VOL. XXIII. No. 26.] LONDON, SATURDAY, JUNE 26, 1813. 397] [Price 1s. [898 ed in my last number? Not only were we at peace with Sweden when those odious calumnies were circulated through this country; not only, according to our law of SUMMARY OF POLITICS. TREATY WITH SWEDEN.At the conclusion of my article upon this subject, in the last number of my Register, I express-libel, were those calumnies libellous; not ed my extreme delight at that part of this treaty, which, in so ample a manner acknowledges His Royal Highness, Bernadotte, to be the legitimate heir to the Swedish Crown and Dominions. If any thing could have added to this delight, it would have been a passage in the speech of Lord Castlereagh, made in the House of Commons on the 18th instant, touching the character of His Royal Highness. The subject of debate was the treaty with Sweden, of which treaty, it being the act of the Ministers, the Whigs, of course, disapproved. His Lordship, in the passage above alluded to, is reported to have said, that, certain jealousies appeared to exist with respect to the Royal Personage, commanding the Swedish army; that, however, his Lordship was perfectly convinced, that the greatest reliance might be placed on the honour of that Royal Personage; that the Crown Prince had acted a most honourable part towards both France and Sweden; that, as far as he could go without injury to the honour and interests of Sweden, he had gone, in showing his attachment to his native country, and to his former patron; but that, the moment the real interests of Sweden were assailed by France, he proved, by his conduct, that, in his breast, fidelity towards the people who had chosen him to govern them, triumphed over every other feeling; that, as to his former conduct, his Lordship had never heard any thing to his disadvantage, but, on the contrary, that, while he commanded in the armies of France, his conduct was perfectly laudable. -Now, reader, I beseech you to observe, that these are the sentiments of the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, and that they are, in fact, the sentiments of the English Ministry, and the English Government. What, then, ought to be said and done to the vile wretches, those pestiferous scribblers, who calumniated His Royal Highness in the manner exhibit only were the publications, if true, libellous in the eyes of our law of libel; but, as we now find, as we now have it stated from the lips of Lord Castlereagh himself, those publications were false, describing as being every thing that was infamous, a Personage whom we now find to possess almost every princely virtue in the highest degree.Why, then, were not these atrocious calumniators called to account, and punished? It surely must have been owing to some oversight in the Attorney General, or, it is impossible that libels of such unparalleled atrocity could have wholly escaped without notice.Men have been punished for what were deemed libels against the Emperor of Russia, the late Queen of France, and other Sovereigns; nay, Mr. Peltier was tried and convicted, under the Attorney-Generalship of Mr. Perceval himself, of a libel on Buonaparté, and he escaped a jail only by the breaking out of the present war. Well, then, we were at peace with the King and with the Crown Prince of Sweden, when those atrocious calumnies were published against them, and, therefore, I again must express my surprise, that the calumniators should have wholly escaped the animadversion of the law. The escape, however, of these contemptible wretches, these time-serving slaves, is a very trifling consequence, when compared with the above cited manly and most interesting declaration of Lord Castlereagh, upon which I cannot refrain from making a few short remarks.His Lordship clears His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of all imputation of ingratitude towards France and Buonaparté. This is a point which I shall not much dwell upon, not professing to be so well acquainted with the facts as his Lordship appears to be. But, with respect to His Royal Highness's lively sensibility to the honour and interests of Sweden, this declaration of his Lordship cannot fail to convince all men of sense, that should not Joseph and Jerome and Eugent do equally well for the people committed to their care; unless, indeed, it may be the opinion of some persons, that the circumstance of the three latter, not having been raised from the ranks, makes, in some it was a very wise act in the people of Sweden to call in this brave and skilful Frenchman to assume, in due time, the government of their country.I do not say, that this declaration of his Lordship goes fully to justify the expectation that the people of Spain, Naples, Italy, and West-degree, against them?--You will please phalia, will derive advantage from having Frenchmen placed over them in lieu of their old rulers. I do not say, that this declaration of his Lordship fully justifies such an expectation; but, do you not think with me, reader, that a declaration such as this is, and coming from the lips of our own Government, ought to make men hesitate before they pronounce the people of Naples, some of the people of Spain, the people of the states of Italy, and the people of a great part of Germany; do you not think that this declaration ought to make us hesitate before we pronounce all those nations to be base and stupid, merely because they peaceably and contentedly submit to the sway of Frenchmen? to observe, reader, that I am not making assertions here; and that I am not even delivering opinions. I am reasoning, or at least, endeavouring to reason; and, if I am not greatly deceived, the declaration of my Lord Castlereagh, with regard to the excellent use which His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Sweden makes of his power, ought to make us hesitate a long while before we stigmatize as being base and foolish, the people who quietly submit to newly created sovereigns, reared up in the same school and under the same master with His Royal Highness. I do not say, nor do I wish to have it taken for granted, that the other Frenchmen who have been My Lord Castle-made sovereigns, act in the same brave and wise manner as His Royal Highness the Crown Prince acts towards the Swedes. I have no information upon the subject. 