those citizens who signed the requisition, caused the following address to be printed and circulated:

of PEACE, and the admirers of the principles of our excellent Constitution, it is hoped, will come forward as one man, and affix their names to those Petitions. By order of the Committee,

JOHN GREAVES, jun. Secretary. Wednesday Morning, May 10th, 1815.

RESOLUTIONS.

Resolved 1. That as war is the extremity of lawful and honourable means to avert it have evil, no nation should engage therein until all

2. That every nation has an indisputable right to choose its own Government; and that a war commenced and prosecuted by any other nation with a view to the annihilation of such choice, is most unjust; because it is contrary both to the law of nature and of nations, to the avowed prac tice of the civilized world, and to the very principles which exalted the House of Brunswick to Therefore this the Throne of these realms. Meeting regards with horror and dismay, the hostile preparations now making; the professed design of which is, to compel the French nation, by force of arms, to dethrone the Sovereign of their choice, and to impose upon them another, to whom it appears they have a complete, radical, national objection.

"FELLOW TOWNSMEN AND COUNTRYMEN-The present moment is awfully portentous; dismally dark clouds hang over our country, pregnant with unheard of misery and woe to ourselves and future generations, the mere description of which however faintly drawn, would horrify minds the least susceptible of generous sentiments, would melt hearts the most obdurate: but we will not harrow feel-been tried, and proved unavailing. ings, already sufficiently wounded, by attempting to pourtray such direful calamities as must necessarily result from a renewed course of warfare with France; without having one legitimate object to stimulate us to the adoption of such a desperate measure; for desperate it must be considered by all, (of whatever political opinion,) who look at the financial difficulties of this nation. Come forward, therefore, fellow countrymen, and exercise your rights--be obedient to the imperious calls of duty-use every constitutional effort of which you are possessed, to prevent the vessel of your country from being driven in the gathering tempest; and then, should the Government of the nation be 3. That this Meeting not only sees, but feels, so infatuated as to plunge you into all the the heart-rending calamities which the late wars horrors of war, you will, amid all your have entailed upon this country:-Trade, comgalling sufferings, be exempt from those merce, and manufacture scarcely exist: nothing bitter reflections which must ever attend present themselves for observation and contemplaan accusing conscience.-You are respect- tion, among the trading, commercial, and manufully informed, that under existing circumfacturing part of the community, but ruin, stances, the Committee, who continue to wretchedness, and woe. manage this business, consider it an act of prudence, and not of submission, to decline calling a public Meeting. They therefore, lay before you, for your approval, the following RÉSOLUTIONS and PETITIONS which they intended to offer, had a public Meeting been called by the Mayor, in conformity to the requisition presented to him, and which was published last week in the Nottingham Review, and in hand-bills, together with the correspondence produced by such application.-A Petition to the Prince Regent, and another to the House of Commons, will be laid for signatures, at a shop in Smithy-row, lately in the occupation of Mr. Darby, to-morrow, from ten o'clock in the morning to seven in the evening, and will continue to be open for a week. The adult male inhabitants of this town and its vicinity, who are the FRIENDS

The National Debt has been increased in a

four-fold degree, and now requires no less summ than thirty millions sterling to pay the common interest, with an addition of public expenditure to the aunnal amount of twenty millions more, even on the supposition of this country enjoying universal peace.

4. That in the opinion of this Meeting, it would be highly chimerical, impolitic, and most iniquitously unjust to the people of this country, for the Government thereof to plunge them into renewed warfare for any other objects than those truly national, probable in their acquirement, and of sufficient magnitude and importance to compensate this nation for the sacrifices and sufferings naturally resulting therefrom.

