vain hath the Deity furnished us with either moral or intellectual guides.-I believe, Sir, that where political liberty shall be enjoyed "in the utmost perfec"tion," there will "wisdom" and "virtue," "talent" and " integrity," be most like liberty? And is it not equally self-evident, that in "an absolute monarchy," which in terms describes a government at the will of one man, or a perfect despotism, there can be no "liberty" whatever?— A state, or an individual man, possessing self-government, or liberty, may doubt-ly to find their way into a representative legislature; and to think otherwise, ap- HIGH PRICES. SIR; In the Supplement to No. 18. of Vol. xvi, of your Register, is a Letter on the High Price of Provisions; on which, with your permission, I will make a few remarks. The writer begins by deploring the effect of the Duke of Portland's Proclamation in 1799; by which the miseries of the people were greatly aggravated; insomuch that the advance of price was 125 per cent., when the real deficiency of crop was only 25 per cent. With this fact before him, he proceeds to give us the information contained in the following, paragraph. "The recent and rapid ad"vanced price of corn, must either be or "be not the measure of the scantiness of less make an ill use of it; but, be such folly what it may, I do not apprehend that the proper corrective is a deprivation of liberty; for that very deprivation must either abridge, or destroy, the power of amendment, when reason or experience shall have convinced the state or the individual of its or his error. And as to your palpable inconsistency, in supposing "that "a considerable share of liberty may ob"tain where representation is unknown;" it arises from your mistaking the protection, or favour, or indulgence of a despot, who can withdraw the same at any moment, for liberty, which is the power of self-government, independent of the prince or magistrate.-Having thus, Sir, shewn that on neither of the topics, which were the objects of my former letter to you, have you given the smallest answer; and that I cannot discover any principles of free government, or of the English Constitution, from which you argue in favour of "triennial parliaments," which therefore appear to me a superstructure without a foundation, that alone seems to be a very crop, to which it is ascribable. If it be sufficient reason for my not replying to "the measure of it, then the scarcity your arguments in favour of them, after "amounts to one third of last year's crop, what I have already advanced against "for the price has advanced or will soon them in my former letter.-I once, Sir, "advance in that proportion to last year's had put into my hands by a friend, a very "price. And if it be not the measure of bulky volume of Swedenbourg's Works, in "it, then it is not the corn that has adorder to convert me to the baron's opi"vanced a third in price, but the money nions in religion; but finding in the first "that has retreated back to two thirds of page, the fancies which he had taken for "its last year's exchangeable value." A his foundations, and being convinced of set of "long faced farmers with scanty their fallacy, I excused myself from read-" samples," "filching dealers and greedy ing farther, as I was not in quest of amusement, but truth. I have, however, read your letter to the end; and having already shewn how much I differ from you in fundamentals, it would be idle to multiply words in controverting your conclusions. —I shall only shortly observe, that your arguments for preferring, in the teeth of demonstration as to the principle, triennial to annual parliaments, appear to me to be the effect, rather of errors derived from an observation of corrupt and erroneous practice, than of a contemplation of the nature of election properly regulated. If we are not to be guided by the principles of reason, and the laws of nature, in "bankers," have performed this wonder in the space of six short weeks; all the rag merchants and paper makers in the united kingdom, having been put in requisition.-I think it right however to inform this gentleman, (what I believe no other person who has thought on the subject need be told), that an apprehension of scarcity, in articles of the first necessity, enhances the demand, and consequently the price, much beyond the occasion: That the produce of our own harvest, is, on an average of years, barely sufficient to feed us; therefore if our crop fall, in any degree, short of the average, we must depend, in that degree, on other countries for our subsistence. Now, if the public have let | Expedition, therefore pray your Majesty in a notion that the crop of this year is somewhat below par, that notion, joined to another on the uncertainty of a foreign supply, , may account for the advance in price, without supposing a sudden exacer bation of avarice in the farmers, dealers and bankers. A circumstance, that, I am happy to assure your correspondent, has not occurred within my observation, which is pretty extensive among those classes of the community. I am, Sir, Yours, &c. M. B. OFFICIAL PAPERS. will direct Inquiry to be forthwith instituted, in order to ascertain the causes which have occasioned it. Signed by Order of Court, To which Address and Petition His Majesty was graciously pleased to return the following Answer: I thank you for your expressions of duty and attachment to me and to my Family.The recent Expedition to the Scheldt was directed to several objects of great importance to the interests of my Allies, and to the security of my dominions.