1 do not know how they treat their people. And, therefore, in the absence of such information, all I can say is, that the decla ration of Lord Castlereagh, relative to the honourable, faithful, and truly princely conduct of the Crown Prince of Sweden, ought to make us refrain from vilifying and anathematizing any people whom we see contentedly submitting to the sway of a person educated in the same school, and elevated by the same patron with that worthy personage, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Sweden.- -It is well known, that, all those who are particular in their horses, dogs, fowls, sheep, or live-stock of any kind, place much reliance upon the person by whom they are reared. A dog from one breeder is thought, merely on account of that circumstance, to be worth ten times as much as a dog from another breeder, though of the same race, of the same age and size, and of the same outward appearance. It is, in some degree, the same with young men coming into the world, who seldom fail to derive considerable benefit from having been reared up under the care of a person celebrated for the rearing of clever young men.Now, though I do not pretend to say, that the great virtues, possessed by His Roya Highness the Crown Prince, are possessed by all the other young men reared up by Buonaparte, and by him recommended t reagh, the official organ of our Government, has distinctly declared, in the House of Commons, that the Crown Prince of Sweden, though a Frenchman, though raised from the ranks in the French revolutionary army, though a commander under Buonaparté, though promoted and ennobled by Buonaparté, has, nevertheless, upon becoming Crown Prince of Sweden, preferred the honour and the interests of Sweden to all other earthly considerations. If this be so, and I do not entertain the least doubt of the truth of it; if this be so, and so it is, as our Government asserts, at any rate; if this be so, why are we to suppose that the Frenchmen who have been made sovereigns in Spain, Naples, and Germany, will not prefer the honour and interests of those several countries to all earthly considerations, in like manner with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Sweden? Joseph, Joachim, Jerome, Eugene, have all been generals in the French service, as well as the Crown Prince of Sweden, and Joachim, the present King of Naples, was a private soldier in the ranks of that army, being, as it is said, the son of what we call in England, an ale-house keeper. Aye, the son of a man in exactly a similar situation to Tom Davies who sells beer by the pot at the sign of the Bugle at Botley. Now, if His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Sweden does so very well for the Swedes, as my Lord Castlereagh says he does, why should not Joachim do as well for the people of Naples ?And why sovereignties; yet, in the absence of all information with regard to the character and conduct of those other young men, I humbly conceive, that we ought not to pronounce the people who live contentedly under them to be base, corrupt, infamous cowards, as our prostituted press describes them to be; for, who can tell, that the day may not yet come, when our government will give us information relative to those young men, similar to that which it has now, to the great satisfaction of all the true friends of freedom, been pleased to give us, with regard to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince of Sweden?Another part of Lord Castlereagh's manly avowal relative to the character and conduct of the Crown Prince, reflects equal honour on the object and on the giver of the praise bestowed in that avowal.There is a proverb in Latin to this amount: to praise you is to praise myself. That is to say, the act of praising you is so very laudable, that it reflects great praise on the actor. This proverb applies, in its fullest extent, to the conduct of my Lord Castlereagh upon this occasion; especially where he speaks of the former conduct of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. His Lordship said, that while His Royal Highness commanded in the French armies his character and conduct were good. This part of his Lordship's speech is the more worthy of notice and of commendation, as it, in fact, contains a most handsome and delicate compliment to the great enemy against whom we are contending, and shows, that, in the mind of his Lordship, generosity of sentiment is not extinguished by hostility -If the conduct and the character of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince were so excellent as his Lordship says they were, while he commanded in the French armies, it was, we are fairly to presume, for that good conduct and that good character, that Buonaparte promoted and ennobled him. And thus, we find that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, who was a most virtuous man while commanding under Buonaparte, was exalted by the latter to the rank of a prince, though Sir Robert Wilson and others have described that same Buonaparté, as the envier of all talent, as the hater of every virtue, as the enemy of the human race, as a scourge sent by God to inflict sufferings on the world. in arnis. Now, if these writers and the Times (the vile Times), and the Courier and the Post and the Herald; if all these speak truth when they abuse Buonaparte; when they call him tyrant and despot and monster and fiend. If they speak truth when they so describe Buonaparté, let me put it to you, reader, whether it be not something very wonderful, that a man who is a tyrant, a monster, a fiend, who envies all talent in others, who hates all virtue wherever he finds it, and whose object it is to be a curse to Europe and mankind; let me ask you, reader; let me put it to your sense and to your sincerity, whether it be not passing wonderful, that such a man should select, as an object of tion, as an object of exaltation; that he promoshould choose as a favourite ; elevate to the rank of a prince, and, finally, that he should to the rank of a sovereign in perpetuity, a person of acknowledged great talents, and