regard to private property, without which a political revolution becomes a mere system of pillage and rapine. The formation of a constitution was considered by the, Cortes as the great and leading object of their delegation; and a commit tee of that body having been appointed to draw up a plan for that purpose, two sections, consisting of 242 articles, were read before it at the public sitting of August 19th, and ordered to be printed. The following preliminary article being afterwards brought up for discussion, it produced an interesting debate. "The Sovereignty resides essentially in the nation; and therefore the right belongs to it exclusively of establishing its fundamental laws, and of adopting the form of government which it judges most suitable." To the last clause of this article an objection was made by Sen. Aner, on the grounds that it was unnecessary, and that it might tend to injure the Cortes in the eyes of the public, as being inclined to democratical principles, a calumny under which it had alSen. Arguelles, ready laboured. without meaning to oppose the judicious reasoning of the preceding speaker, defended, the views of the, committee in framing the clause in question, and expressed his surprise that the attachment of that body, or of the Spanish nation, to monarchical government, could be called in question. After a long debate on the subject, a division took place, in which the first clause of the article was carried by 128 votes against 24, and the latter clause was rejected by 86 against 63. During this discus sion, some interesting information The doctrine of the sovereignty A proposal in the Cortes for the revival of the inquisition appears to have excited much alarm among the advocates for liberty, though, indeed, such a measure might have been expected from the general character of the nation, and from the religious intolerance which has been avowed as a first principle of its constitution. If no other reliligion but the catholic is to be permitted in Spain, some mode of duals, inquiring into the faith of indivi duals, and suppressing the inroads of heresy, must subsist; though it is to be hoped that the present age would not endure the violation of justice and humanity so flagrant in the proceedings of the ancient inquisition. No subject appears to have awakened the jealousy and pride of the Spaniards more than the idea that there was an intention of placing their troops under British commanders. Such a notion was certainly entertained as a desirable circumstance, by many sanguine friends to the cause in this country, especially after various instances of apparent want of skill or fidelity in the Spanish commanders; and in the case of Gen. La Pena, formal complaints were made of his conduct at Barrosa: the Cortes, however, seem to have taken it up as a national affair, and after a long inquiry, declared their entire satisfaction with his behaviour. The propagation of these suspicions occasioned, in the beginning of August, a remonstrance from the Hon. Henry Wellesley, the British minister, addressed to the Spanish first secretary of state, Don Eusebio de Bardaxi y Azara, complaining of the calumnies circulated in an enclosed paper, in which were revived the rumours that the Spanish provinces, bordering upon Portugal, were placed under the military command of Lord Wellington; that the Spanish army was to be commanded by English officers; and that the British government had a design of sending a force to Cadiz, sufficient to take possession of and retain it in the name of his Britannic Majesty. After some general observations on the injustice of imputations of this kind, considering the great sacrifices England had made to the Spanish cause, Mr. Wellesley proceeds positively to deny, that his government has any views of aggrandisement, or territorial acquisition, either here or in America, at the expense of the Spanish nation-that there is any ground for the interpretation given to the notes which he presented in March last, suggesting that the Spanish provinces, bordering upon Portugal, should be placed under the temporary authority of Lord Wellington-and that there was ever any intention in the English of rendering themselves masters of Cadiz. He concludes with requesting that his note may be laid before the Council of Regency, and that proper publicity may be given to it, to prevent the evil consequences that may result from such injurious suspicions. The Spanish secretary, in his reply, conveys the council's most unequivocal condemnation of the imputations complained of, and its sentiments of gratitude for the aid hitherto afforded to their cause by Great Britain, with their warm hopes that the bonds by which the two nations are connected may be drawn still closer; and the minister's desire that these papers should be made public is fully acceded to. CHAP CHAPTER XV. State of France-Annexation of Hamburgh.-Marine Conscription.Birth of a Son to Napoleon.-Exposé.-Annexations in Italy.-Rigorous Decree against English Property.-Napoleon's Tour to Holland. -Conscripts called out.. F the state of the vast em- continent, and of raising a marine Opite now incorporated under of his own which may be capable the name of France, we possess no other information than such as is communicated by papers under the immediate control of a despotic government, and which is therefore entitled only to a degree of confidence limited by natural probability, and correspondence with public events. We know that there exists not, in appearance, through the wide range of Napoleon's sway, the least opposition to the measures of his government, unless it be with respect to his ecclesiastical plans; that his anticommercial system, joined to the loss of all the French colonies, has plunged many of the principal ci-. ties of the empire into poverty; that his military conscriptions, rendered more severe by the losses of a sanguinary war, are the cause of much domestic distress; and that the shackles he has imposed upon free discussion have paralysed the exertions of the human mind. with respect to the most important objects of inquiry, throughout the extent of his dominion. It has lately been the leading point of Napoleon's policy to become master of all the seaports in countries accessible to his power, for the double