5. That from the pre-eminent station which Great Britain holds in the scale of nations, this Meeting believes that her efforts to preserve the present peace would not be ineffectual,

6. That the effects which the late wars pro- | presume to dictate to your Royal Highness, but duced on this town and neighbourhood were to state constitutionally to you, our opinions and most lamentably afflicting; the poor-rates were feelings. Hence the mighty warlike preparaincreased in an eight-fold degree, and more than one-sixth of its population received parochial aid. 7. That this Meeting present an address and petition to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, praying that he will not interfere by war or otherwise, with the internal affairs of France, | and that the said petition be transmitted to the Right Hon. Lord Grenville, requesting him to present it to his Royal Highness.

tions now making, which fill our minds with painful anxiety, impel us to declare, that we think it the imperative duty of this country, not to wage war with France, (particularly when we consider the state of our finances) without it be for objects purely national, likely to be obtained, and commensurate with its consequent calamities:-calamities, the mere contemplation of which strike us with horror. It is so repugnant to our feel.

8. That this Meeting do also present an addressings-so contrary to the dictates of justice,—to and petition to the Honourable the House of Commous, praying that they will not grant any supplies for the purpose of subsidising foreign powers to enable them to go to war with France, | and that this petition be forwarded to John Smith, Esq. and Lord Rancliffe, the two Members for the town, with a request that they will, upon presenting the same, cause it to be read, and support the prayer thereof.

9. That the thanks of this Meeting be given to John Smuth, Esq. our worthy representative, for his independent, steady, and persevering conduct in Parliament.

10. That this Meeting cannot but regret the long absence of our other worthy representative, Lord Rancliffe, from his Parliamentary duty. ADDRESS TO THE PRINCE OF WALES, REGENT

the Constitution of our country,-to the prac tice of our forefathers,--to the very principles which placed your august family on the throne, and, above ali, to that princely declaration, so honourable to your understanding and your heart, made by your Royal Highness, when you were invested with Regal Authority,-that" the Crown was a sacred trust, to be held only for the welfare and happiness of the people;"—that we could not for a moment have entertained a thought, were it not for that most objectionable Declara. tion made by the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied Sovereigns, bearing date the 15th of March, (and also the Treaty of the 25th of the same month,) 1815, together with the hostile attitude which Europe has since assumed, that your Royal Highness would coalesce with those Monarchs on the

OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN Continent, to prevent by force of arms, or other

AND IRELAND.

The humble, dutiful, and loyal Address and Petition of the inhabitants of the town and county of the town of Nottingham, and its vicinity.

wise, the French people from retaining that Søvereign and forming that Government which are the objects of their choice. We, therefore, most respectfully implore your Royal Highness, that your Royal Highness will not interfere, by war, or otherwise, with the internal affairs of France. And we further implore your Royal Highness, that no measures may be adopted by this country,. to impede any friendly communications, that may be offered from that nation. And your peti tioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray. PETITION TO THE COMMONS OF GREAT BRITAIN

AND IRELAND IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED. The humble Petition of the inhabitants of Nottingham and its vicinity.

May it please your Royal Highness-We, his Majesty's dutiful and loyal subjects, the inhabitants of the town and county of the town of Not tingham, and its vicinity, respectfully approach your Royal Highness, with harrowed feelings of the most poignant grief:—feelings which we have not heretofore endured; although our privations, sacrifices, and sufferings, for the last twenty years, are unparalleled in the annals of our country. We beg most ardently to impress on the mind of your Royal Highness, that, however just, wise, and politic, the late wars may have been considered in their respective origin and duration, that the effects resulting therefrom, on his Majesty's loyal subjects, were, and are, most grievously afflicting. After such unequalled sacrifices of blood and treasure, what national advantages might we not have expected? But the lamentable reverse is the fact:-Trade and commerce are annihilated;-our merchants ruining the interests of a dynasty twice declared by ed,➡our artizans pauperised, We would not the people unworthy to reign-for no nobler

Sheweth--That your Petitioners cannot view, but with sentiments of most fearful apprehension, the extensive preparations making by the Government of this country, for an apparent re newal of war with France; nor cau they avoid expressing their regret, at seeing themselves likely to be plunged once more into all the cala. mities, distresses, and privations, attendant upon warfare, with no other object than that of uphold.

