VOL. XIII. No. 3.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 16, 1808. [PRICE JOD. Lord Clarendon in the 1st Volume of his History of the Rebellion, p. 203, states, that, "when the factious members of the House of Commons wanted to have any thing pass the House which they feared would meet with opposition, they would draw up a Petition to the Parliament, and send it to their friends in the country to get it sigued, and brought it up to the Parliament by as many as could be prevailed upon to do it, Their way was, to prepare a Petition, very modest and dutiful for the form; and for the matter, not very unreasonable; and to communicate it at some Public Meeting, where care was taken it should be received with approbation. The subscription of a very few hands filled the paper itself, where the Petition was written, and therefore many more sheets were annexed, for the reception of the number, which gave all the credit, and procured all the countenance, to the undertaking. When a multitude of hands was procured, the Petition itself was cut off, and a new one framed, suitable to the design in hand, and annexed to the long List of Names which were subscribed to the former. By this means, many men found their hands subscribed to Petitions of which they before had never heard."" 65] SUMMARY OF POLITICS. PEACE Rumours of Peace having been afloat for some days, and there being a talk, amongst the out faction, of promoting Petitions for Peace, I shall offer to the reader what presents itself to my mind upon the subject. Whether it be true, or false, that the late intercourse with France and Holland, through the means of the Austrian Embassador and his messengers, relate to proposals for negotiation; whether it be actually the case, that the mediation of Austria has been offered to England, and refused by her ministers, upon the ground of Austria herself not being independent; whether those ministers have declared, that they will negotiate only with France, directly, and, anticipating the demands of Napoleon, have expressed the laudable determination of never suffering England's ancient rights upon the seas to become matter of discussion in the arrangement of any treaty, to which England shall be one of the parties: whether any part, or all, or none, of this be true, I do not pretend to know; nor would knowledge, in that respect, be of any use towards enabling me to form any judgment upon the question of peace, seeing that nothing that can be said, or contemplated, by the negotiating parties, can alter the real state of things, as it notoriously exists. This state of things is described in very few words: Napoleon has conquered the continent of Europe. The three states, Russia, Austria, and Prussia, who retain their former names and sovereigns, and who are not actually governed by his generals and his troops, are, nevertheless, not independent; but are, and must be, compelled to do whatsoever it may please him to command them to do, and, of course, to injure, as far as they have the power of injuring, this country; while all the maritime states, [66 from the Baltic to the Hellespont, are under his absolute and immediate controul; England aloue, (for the fate of Sweden is hardly known) of all Europe, remaining truly independent of his power.--Such is the state of things; and, in order to form a judgment as to what ought to be our terms of peace, if now made, we must first consider, what are the probable views of Napoleon respecting us. He has conquered all Erope, England excepted; and, it is in the nature of ambition, never to rest, until it can go no further. The nearer, too, that it approaches its utmost limits, the more eager it becomes. Thus have we constantly seen it, in the case before us, Long ago was Napoleon so firmly seated, his power so do cidedly greater than that of any other prince in Europe, that, if security and superiority would have satisfied him, perfectly satisfied he must have been. But, we have seen, that his eagerness for conquest has increased with his success; and we now see him grasping, in every direction, to add to that power, which seems almost incapable of receiving an addition. Upon what ground, then, can any man pretend to hope, that he does not wish to conquer England; and that he has not resolved upon the conquest? England, without the conquest of whom many of his other conquests are insecure ; England, whose example, if left indepen dent, might and would, be so troublesome to him; England, of whom, for so many reasons, he bears a deadly hatred; England, who has, in all times, been the rival of France; England, between whom and France, it is now, in the presence of all nations, a contest, which shall hereafter be looked upon as the first nation in the world? Upon what ground, then, I ask, is it, that any one can pretend to hope, that he does not seriously meditate the conquest of Eng land and that, while he lives, there is any thing but an exertion of our power that will give us a chance of escaping the fate of Holland and Portugal ?If there be no ground for hoping, that this is not the case, the advice of the Morning Chronicle, to wit, that we should bring down our minds to the new state' of things in the world; and that we should no longer be unhappy, because we cannot be so great as formerly; this advice is perfectly useless; for, there is no sort of submission, no degree of humiliation or disgrace, short of absolute slavery, that would satisfy Napoleon, who has left us but this simple alternative, to be the greatest nation or no nation at all.