purpose of excluding all English commerce from the in time of contending with that of Great Britain. In pursuance of this project, the French flag was displayed on the first day of the year in the great commercial city of Hamburgh, and its formal annexation to the French empire was declared. The senate continued to perform its functions; but it was understood that its authority would cease as soon as a new form of government should be organized. What will be the fate of this once flourishing commercial republic, when become a member of a military despotism, it is not difficult to conjecture. One of the means devised to give a future superiority to the French navy, is the project of a marine conscription, detailed in an exposé presented by the emperor's order to the senate, in December, by the Councellor of State, Count Caffarelli. It proposes, that in the thirty maritime districts of the empire the conscription shall be devoted to the recruiting of the navy, and that for this purpose young sailors shall be selected at the age of from 13 to 16, that they may be trained in all the necessary manœuvres for the sea service. The senatus-consultum consequent upon this communication enumerates the the thirty departments which are thenceforth to cease to contribute to the conscription for the army, and be reserved to that for the navy, and decrees that 10,000 conscripts of each of the classes of 1813, 1814, 1815, 1816, shall be immediately placed at the disposal of the minister of the marine. A decree was issued for calling out 80,000 of the couscripts of the year, the first detachments of which were to march from their respective departments on April the 10th. In the mean time, the collection of mariners from all parts of the empire for the purpose of manning the navy was carrying on with unremitting activity; and a body of 1200 seamen from the Italian ports passed through Liege under military escort in their way to Antwerp. In March a decree appeared in the name of the emperor, ordering a levy of 3000 seamen from the three departments of the mouths of the Elbe, the Weser, and the Upper Ems, to be marched to Antwerp. In the spirit of making every thing bend to his will, which has always marked the character of this extraordinary person, even the products of nature were forced into his plans; and by a decree, dated March 25th, the culture of the beet root and the plant woad was enjoined to a large extent in the French dominions, to supply the place of the sugar cane and indigo; the success of which ex periment was anticipated with so much confidence, that the prohibition of the sugar and indigo of the Indies, as English commodities, was announced for the 1st of January, 1813. An event of great probable importance to the throne of Napoleon took place on April the 20th: the empress was safely delivered of a son. For the young prince has been revived the title, so many centuries dormant, of King of Rome; and displays of public adulation not inferior to those of the ages most sunk in the degradation of political servitude, have been made to welcome "the venerable infant," to use an expression of our own Dryden. That this prospect of establishing a dynasty of his direct descendants must be highly gratifying to the ruler of France, cannot be doubted; but a long continuance of a prosperous reign in his own person will be obviously requisite for the peaceable transmission of his power to a hereditary successor. An hereditary claim to sovereignty cannot be sustained against a prior claim of the same kind, except by the decided will of the people in a free government, or by a train of unvaried success in an usurpation. But what changes in the state of Europe, and the fortune of the father, may be expected before this infant comes to maturity! On June the 17th, the French national ecclesiastical council was opened at Paris with a grand and imposing ceremonial. (See Chronicle). Its president was Cardinal Fesch, Archbishop of Lyons, primate of the Gallican church, and uncle to Napoleon. We have no authentic accounts of the acts of this council, which in fact was only a piece of political machinery; but there is reason to believe that the despotic will of the emperor met with more opposition in this assembly than he had anticipated. The The exposé of the state of the empire presented to the legislative body by the minister of the interior on June the 29th, though doubtless a flattering representation, contains matter of fact well deserving of attention. It commences with a splendid view of the late extensions of the French territory. "Since your last session, the empire has received an addition of sixteen depaitinents, five millions of people, a territory yielding a revenue of one hundred millions livres), three hundred leagues of coast, with all their maritime means. The mouths of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt, were not then French; the circulation of the interior of the the empire was circumscribed; productions of its central departments could not reach the sea without being submitted to the inspection of foreign custom-houses. Those inconveniencies have for ever disappeared. The maritime arsenal of the Scheldt, whereon so many hopes are founded, has thereby received all the develop ment which it needed. The mouths of the Ems, the Weser, and the Elbe, place in our hands all the timber that Germany furnishes. The frontiers of the empire lean on the Baltic; and thus, having a direct communication with the north, it will be easy for us thence to draw masts, hemp, iron, and such other naval stores as we may want. We at this moment unite all that France, Germany, and Italy produce as materials for the construction of ships." It goes on to touch upon topics, the delicacy of which is a proof how firmly based that authority must be, which ventures thus to VOL LIII. If it agitate them before the nation. Can any thing be more contrary to the maxims of the roman ca tholic church than such sentiments as these; and do they not manifestly point to the inference, that every catholic country ought to have its own pope? At least they ought to serve as a warning against a pope of French creation. What follows under the head of: religion is not less observable. Twenty seven bishoprics bay-and ing been for a long time vacant, [K] |