idea of representative Government, and portending immiuent danger to the future liberties and happiness of Englishmen. Apprehensions we caunot but experience, when contemplating the marked disregard of public opinion recently manifested by your Honourable House on the question of the Corn Laws, and the attempt now

impost, the Tax upon Income. Your Petitioners do, therefore, again most forcibly entreat that your Honourable House will, on this occasion, suffer the voice of justice and humanity to prevail, and that in the discharge of your Parlia mentary duties as the Commons of Great Britain and Ireland, you will withhold the grant of any subsidy or loan to any foreign power, or any sup ply of money or men, asked by the Executive at home, until such demand shall have been clearly proved to be necessary for the upholding of our country's bonour-for the defence of our acknowledged rights, or the maintenance of our national independence. And your Petitioners will ever pray.

THE NECESSITY OF WAR WITH FRANCE.

purpose than that of controlling a great nation | racter of Parliament, incompatible with every in the choice of its ruler-a system of policy, which your Petitioners humbly conceive, is, in direct opposition to principles recognised by our excellent Constitution at the Revolution of 1688, and publicly avowed by the Prince Regent, viz. "that the Crown is held only in trust for the benefit of the people," and calculated, in their opinion, to subvert public liberty, destroy na-making to revive that odious and inquisitorial tional independence, degrade civilized society, and establish in Europe, once more, the darkness of the middle ages, and the tyranny of feudal laws, And further, that your Petitioners looking to your Honourable House as the depositary of their liberties, and the guardians of their properties, do most earnestly entreat your Honourable House to withhold such supplies of money and men, as may be demanded by the Executive, for the purpose of carrying on this premeditated war, mutil it has been satisfactorily shewn, that all at tempts to arrange honourable terms with the Emperor Napoleon are impracticable and unavail- | ing: and your Petitioners are further induced to dwell upon this point, from a conviction that no positive good is likely to arise to this country, nor any permanent repose to Europe, from an attempt to impose a Government on the French people by Mr. Cobbett-The return of Napoleon force of arms. Nor can your Petitioners refrain to France has imparted fresh vigour to from calling the attention of your Honourable your pen in defence of peace, and, what House to the direful calamities which have you are pleased to call, the principles of flowed in upon the inhabitants of these kingdoms civil, political, and religious freedom. from the late sanguinary and expensive wars, Fearful of your influence over the public undertaken upon the same unjust and chimerical mind, and anxious to see unanimity preprinciples as that now projected, and which, in vails in this country, respecting the war its effects upon this country, has pauperised its with France, I venture to address you on labouring classes, loosened the foundation of pub- the subject, relying on your candour for lic credit, annihilated its manufacturing conse-its insertion in your Register. We canquence, increased its taxation to an insurmount- not, Sir, make peace with Napoleon.able degree, and swelled the national debt to an We are a religious nation.-Bibles and amount that threatens the stability of our politi-missions to the Heathen is the cry amongst cal institutions; whilst its consequences to this us. We are making the most extraorditown and neighbourhood, in a local point of view,nary efforts to proselytize the world to are now severely felt in the diminution of their our holy and peaceable religion.-Bonatrade, the alarming increase of poor rates, and parte is an unbeliever! What fellowship the vast accumulation of misery in every shape, hath light with darkness? What part hath by which they are surrounded, in the midst of a he who believeth with an infidel? What! population destitute of employment, and goaded shall we, who have so much regard for the to despair, by the apparent hopeless state of their souls of Hindoos and Africans have no condition: it does, therefore, appear to your concern for those of our French neighPetitioners, that under such circumstances, for bours? Shall we suffer an infidel to reign the Government to enter again upon hostilities, over them?-But if we have no regard for (unless for the acquirement of great national them, let us at least take care of ourselves. objects, commensurate in advantage with the France is a very near neighbour: she pubsacrifice made for their attainment,) would dis-lishes what she pleases respecting religion. play a contempt for the sufferings of the people, a violation of public justice, an indifference to the voice of humanity, inconsistent with the cha