- -With this alternative before us it is that we must make peace with him, if we make any peace at all; for, whether in peace or in war, he will speedily pursue his object; and, if it be true, that he now speaks of peace, with an intention of making a treaty, it is only because he thinks that a treaty, such as he hopes to make with us, would answer his purpose, at this time, better than an uninterrupted continuation of the war. Therefore, in making a peace with him, we should resolve not to suffer him to profit from such peace to our annoyance. He has the land, and we have the sea. If he would restore Holland, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, and Naples to a real independence, then we might agree to relax in the exercise of our maritime power; but, if he be inflexible as to the preserving of his controul over the states upon the coast of the continent, we should be inflexible in our resolution so to exercise our power, in peace, as to prevent the resources of those states from being turned against us at the renewal of a war.I do not pretend to lay down what ought to be the precise conditions of a treaty with him, but, it appears to me, that, as long as he holds controul over the states above mentioned, we never should suffer any ship of war of those states to sail upon the sea; and further, that we should make it ground of war, if, in any of those states, ships of war were known to be erecting. I know I shall be told, that, to insist upon terms like these would be to say, that we will not have peace; but, my answer is, that terms like these we must have, or we have only this choice left, go to war again in a year or be conquered; and, go to war, too, in a much worse relative situation then we now are,The late orders of council, though breathing a low huckster-like language, have, as I predicted they would, produced terrible alarm and distress in many of the countries under the dominion, or controuls of France. If this system be persc Difcounts: 4 vered in for a year or two, it will become settled; it will effect a revolution in men's minds with regard to that maritime dominion, which we shall be perceived to possess in reality as well as in name. It, therefore, behoves Napoleon to stifle this system in its birth; not to let it have a fair trial to get rid of it, for a while at least, by a peace. Against this device our ministers ought to be upon their guard.- -The Petitions for Peace," of which the Morning Chronicle talks so much, will, I suppose, bear a pretty faithful resemblance, in their origin, to those petitions so well described. by Lord Clarendon, in the passage taken for my motto to this sheet: and, then, all that the ministers will have to do, is, to send out their scouts to obtain addresses, breathing sentiments exactly the reverse of those expressed in the petitions. But, I am quite at a loss to foresee what the petitioners can possibly say at this time, upon the subject. To beseech the king to make peace upon safe and honourable terms is evidently useless, because he expresses his anxious wish to do that, and because, moreover, that will leave him to judge of what terms are safe and honourable. To beseech him to make peace upon any terms that Napoleon chooses to dictate, they will hardly venture; and, there fore, I cannot see what they can say that will have any sense or meaning in it. If, indeed, a negociation were begun, and it was understood, for instance, that we con tended for the possession of the Cape of Good Hope, or the re-possession of Hanover by the Elector, and that all other matters were arranged; then, to petition the king to give up the point, in order that peace, might be restored, would have some sense in it; but there can be no sense in a vague application to him to restore the blessings of peace," without knowing, or pretending to know, any thing of the obstacles which stand in the way of accomplishing that object, which, beforehand, he assures them, he has most anxiously at heart. Indeed, it is, I think, evident enough, that under the present circumstances, to send up petitions for peace," as they are called, must be considered as a mere party device; a mere attempt the outs to annoy the ins, and to lessen their own personal disgrace by dividing it with a portion of the people, not many of whom, however, will, I should think, be willing to become their tools.- The Morning Chronicle, which is the herald of the Whig politics, has requested the public to mark well, and to bear in mind, that Mr. Canning has said, in his answer to the Russian declaration, that the last negociation was of broken off upon points, in which England was not immediately interested." Well, and what then? It might be shameful enough to break off the negociation upon such points; but, to whom does the shame belong? To the ministry then in power certainly; and that ministry was composed of those who are now out of power. But, do we not remember, that that ministry, by the hand of Mr. Fox, declared, that they never would make peace, without obtaining the restoration of Hanover, which, according to Lord Grenville's expression, ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire?" And yet, they have now the assurance, to endeavour to raise a clamour for peace, and to excite a prejudice against their rivals, as being resolved to withhold that blessing from the country, without any regard to the terms, upon which it might be obtained.In this clamour, however, some of the party will hardly join; and, I think, that I here perceive, the approach, not of the fall, but of the complete annihilation, of Whiggism, which has existed for about one hundred and forty years, to the infinite injury of England. AMERICAN STATES (continued from page 54.) The following is given, in the American papers, of the 9th of December, as the supposed substance of Mr. Canning's note in Mr. Munroe, respecting the affair of the Chesapeake."Mr. Canning's answer "Mr. Monroe is said to state; that the Bri "towards the United States."