Could then the foreign Ambassadors, if Napoleon had not been deposed and Ferdinand had not sworn to the constitution, have acknowledged him? If they had, they would have been traitors to their country, inasmuch as contrary to that which was determined and stipulated by a friendly Nation, they would have recognized an ally of the enemy an illegitimate King, and whom, by such an acknowledgment, they would have converted into an enemy of his country. If then the deposition of Na

period, is deobiles to interfere with the internal govern ent of Spain, particularly as the nation had declared by its agents at foreign courts that he should not be considered as king till he had accepted the constitution, and not to have acknowledged him, was by no means to guarantee that constitution. And where would be the security for the liberty of any nation, if others have the right of acknowledging for its chief him whom the laws have not acknowledged? Another proof of the injury which has arisen from this acknowledg-poleon did not constitute the right of ment, is that Ferdinand makes use of it as an irrefragable testimony of his right. See the horrible declaration of the 28th of August, issued by the sanguinary Villavicencio, then Captain General of Cadiz.

I will next pass to the observations which arise from the Decree of the Cortez, on the 2d of February, 1814, since, altho' they partly belong to the discussion which I have purposely omitted, they contain matter less difficult, and this in a manner less delicate. The Cortez might have consented to the Treaty of Valencey, leaving as it was the liberty of the Spanish People, since Buonapar e, no doubt, on consideration of obtaining that consent, would have compelled Ferdinand to swear to that constitution. But acting with the greatest possible candour and delicacy, the Cortez would not allow any alliance to exist between the future Monarch of Spain and the enemy of Great Britain; and therefore, with the exception of four or five individuals, (now the most favoured courtiers of Ferdinand) they issued the decree already mentioned. The Spanish Nation and its Allies had a reciprocral interest in observing it. Once communicated, the common interests constituted a mutual obligation, which could not fail to bind them all, while the interest of any part of them was depending. To prove this, let me ask a question, which, tho' apparently unconnected, will instantly resolve every doubt which in a diplomatic light may be opposed to moral principles so clear and evident. Did the deposition of Napoleon constitute the right of Ferdinand to the crown of Spain? All honest men will say, No. They will confess that his right to it arose only from his compact with the Nation.

Ferdinand, and if it had not happened, the foreign Ambassadors would not have acknowledged Ferdinand till he had complied with the conditions of the Cortez. By what title can they recognize him, now that Napoleon is dethroned, and Ferdinand has not sworn to the constitution? Perhaps it may be said that the Spanish Nation has recognized him, and therefore other nations ought to do the same. To this I will answer, that no act or document of the Nation can be produced to prove it; a truth of which no one can doubt, when it is remembered that Ferdinand destroyed the constitution before his entry into Madrid. I will answer also, that the state of discontent and of fermentation which the Nation has been in ever since the first attempt of Ferdinand to restore despotism, is evident testimony, that a forced submission, the effect of surprize and the operation of a faction, composed perhaps more of foreigners than of natives, is no valid recognition.

Supposing the facts which I have mentioned, and others which I could produce. to be true, have not the Spaniards reason sufficient to believe that any resistance to their present government would be a rash undertaking, and that all the states of Europe would unite in supporting Ferdinand without a constitution? How could they believe that the Ambassadors would assist in destroying so fundamental a law of an ally, without the positive orders of their governments? and if such orders existed, how any alteration in them, or any successful resistance to Ferdinand on the part of the Spaniards, against the will of almost every Government in Europe, could have been expected? Despair alone could induce the Spaniards to embrace a resolution, in all probability so ineffec

neglect which all the friends of true liberty in Spain have experienced from the kings of Europe, attempt to establish a democracy in their own country, which may throw all Europe into a convulsion, more fatal than even the French Revolution. Persecution has never failed to produce sectaries both in politics and religion, and it would be singular if it should not in Spain.-Lastly, it remains to enquire if England ought tranquilly to behold the patriots of Spain abandoned to the violence of a party in which power, vengeance, despotism and superstition are united. Knowing that her owu independence as well as that of all Europe was involved in it, has not England espoused, promoted and supported their cause as her own? and can she now be indifferent to those very men who are buried in loathsome prisons, or without a country and without subsistence, are fugitives and exiles in foreign countries? What a ter