Alas! let us fear the contagion of her infidel principles more than ever, and let us war against Napoleon their patron, till we

and in an unquestionable shape. Those
facts, it will be seen, contradict the as-
persions which have been unnaturally cast
by some of our own citizens on their
country's honour, with the view solely
to support pretensions of our then enemy,
which are now decisively proven to have
been wholly groundless.
Nat. Intel..

liberty, peace, order, and humanity, must
all rejoice in this decisive appointment,
and on the suppression of the Censorship
of the Press, and the dissolution of the
Pseudo-Senate and degraded Chamber of
Deputies, who would submit to deliberate,
as it was called, on a change of govern-
ment, without any authority from the peo-
ple, and with an host of invading and be-
sieging strangers at their gates. The cha-
racteristic and magnanimous instance of
In Senate, March 3, 1815.
intrusting captured Vienna to her own The Committee on foreign relations, to
troops; to which I would add his generous whom was referred the message of the
dismissal of the armies of Austria and President of the United States on the 26th
Prussia; and the King and Emperor them- of September last, respecting the unau-
selves-35,000 men completely in his thorised mode of warfare adopted by the
power, speaks the man the general, the li- enemy, on the plea of retaliation, report,
beral statesman: his attention to this day that, although the war has happily termi-
of the wounded Austrian officers-his love, nated, they deem it important to rescue
founded on knowledge and true approba- the American government from unworthy
tion, of the arts and sciences-his remem- imputations with which it has been as-
brance of the widow of Rousseau, when sailed during its progress. They have,
neglected and in indigence--his power therefore, endeavoured to ascertain whe-
during his late astonishing enterprize over ther the destruction of York, in Upper
the best feelings of the human heart, which Canada, and the other cases assumed by
no man ever has to such an extent, unless our late enemy, as authorising a departure
those feelings have first possession of his from the settled rules of civilized warfare,
own-all these contradict the disgusting were of a character to justify or extenuate
and horrible portraits by which our aban- their conduct. The result of the in-
doned papers have endeavoured to feed quiries of the Committee, manifesting to
and enflame eternal war.-The Suffolk the world, that the plea which has been
Chronicle would not insert my letter in advanced for the destruction of the Ame-
which I endeavoured to obtain à REQUISI-rican capital, and the plunder of private'
TION to the HIGH SHERIFF, to call, as property, is without foundation, will be
early as possible, a County Meeting, to found in the communications of the secre-
consider of a Petition to prevent our being taries of the departments of war and navy,
made a party to a war for the purpose of and of General Dearborn, commander of
interfering with the internal government the American forces in the attack on York,
of France, after the clearest and fullest herewith submitted.
manifestation of the national will.

a

CAPEL LOFT.

Department of State, Feb. 28, 1815. SIR-I have had the honour to receive

REPORT ON THE RETALIATING SYSTEM, &c. your letter, requesting, on behalf of the

The following is a report made by a committee of the senate, on the subject of the pretences whereon our late enemy justified his devastations of private property and of public buildings, unconnected with the purposes of war. As great pains have been taken by the factious prints to discolour the facts on this subject, with a view to palliate the atrocities committed at Washington and elsewhere by the British forces, in violation of the usages of war and the dictates of humanity, it is satisfactory to receive a statement of facts on this head from the highest authority,

committee of foreign relations, any infor mation which this department possesses, relative to the misconduct that has been imputed to the American troops in Upper Canada during the late war, and in reply, I have the honour to state, that the charges appear to be confined to three. 1st, The alleged burning of York; 2d, the burning of Newark, and 3d, the burning of the Indian villages usually called the Moravian towns. 1st. The burning of York, or any of its public edifices or of any of its private houses, has never been presented to the view of the American government by its own officers, as matter of information;