-There is no saying how far this may be correct; but, I think, it is very likely to be tolerably so; and, if that be the case, the Note has not mach in it that is objectionable. "Great "Britain" has not always claimed and exercised the right in question; "Great Bri"tain" has never exercised it; but Eng-. land has both claimed and exercised it; and, why she should not do it now, I can see no reason, except it be found in her union with Scotland, and in her having foolishly adopted a nick-name, when under the rule of the Whigs of former times. Who would not laugh at the French, if they were to call their country "Great Gaul?" We have now got a name making, toge ther with that of the king, a long lawyerlike piece of tautology, that is perfectly ridiculous. That the Americans should call Mr. Canning's style haughty," is not at all surprizing; for, they would be satisfied with nothing short of licking their feet; that is to say, unless they found us seriously bent upon resenting their insolence and injustice.The receipt of newspapers from Halifax, Nova Scotia, have enabled me to furnish the people of England with some specimens of the "mild, unoffending, and peaceful" conduct of the Americans; and, I should hope, that these specimens would have a powerful tendency towards producing a right way of thinking, with respect to the disposition of the Americans, in every Englishman, the editor of the Morning Chronicle solely excepted. In the month of September last, a mutiny took tish Government has always claimed and "exercised the right to take British seamen wherever found; that according to modern usages of civilized nations, national vessels were not liable to search; that Great-place on board the English frigate, the Ja SON, Capt. Cochrane, then being in the harbour of New York. The principal mutinéers were tried, at Halifax, on the 27th of that month, and two of them were executed, according to their sentence. I will first give an account of what then took place, as published in the Halifax paper of. the 13th. of October. -"Yesterday morning at 8 o'clock, William Caton and Mounsey Timing, two of the unfor"tunate men, who were sentenced to death "on the 27th ult. for Motiny on board of "His Majesty's frigate Jason, were execut"ed at the fore-yard arm of that ship. Campbell, Bone, Brown and Denen, alias Matthews, then also sentenced to "death, were respited after they had as"cended the platform.As a justification. "of their conduct, these men had agreed "together to persist in a charge of cruelty "against their officers, under the idea that such a conduct, would excite so compas"sionate an interest in their favor, as would 16 ultimately lead to their pardon; and so general had been the compassion excited, that a petition had been presented in their behalf by the Marine Humane Society. Their execution was in consequence deJayed, and the strictest enquiries instituted, until the Commander in chief had become so fully satisfied of the falsehood of the charges, and of the great criminality of Caton and Tinning, in particular, that mercy could not, without injury to the service, be extended to them. Just as these men were leaving the cabin to ascend the platform, the whole six, expect"ing to suffer, burst into tears, and, addressing the reverend gentlemen who attended them, said, they could not bear to go "out of the world with a lie in their mouths. "That the charges they had stated against "their officers were not true, and had only "been made by then, in hopes to excite "compassion. They requested those gen"tlemen to commit to writing, this, their dying declaration, and they would all "sign it. This was accordingly done, and having been favored with it, it is with the utmost satisfaction we communicate it to the publie. They also at the awful moment of their departure, declared, that they, with the men recommend"ed to mercy, had combined to criminate 86 " their officers. They asked pardon of their "officers for their injurious conduct in aspersing their characters, and exhibited the "strongest marks of penitence and contrition." Confession We, the undersigned, most solemnly "declare, before the Rev. Dr. Stanser, and "the Rev. George Wright, as we shall an berty, where they would be protected, "and that that was the time to shake of "the galling yoke of British oppression and slavery." The sailors, lured by such an invitation, and emboldened by the number of their new and kind friends, leaped from the boat, and were received, by the malignant host, with shouts of applause. The Lieutenant, however (whose name, I regret, does not appear), pursued them, aud intrepidly rushing amongst the civilized savages, seized two of his men; and, in spite of the imprecations and threats that resounded from every quarter, dragged them to his boat, and thus returned to the frigate. But, it soon afterwards appeared, that this was but the first germ of that mutiny, the seeds of which had been artfully sown on board the frigate. by the Americans, who had been admitted alongside in the pilot and provision boats. Almost the whole of the crew became implicated in a conspiracy, which went "to the seizing of the ship, and delivering her up "to the Americans." The officers, with a courage and presence of mind, seldom to be met with in such perfection as in the British Navy, frustrated the design, and though the shore was hostile to them, they succeeded, by degrees, in securing the ringleaders. When they had done this, the frigate immediately sailed for Halifax, leaving behind, however, the six seamen, who had been, as above mentioned, invited and protected by the people of New York. "This," the Morning Chronicle may say, "is the ac swer at the day of judgment, that we "have never been tyrannically or ill treated by Capt. Cochrane, or any of the officers of his majesty's ship Jason; but, on count given by the enemies of us, advothe contrary, have always met with good "cates for America." But, I will give that usage, and have nothing to complain of. gentleman an article from an American "As witness our hands this 12th day of newspaper, published at Richmond, in VirOct. 