tual.-Finally, it may be said, that no foreign nation ought to interfere in this business, because no one has a right to interfere in the internal concerns of another, and because the Cortez were ill affected towards the English Nation.As to the first part, to say nothing about the morality of such a maxim, which supposes that a man ought not to do good when he has it in his power, I say, that for the other governments of Europe to have acknowledged Ferdinand, contrary! to that which was resolved by the representatives of the Spanish Nation, was to interfere in the internal concerns of Spain: and to have done so for a bad purpose, is directly contrary to the doctrine they wish to establish. As to what respects the second part of the objection, I will maintain that such rumours are spread by persons interested in disguising their own conduct; that the command bestowed on Lord Wellington by the Cortez, not only of the Spanish army which as-rible example should she give to postesisted his operations, but also of the other rity if she abandoned their cause? Should Spanish troops, without his ceasing to a new conqueror threaten the repose and be the General of a foreign army, which liberty of Europe, who will dare to resist placed him in the situation of not being him, considering the fate of those Spanish subject to be called to account for any patriots now persecuted more cruelly breach of his trust, is a proof of an unli- than even by the enemy whom they opmited confidence in the English Nation, posed;-persecuted, I say, by that man almost without example. Rumours, such whose throne they preserved and fixed as those I have alluded to, unsupported on the surest basis, and abandoned by by facts, are base and contemptible- all other nations and kings, to maintain Is England politically interested in the whose independence they so powerfully freedom of Spain? So much am I convinc- and generously contributed? Ought ed that she is, that I think I should insult Englishmen to be contented merely at the common sense of my readers, if I their being liberated from their prisons thought there was one of them not con- and restored to their families? Should vinced of it. Tyrants, rogues or fools can they obtain no more than that, they might alone doubt of the results from the bles- reply: This measure, without being sings of liberty. Spain enslaved must be "useful to ourselves, is an injury to the a province of France, the eternal rival" cause for which we have fallen the vicof England from natural and local situation. It has been the wise policy of all her kings to maintain the independence of these two Nations, and their conse- can be sure of his personal safety withquent equilibrium: and how can these be "out a national representation, without preserved now that France, with a much "the free exercise of the rights of man, inore numerous population; enjoying a much less in a country with such a free constitution, will as rapidly advance" terrible tribunal as that of the Inquiin prosperity as Spain, under the iron "sition. We value not a life spent in inyoke of despotism, must rapidly decline?" famous servitude, and to shed our blood And even should I be mistaken in this "for our country may perhaps one day supposition, who can venture to say that, 'produce the fruit of liberty; for the considering the enlightened age in which we live, Spain will not experience a reaction, and should that happen, may not its leading men, in resentment for the

66

"tims. We can neither be happy nor "safe without a constitution; without "it we can have no country. No man

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greater the miseries which civilized "nations suffer, the more near is the pe"riod of their remedy." February 21, 1815.

NEW POST OFFICE,

whole of the new arrangement would be carried into effect and a surplus remain. Will you believe it, Mr, C. that it is seriously intended by the jobbers, to petition Parliament that, as a remuneration to the City for the 100,000l. which they gencrously mean to advance from the orphan's fund a new port duty of one shilling per chaldron may be imposed upon all coals hereafter entering the port of London!!! Thus taxing all Westminster and its environs, the whole Borough of Southwark; in short the whole popu lation of the Bills of Mortality, for a purpose in which the City is alore interested! Coals are already most griviously taxed. The Richmond job punishes the people sufficiently: let us not have a city job also to oppress us. If the proprietors of the houses in St. Martins-le-grand, and those jobbers, whe for the last 4 months have purchased so largely there, are to be repaid fifty-fold to the job for other services, at least let not the poor people of the metropolis, suffer for this vile purpose, by the imposition of a tax on an article of the first necessity, and of which, in bitter winters, when the worst of it is most severely felt, they are hardly able to obtain sufficient to keep up the circulalation of the blood in their starving and shivering carcases.