-I regret, that of these objects a part only has been accomplished.-I have not judged it to be CITY OF LONDON ADDRESS, Dec. 20, 1809. necessary to direct any Military Inquiry To the King's Most Excellent Majesty, The humble, loyal, and dutiful Address and Petition of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled. Most gracious Sovereign; We your Majesty's most faithful, loyal, and dutiful subjects, the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled, most humbly approach your Majesty's sacred person, in the perfect assurance that your Majesty will graciously condescend to receive the suggestions of your faithful and loyal Citizens, on subjects which seriously and deeply affect their interests, in common with the rest of your Majesty's people. We have witnessed with deep regret the disastrous failure of the late Expedition, as the magnitude of its equipment had raised the just hopes and expectations of the Country to some permanent benefit. And we cannot avoid expressing to your Majesty the sorrow and indignation with which we are affected, by the unhappy dissensions that have prevailed among your Majesty's Ministers, and our fears that such dissensions may prove eminently prejudicial to the best interests of the Nation. Your Majesty's faithful Citizens, actuated by loyal attachment to your Sacred Person and Illustrious House, and solicitous for the honour of your Majesty's arms and the dignity and solidity of your Majesty's Councils, are deeply impressed with the necessity of an early and strict Inquiry into the causes of the failure of the late into the Conduct of my Commanders by Sea or Land in this conjoint Service.It will be for my Parliament, in their wisdom, to ask for such information, or to take such measures upon this subject as they shall judge most conducive to the public good. since fought, it is true, with ill success, but always with gallantry and glory. The creation, the reparation, and the subsistance of these armies have more than absorbed the considerable supplies which have been sent us by our brethren in America. We have maintained in the free Provinces unity, order and justice, and in those occupied by the enemy we have exerted our endeavours to preserve, though secretly, the fire of patriotism and the bounds of loyalty. We have vindicated the national honour and independence in the most complicated and difficult diplo matic negociations; and we have made head against adversity, without suffering ourselves to despair, ever trusting that we should overcome it by our constancy. We bave, without doubt, committed errors, and we would willingly, were it possible, redeem them with our blood: but in the confusion of events, among the mountains of difficulties which surrounded us, who could be certain of always being in the right? Could we be responsible because one body of troops wanted valour, and another confidence; because one General has less prudence, and another less good rise and termination of this fourth Punic fortune? Much, Spaniards, is to be attri-War. Accustomed to the devotedness and buted to our inexperience, much to cir- courage of my armies, I must nevertheless, cumstances, but nothing to our intention. under these circumstances, acknowledge That ever has been to deliver our unfor- the particular proofs of affection which my tunate King from slavery, and preserve to soldiers of Germany have given me.-The him a throne for which the Spanish people genius of France conducted the English have made such sacrifices, and to maintain army-it has terminated its projects in the it free, independent and happy. We pestilential marshes of Walcheren. In have, from the time of our institution, that important period I remained 400 promised him a country; we have decreed leagues distant, certain of the new glory the abolition of arbitrary power, from the which my people would acquire, and of time we announced the re-establishment the grand character they would display. of our Cortes. Such is, Spaniards, the use My hopes have not been deceived-I owe we have made of the unlimited power and particular thanks to the Citizens of the authority confided to us; and when your Departments of the Pas de Calais and the wisdom shall have established the basis North. Frenchmen! Every one that shall and form of Government most proper for oppose you shall be conquered and rethe independence and good of the State, duced to submission. Your grandeur shall we will resign the authority into the hands be increased by the hatred of your eneyou shall point out, contented with the mies. You have before you long years of glory of having given to the Spaniards the glory and prosperity. You have the force dignity of a nation legitimately constituted. and energy of the Hercules of the Ancients. May this solemn and magnificent assembly-I have united Tuscany to the Empire. be productive of efficacious means, energy, The Tuscans were worthy of it by the and fortune; may it be an immense in- mildness of their character, by the atextinguishable volcano, from which may tachment their ancestors have always flow torrents of patriotism to revivify every shewn us, and by the services they have part of this vast monarchy, to inflame all rendered to European civilization.