1807.-W. Caton, Thomas Camp-ginia, on the 24th of July last, just at the bell, Peter Bond,., his mark, Mounsey Timing, Robert Denen, alias John Matthews, Patrick Brown, X, his mark. time when the desertions from our ships at Norfolk, in Virginia, led to the affair of the Chesapeake; and, without any shuffling and equivocating, let the Morning Chronicle tell me what he and his faction have to say in defence of it.I must first state to the reader, that, in order to assist our officers, in their endeavours to put a stop to the desertion from the fleet, arising from the base inveigling of the Americans, the inbahitants of Halifax had associated for the purpose of giving rewards to those who would apprehend deserters. Upon this, the follow ing article, extracted, as above-mentioned, from the American paper, descants, at the same time that it expresses its joy at the desertion which prevails.―― Richmond, "Virginia, 24th July, 1807.-In this day's "paper, the patriot will read with pleasure, "that the spirit of desertion from the Bri"tish fleet prevails to a degree, which "threatens their service with destruction. "to ship, and our foe will be deprived of "the means of annoyance.- -These things " are hastily submitted to public considera tion; they will be found to merit notice, "and it is hoped may be productive of be"neficial consequences. It will be strange "indeed, if the United States do not con"tala as many who will open their purse to "promote the happiness of their fellow"creatures, as are found in Halifax, who "will give money to make misery more "wretched."- And this is the "nild. unoffending, and peaceful people," of whom Mr. Senator Mitchell (see the last Register) was speaking for six or seven The merchants of Halifax, long famed "for their hostility to the independency and "prosperity of the United States, have "formed an association to counteract this temper by rewards, &c. These voluntary instruments of the mast oppressive tyrauny, these advocates for human ser-hours, on the 27th of November last. Here "vitude and wretchedness, have offered no "less that 74 dollars a man, to intercept "the victims of power and oppression from "the enjoyment of light and liberty. And yet, notwithstanding these efforts, and the terrors of punishment, the love of liberty seems to prevail.-How long do these Halifax associators calculate upon the enjoyment of privileges which they use for such inhaman purposes? Do they believe because a sailor is knocked down, then gagged, "then manacled, and thus carried on board " national honour, will haster the blow. If these enemies of human happiness and liberty associate for the perpetration of fiend-like purposes, wiry may not, why ought not, the philanthropists of the United States to associate for contrary purposes? Why not give rewards and a offer inducements to those who are pent up in prisons, more detestable than the realms of Tartarus, to make their escape, and seek in the land of liberty that asylum which is offered by a free and bene is an openly and publickly made proposition for raising a fund to induce, by the means of rewards. English seamen to desert from the service of their country, and violate their oaths. Come forth, then, Mr. A. B; of the Morning Chronicle, or Mr. James Perry, who has published your letters in a pamphlet with a preface of his own, almost, if not quite, as stupid as the letters themselves; come forth, I say, one or both of you, and tell us now, whether the language of the news-papers of a country "ought to be considered as the language of "the government of that country.' Answer us without reserve; be plain and direct. None of your cant about "desperate politicians," and the calamities of war;" but, answer us this plain question: Do you, who insisted, that the language of the English news-papers, ought to be considered as the language of the English government, allow, that the language of this American news-paper, published under the President's nose, ought to be considered as the language of the American government? Tell us, too, Mr. Morning Chronicle, whether your assertion, that the number of our seamen, on board of American ships, was trifling, will still be persisted in, after this American news-paper has, in strains of exultation, declared, that the desertion in their habours "threatened our "service with destruction.". -Mark the moral philosophy of this "mild, unoffend"ing, and peaceable people." Because the merchants of Halifax offer réwards for apprehending deserters; that is to say, for the taking of criminals and for the prevention of crimes, the mild and unoffending peo ple" think themselves called upon to offer rewards for the inviting of men to commit crimes. They look upon the peovolent people? By such means the spiritple of Halifax as their foes; as people meof emancipation will be encouraged; theriting chastisement and destruction, because * Lidings will fly like lightning from shipthey wish to prevent the Americans from |