Mr. COBBETT.-By the Times Newspaper, I perceive that a Bill has been brought into Parliament, and read a first time, for the erection of a New Post Of fice. The estimates of this measure, as laid before the House, exceed 900,0001; 800,000l. of which is to be paid, it appears, by the public, and the remaining 100,000l. to be advanced by the City out of the orphan's fund.-This is certainly a very extraordinary moment for the guardians of the public purse to be called upon to vote so large a sum for any purpose not absolutely necessary: and that this is not so, a variety of circumstances fend to absolutely prove.-Among others, I wish to mention to you two plans both of which are utterly unobjectionable. The first is the removal of the post of fice to Somerset-house, which, from its locality and central situation, relatively to every part of the metropolis, holds out infinite advantages, and where the area of the Building would admit of the Mail Coaches being drawn up to receive the mails, and from which they could drive out in succession, with the utmost regularity) and convenience.-The second plan is one to which even the city people could make no objection, and which, I am informed from unquestionable authority, appeared so feasible, that it would have been decided on, had not the fathers and founders of the St. Martins-le-grand Job, continued to find some means of proving to government MR. CORBETT. Your correspondent, that their proposals were the best.- Philo Civis, has misconceived me: I cerThe plan to which I allude, was one by tainly did not attempt to deny, that the which the present Excise Office was to New Legion of Honour would have been have been removed to the spot where disgraced, had the person alluded to been the New Custom House is now building, admitted into the Order; but I stated, and which was to have been rendered that no such intention ever existed. I sufficiently capacious (and there is amu-have positive authority for the assertion, ple room) to accommodate both departments, by which most material advanfages would have been given to each, while the Building now occupied as the Excise Office possesses every requisite for a Post Office. There is abundant space for the internal business of the office, and the expense of altering the present building would be a mere trifle.-Indeed the public would gain by the removal; for by the calculation submitted to the Masters it is proved, that taking into the account the sum which would arise from the sale of the present Post Office the

PHILO-CIVIS.

LEGION OF HONOUR.

and you may place implicit reliance on it. Philo Civis has gone into a long detail of the Temporary Rank Major General's comforts at Croydon Barracks; of his hay, straw, corn, coals, and candles; and of his receiving them in London, in one of the waggons of his corps. I do not doubt this; nor that his servants in' the pretty pink liveries are waggoners, and also paid by the public as such, But I very much doubt whether Parliament lrave a right to interfere in such matters. It has been the invariable cus tom for the Commander in Chief, to

COMMERCE AND NO CORN BILL.

possess the prerogative of recommending to the Government what corps are to bel SIR, There are many writers who reduced, and what retained in the ser- would wish to make the projected Corn vice; and if Major General Hamilton Bill a National Benefit, in order to enand the Royal Waggon Train are consi-hance or keep up the high prices of every dered of sufficient use to justify their thing. That it may be so, it is not my not being reduced, the Commander in intention to dispute. The simple quesChief has the power to do so. Whatever tion is, whether England be, or be not, faults the Duke of York may possess, greatly depending on foreign markets as want of generosity is certainly not among a mercantile nation? We are led to bethem; and if his liberal and open mind lieve, from the tenor of Mr. Vansittart's has been imposed upon, it can only be speech, that we are. When he was about said that it is much to be lamented.raising money at the expence of the too However, as far as his Royal Highness is credulous mechanic, &c. &c. he said, that concerned, there is not one of the per- all countries were open and ready to sons recommended by him for the decoreceive our manufactures. If it be so, ration of the new order, but is certainly

it requires no stronger argument than an honour and an ornament to it. If Mr. Whitbread brings the Royal Waggon tion, over again. merely putting the same, or a similar quesTrain before Parliament, certainly he bread (which appears to many an advanIf you pay dear for will expose a job of the rankest sort; for tage, because it affords the mechanic, &c. from its first establishment to the pre-high wages,) can you supply your foreign sent time, it never deserved any other customers cheap? or will they buy dear? same. The pretty pink liveries are the The argument answers itself:-Dear least consideration. It is the enormous Bread, high prices; Cheep Bread, low expense with which the public has been so long burthened by this job, that loud-prices.-Allowing that we are not dependso long burthened by this job, that loud-ing on foreign nations for bread, we unly calls for investigation. No subject questionably are depending on them for exists, in the whole range of public money as the price of our manufactures; abuses, more deserving the attention of and if they will not lay out their money Parliament, and it is to be hoped, Mr. with us, how can we get dear or cheap Whitbread, if he has it in view, will not bread, and supply Mr. Vansittart with lose sight of it.- Whether the word taxes? If Corn Bills, and such like logic, "Temporary" means "Permanent," the are to prevail, away goes foreign trade, ensuing army estimates will shew; for which is, in my humble opinion, our nano doubt can exist, but that the Tempo- tional support: and which certainly must rary Rank Major General Waggon experience a lamentable decline, when Master General must speedily disappear. we consider the substitutes or improveIt is indeed a serious consideration, that ments that the different nations have he has been so long allowed to "fatten" made in their own manufactures. Within on the public purse. That he has so the last twenty years they have verified done is evil enough; but I am again de- the old adage :-Necessity being the mosirous, Sir, to impress on your mind, that ther of invention, they have improved and it never was intended to include him manufactured many articles which are among the new Knights of the Legion of now superior to ours; therefore I contend, Honour, which Order, absurd as it is, it that it would be politic to damp this spirit could never have been intended to render of improvement, by exporting cheap, and so perfectly ridiculous. Lord Cochrane securing a certain trade with less profit, is certainly fortunate in getting out of it. than an uncertain trade with great profit, His escutcheon would be but ill associ- which must ultimately involve our Manuated with those of many of its new mem- facturers in ruin and national misery.-The bers; and the Noble Lord may rest as- former being most likely to secure sured, that there is no honest man in the national pride, and commercial prospeUnited Kingdom who does not think him rity, I do earnestly contend, if our rulers honoured by all the attempts at degra- would have England to flourish, we must dation which have been so unfeelingly have Commerce and no Corn Bill. and so unmercifully heaped upon him. I am your sincere admirer, Horse Guards, Mar. 1, 1815.

