. Your ministers at home, as well as their agents abroad, run after and cringe to men; they know nothing of real circumstances. If the Emperor change a laquais, or Madame Buonaparté take a new chamber-maid, all the roads of Europe are covered with British couriers, and a dozen of frigates are set off without provisions, to announce to the world the prevalence of the British party in all the cabinets of Europe! Poor old England! are you now come to that? Your existence depending upon the change of a Russian secretary! Mr. Editor, if you thought some of your little folks would not be angry, you might perhaps render a service to your countrymen, if you told them, that the political existence of the British Empire depends upon changes nearer kome.

go would have been for ever secured to England, without Mr. Dundas's twenty millons of money, and without the ten thou sand men, who so inglorious'y perished under the medicaments of General Maitland's surgeons.-The lesser Northern States of Europe solicited, begged, and prayed to be taken under your protection-the demands of Prussia were rational, fair, and necessary; those of Russia, such as every person who knows any thing of such matters knew that you could not oppose. It was therefore, the duty of a British Minister to have co-operated with those powers, against the common enemy of all legitimate government. You had the trade of the world in your hands, and all the European settlements abroad under your guns; you might have distributed them as best suited your interests; and you could have guaranteed your distribution, by keeping a sufficiency to maintain your navy: you had Malta, it was an effectual barrier between France and Russia; you had the Cape and Surinam which secured to you Hindostan and Brazil. And what could France have done? burst her bowels by the venom her stomach could not otherwise have vented. So you stood, Sir, at the head of the civilized world, every government in it, ready to receive any rati onal proposition from the Court of England.

Mr. Editor, we foreigners consider the situation of Great-Britain, as she stands in relation to Europe and America, to be as follows:-At the commencement of the revolution Great Britain stood high in the opinion of the world; all other powers looked up to His Britannic Majesty as universal-How do you stand now, Mr Editor?-Ą unpire in all their disputes. Mr. Pitt's armed mediation in the Russian, Swedish, and Turkish quarrel, being thwarted by that Westminster patriot, Mr. Fox, (which produced the final partition of Toland, to the eternal reprobation of that political demagogue), diminished for a moment the reputation of the British Government. Their interference against the French, and their paltry mercantile quarrels with the Neutral States, rendered the British Ministry unpopular on the Continent, until the French Revolution assumed its hideous attitude; then the terrified world turned towards the British standard and looked to Mr. Pitt. America, at one time, only waited his orders to declare against France, by which St. Domin

in breaking my windows, or in representing His Majesty at some foreign court! The means and motives, which lead to the admission of the far greater part of the members of our dip omatic corps, would form a most curious and diverting

collection of anecdotes in low life.-EntrOR.

For the truth of this fact the Editor can

Touch; and the neglect of such an opportunity was amongst the great blunders of the war.-The co-operation of America offered, perhaps, no har

vast for Mr. Dundas's labourers.

deserted insulated nation; in the opinion of every reflecting man- doomed to inevitable destruction, and pitied by nobody. The outworks of your country in the hands of your mortal enemies, and your colonies under the guns of those works. Requiring an annual income of more than 30 millions, and depending on the trade of those very colonies for that sum; requiring an annual supply of several millions of foreign corn, and your enemies holding the keys to all the granatics. The necessaries of life at a price which must sooner or later prevent entirely the exportation of your manufactures; and your public credit depending upon the uniform in which the sharp sighted Mr. Merry may chance to see one of Buonaparte's household servants. And the British ministry Switzerland, or of any other country!! Do, will pretend to interfere in the affairs of for heaven's sake, Sir, advise them to be quiet and civil. By the genius of Buonaparté, and by the contempt which Europe and America bears for Great Britain, conjure them to be quiet.-Where, in the name of common sense, bas the peace left you a point of attack? Are Buonaparte's settlements to be surprized as those of the King of France

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