-Hisminds with that sublime enthusiasm which tory pointed out to me the conduct I ought produces the safety and glory of nations, to pursue towards Rome: the Popes, beand the despair of tyrants; and your- come Sovereigns of part of Italy, have selves, noble Fathers of the country, to constantly shewn themselves enemies of the elevation of your high duties, and every preponderating power in the peninSpain exalted with you to an equally bril-sula-they have employed their spiritual liant destiny, shall see returned into her power to injure it-It was then demonbosom for her happiness, Ferdinand 7th, strated to me that the spiritual influence and his unfortunate family; shall see her exercised in my States by a foreign Sovesons enter on the path of prosperity and reign, was contrary to the independence glory which they ought henceforth to of France, to the dignity and safety of my pursue, and receive the crown of the sub-throne. However, as I acknowledge the lime and almost divine efforts which they are making. Marquis of ASTORGA, President. PEDRO DE RIVERO, Sec.-Gen. FRANCE.-Speech of the Emperor Napoleon, at the opening of the meeting of the Legislative Body. Dec. 3, 1809. necessity of the spiritual influence of the descendants of the first of the pastors, I could not conciliate these grand interests but by annulling the donative of the French Emperors my predecessors, and By the Treaty of Vienna, all the Kings, by uniting the Roman States to France.-and Sovereigns my allies, who have given me so many proofs of the constancy of 'Gentlemen Deputies of Departments to their friendship, have acquired and shall the Legislative Body.-Since your last acquire a fresh increase of territory.-The Session I have reduced Arragon and Cas-Illyrian Provinces stretch the frontiers of tile to submission, and driven from Madrid the fallacious Government formed by England. I was marching upon Cadiz and Lisbon, when I was under the necessity of treading back my steps, and of planting my eagles on the ramparts of Vienna. Three months have seen the my great Empire to the Save. Contiguous to the Empire of Constantinople, I shall find myself in a situation to watch over the first interests of my commerce in the Mediterranean, the Adriatic, and the Levant. I will protect the Porte, if the Porte withdraw herself from the fatal in fluence of England. I shall know how to punish her, if she suffer herself to be governed by cunning and perfidious counsels. -I have wished to give the Swiss Nation a new proof of my esteem, by annexing to my titles that of their Mediator, and thus putting an end to all the uneasiness endeavoured to be spread among that brave people.-Holland, placed between Eng. land and France, is equally bruised by them. Yet she is the debouché of the principal arteries of my empire.-Changes will become necessary; the safety of my frontiers, and the well understood interests of the two countries, imperiously require them. Sweden has lost, by her alliance with England, after a disastrous war, the finest and most important of her provinces. Happy would it have been for that nation, if the wise Prince that governs her now had ascended the throne some years sooner? This example proves anew to kings that the alliance of England is the surest presage of ruin. My ally and friend, the Emperor of Russia, has united to his vast empire, Finland, Moldavia, Wallachia, and a district of Gallicia.-I am not jealous of any thing that can produce good to that Empire. My sentiments for its illustrious Sovereign are in unison with my policy. -When I shall shew myself beyond the Pyrenees, the frightened leopard will fly to the ocean, to avoid shame, defeat and death. The triumph of my arms will be the triumph of the genius of good over that of evil; of moderation, order, and morality over civil war, anarchy and the bad passions. My friendship and protection will, I hope, restore tranquillity and happiness to the people of the Spains.-Gentlemen Deputies of Departments to the Legislative Body—I have directed my Minister of the Interior to lay before you the history of the legislation, of the administration, and of the finances of the year just expired; you will see that all the ideas I had conceived for the amelioration of my people, have been followed with the greatest activity-that in Paris, as in the most distant parts of my empire, the war has not produced any delay in the public works. The Members of my Council of State will submit to you different projects of law, and especially the law upon the Finances; you will see in it their prosperous condition. I demand of my people no new sacrifice, though circumstances have obliged me to double my military means. FLUSHING.-Sentence against General Monnet. Dec. 9.-The Council of Inquiry appointed by his Majesty the Emperor and King, convened by his Excellency Count De Huneburgh, Minister at War, in obedience to his Majesty's Orders, dated Schoenbrunn, Sept. 7, 1809, and assembled at the General Military Depot, closed on the 25th of last month its deliberations, and pronounced the following Sentence:That General Monnet, contrary to his duty, did not fulfil the orders of his Imperial Majesty, in case of his being pressed hard by the enemy, to cut the dykes rather than surrender.