P. C.

A CONSTANT READER,

Feb. 28th, 1815.

our

A PLAIN PICTURE OF THE CORN

LAWS.

not by them be reimbursed for their proportion of the public expense. They therefore, sent to the neighbouring com

MR. COEBETT.-Suppose a commu-munities their surplus articles, who, on nity of 15 persons with their families, servants, and labourers, as follows:

1 bricklayer

1 clothier

1 smith

1 cutler

1 currier

1 farmer

1 attorney

1 shoemaker

1 taylor

1 baker

1 weaver
1 surgeon
1 victualler

1 land-owner

1 carpenter and cabinet maker

account of their excellence, and being cheaper than they could get them made among themselves, were not only glad to receive them, but gave such articles in exchange as sold at a price, in their own community, which enabled them to pay their proportion to the public expenditure, and to add something considerable to their own stock.

The managers, the land-owner and the attorney, got the community to build a wall around them. This wall cost3001, which was paid the bricklayer after This community subsisted by each, borrowing that sum, at 5 per cent. in their line, furnishing to the wants of from the cabinet maker and cutler, bethe others, at a rate of prices regulated cause the society had no tangible money by the value of a quartern loaf, which of their own. The annual interest of this, was at 6d. The land-owner let land being 151. was proportioned as formerly in to the farmer, who agreed to give him addition to the previous annual expense, such a rent as would leave him a fair viz. two fifths of it, or 61. on the landprofit, after selling his produce to the owner, and three fifths, or 91, en the victualler and baker at such a price as 14 members of the community. This would enable them (with a reasonable new addition to the public expense, profit to themselves,) to sell the quar-every one endeavoured to reimburse himfern loaf at 6d. In like manner, all the self for, by laying it on the articles be other members of the commnuity fur-manufactured; and, on the same principle, nished to one another their respective the landowner proposed to lay his proarticles as wanted, at prices which were always determined by the wants and supplies; and regulated by a reference to 6d. the value of the quartern loaf.

S

portion on the land. No, said the farmer, I cannot give you this additional rent, for, if I do, I must raise the price of my corn, which will have the effect to drive, The land-owner and attorney managed all our neighbours to the neighbouring the public concerns of the society, which communities for a supply; because they cost annually 51.—In laying this sum won't give me a high price if they can apon the whole, two fifths of it was put get corn at the former rate. To this the upon the land-owner, because he was landlord replied the attorney and I will rich, and lived upon his rents, without get a law passed to shut the gate, so as being engaged in productive labour. not to let any corn in at a lower price The other three fbs was laid upon the than you can sell it at with my. 61. laid. 14 remaining mans of the commu-upon it. The farmer acquiesced, though nity, who each of them, in course, with some scruples, and in this manner Jaid as much upon the article which the matter was settled.--The loaf rose to he produced to his neighbours as reim-9d. By which the landlord's share of the bursed him for the proportion which additional expense was divided among he paid of the public burdens. This 51. being an addition to the public expense, was raised by adding something to the former price of every article; which was paid by him who had it. from his stock, and by him who had no stock, by giving more labour, or work than he did before, But the cutler and cabinet-maker made always more of their respective articles than their neighbours had occassion for, and could

all the community who used the corn; he was thus relieved of it entirely, except. as much of it as attached to the propor-tion of corn which he himself consumed.

It is most evident, that, by this 3001. debt, and the management by which the payment of the interest of it was distributed among the whole, every individual was put to an additional expense. Of course he put it upon his articles ; and he that could not lay it upon these