-That he surren dered the fortress at a time when it had only sustained a bombardment of thirtysix hours, when the garrison was still composed of more than 4,000 men, when no breach was made in the rampart, and the enemy was yet more than 800 metres dis-' tant from the fortress, and when our troops were yet in possession of the outworks, and when, consequently, the place was not really besieged. That the General is therefore guilty of gross misconduct, which cannot be attributed to any other motive than cowardice and treason. And the Council declares, moreover, that the General is guilty of extortion and embezzlement, since it appears in evidence, that he did receive, or caused to be received, for his own private benefit and use, from the year 1803 to the year 1806, the sum of ten Dutch stivers, or twenty sous Tournois for each half ankar Geneva which was exported. (Signed) Count RAMPON. Count d'ALZVELLE, Vice-Ad. Counts SONGER & BASSON. The above Sentence was confirmed by the Emperor and King on the 6th instant, and ordered to be transmitted to the Minister at War, for the purpose of being carried into execution against the delinquent. BATTLE OF OCANA.-Report from the Duke of Dalmatia to his Excellency the Minister at War; dated Das Barrias, Nov. 19, 1809. The troops of his Imperial Majesty have gained a signal victory. The battle was fought in the vicinity of Ocana, where the insurgents had assembled a force of 55,000 men, 700 of whom were horse, with a numerous park of artillery. The 4th army joined by the 5th under the orders of Marshal Duke of Treviso, the division of dragoons commanded by Gen. Milhaud, the division of light horse under the command of Gen. Beauryant, and the brigade of light horse of Gen. Paris, the Royal Guards, and two battalions of Spanish troops, marched yesterday to meet the enemy, who, according to every intelligence received, had taken post at Ocana. About nine o'clock this morning our advanced parties came in sight of the enemy's army. At eleven o'clock the action commenced, and in two hours it was decided in our favour. The Spaniards, encouraged by their superiority m numbers, made a vigorous resistance; but they were attacked with such irresistible valour by our troops, that they soon gave way; their position was carried, and they were thrown into the utmost confusion. All their artillery and field equipage fell into our hands; more than 50 pieces of cannon have already been brought in, 15 stand of colours, and numerous prisoners have been taken, among whom are 3 Generals, 6 Colonels, and 700 inferior officers. The ground is covered with the slain, and with more than 40,000 muskets. They who escaped took to flight, without arms, and without knowing whither to direct their steps. This morning the King gave the command of the cavalry to General Sebastiani, and the admirable manner in which he manœuvred and made his charges, fully justified his Majesty's choice. General Milhaud also greatly distinguished himself; and all the different commanders of horse displayed the utmost intrepidity and valour. The Marshal Duke of Treviso commanded the infantry of the 4th and 5th corps; it is utterly impossible to behave in a more gallant manner than he did. He received a contusion in the arm; but this did not prevent him from continuing the command. Our loss does not in my estimation exceed 400 men. The Marshal Duke of Belluno is ordered this morning to cross the Tagus, between Vil, lamaurique and Fuente Duenar. He is to attack the enemy in the position he has taken up at Santa Cruz, and pursue in whatever direction he may choose to retreat. He was this morning informed by letter, that the enemy had concentrated his force near Ocana, and ordered to direct his march to that point. As he had to perform a very long march, he could not arrive sufficiently in time to share in ke action; nay the King did not receive any intelligence from him the whole of the day, and his Majesty is, therefore, perfectly ignorant of what the Duke of Belluno has been doing. I shall however have to make my further report on this subject as soon as possible.--Please to lay my report before his Imperial Majesty, and to accept the assurance of my high consideration. Marshal DUKE of DALMATIA, Major-General. SPAIN.-From the Government Gazette extraordinary of Nov. 23. Two dispatches have just been received from the General Don Juan Carlos de Areizaga, dated 19th and 20th, in Turleque and Daimiel, both of which arrived at the same time. In the first he states, that the enemy having attacked our army in the centre and on the flanks at Ocana, but making their principal effort against our right, with a view to turn it, an obstinate resistance was made for three hours, when they were repulsed by the division of the gallant Brigadier Lacey; but the superiority of the enemy's artillery caused a dispersion, which obliged our army to retreat under cover of our vanguard, and 6th division; that our loss is considerable, but the enemy's not less so, as he was repulsed several times by our infantry, and the brisk fire of the artillery. The Dispatch of the 20th is as follows: Excellent Seigneur-I arrived here this night, and to morrow I shall proceed to Santa Cruz, where I have directed the infantry should join, and the cavalry of this dispersed army will join in Manzanares, with the exception of a part of the second division, under the command of Brigadier Don Gaspar Bigodet, in order to check the enemy (whose advanced posts have this day reached Madridejos, and of whose main body I know nothing), not to permit his drawing near the Sierra Morena, and to preserve my supplies from La Mancha. Then, should it be possible for me, I will give your Excellency an account of our loss. I can, however, in the mean time, inform your Excellency, that it has been very considerable in good Generals and Officers, which is the best proof that thesehave distinguished themselves on this occasion with the greatest honour; following the example of the Generals of Divisions, who have given proofs of their skill in their good dispositions, and of their charac |