who, for a series of years, had, by his constant practice, proved himself to be possessed of virtues worthy of a prince? Again, reader, I put it to your sense and your sincerity, whether this be not passing wonderful? -This is a new era, in many respects; but in no way has the novelty of it, been more strongly marked than in this open avowal on the part of our government of the transcendent virtues of a person, who had served under Buonaparte. Our base and foolish press fills its columns with abuse of those who distinguish themselves in the army of Napoleon. The Duke of Friuli, for instance, who, the other day was killed in battle, was represented by this prostituted press, as having owed his exaltation to his base subserviency to his master. But, now we learn from the mouth of the minister of England, that one man, at least, has been exalted by Napoleon, who was not only worthy of being made a Marshal, a Duke, and an Italian Prince, but, who was also worthy of being made the heir to the Crown and Dominions of one of the ancient states of Europe. And, what is more, if any thing can go beyond the open and public declaration of the minister made in the House of Commons, we have, before us, a treaty, made under an invocation of the Holy Trinity, by which treaty, we make a cession in perpetuity of part of the old French Dominions to a man, whose heirship to a crown we acknowledge by the same treaty, and which man, after having long served under Buonaparte, was, by that same Buonaparté, first promoted, next ennobled, and, lastly, recommended, at least, to the rank, which, as we are now assured, from the lips of our government, he fills with so much advantage to the nation whe minister of England, and that we shall always recollect, that this most excellent and illustrious personage was promoted and exalted by the man whom our corrupt press represents as the most odious and most detestable of beings.-Hence, too, it might not unreasonably be hoped, that the furious royalists would take a lesson. They here have the proof, that a revolutionist may be a mighty good sort of a man, They had, indeed, this proof before, in the instances of Dumourier, Pichegru, and others; but they now have it in a still stronger instance, namely, that of a person raised up by Buonaparté himself. They ought, therefore, one would think, to be a little cautious how they revile persons engaged in revolutionary pursuits.The war, in which we are now engaged, and which, in reality, began more than twenty years ago, had, for its object, the preservation of the established order of things. Whether it be the established order of things in Sweden to make a Frenchman heir to the Crown, to the exclusion of the banished king and his family, is a question which I shall have had the wisdom to adopt him, to the exclusion of the ancient family.This, then, I say, is a striking feature in the new era, for we have here, a man who long served under, and who was promoted and exalted by Buonaparté himself. Moreau, Pichegru, Dumourier, and others, we have, indeed, found to be very virtuous men, and worthy of great confidence, though, for a long while, there were people to call them rebels, robbers, cutthroats, and atheists. When we came to be better acquainted with these gentlemen, we found them all to be very worthy persons, and as good christians as were going. We did not make the discovery, indeed, till they had shewn their hostility to Buonaparte, which, to some people, appeared to be rather unfortunate; and, indeed, the open avowal of the great virtues of the Crown Prince of Sweden has been reserved for the moment of his appearing in arms against that same Buonaparte; but there is this difference between the case of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and the case of Moreau, Pichegru, and others, that the latter were not the creatures of Buona-leave John Bowles to answer. John, I dare parté; they did not owe their exaltation to say, might, with the assistance of his comhim; they derived from him neither rank rade and brother reviewer, Mr. Green, nor emolument; whereas the Crown Prince find out, somehow or other, that this is the was promoted by him, ennobled by him, established order of things; and, in that and, finally, was, by him recommended, case, we shall only have to congratulate at least, to that sovereign power of which these worthies upon so grand a discovery. we have now, by solemn treaty, acknow- For once, at any rate, we shall agree as to ledged him to be the rightful and indis- the substance. These dregs, these offal, putable heir.What, then, reader, are of anti-jacobinism, will now say, that His we to gather from all this? To say what Royal Highness the Crown Prince is a the sentiments now promulgated, the prin- worthy gentleman, and that our Governciples now set afloat; to say how they will ment did very right in forming an alliance work in the minds of men, and to what with him; in acknowledging him as the they will finally lead, is beyond the reach lawful heir to the Swedish Throne; and, of human capacity. But, I think, it re- in ceding to him in perpetuity part of the quires no great capacity of mind to disco- old French dominions. They will say this; ver, and indeed, that it requires but a and I say the same.. -They will not now very moderate portion of common sense to dare to say, that His Royal Highness the teach us that we ought to be very cautious Crown Prince is an usurper. They will how we give in to that strain of abuse, now take care, I hope, to whom they give that strain of boundless calumny, which that title; or, before the word be well out the vile press of this country indulges itself of their lips, they may be compelled to eat in, with regard to all those, who have ob-it with all convenient dispatch. As I tained rank and power through the influence of Napoleon. I think that we must be stupid indeed, if the excellent speech of my Lord Castlereagh fails to teach us this much of caution. When we hear the unmannerly slaves of the press calling Buonaparté a monster, a fiend, an usurper, a scourge, and the like, I hope we shall bear in mind the treaty with Sweden, and the eulogium pronounced upon the Crown Prince by the said before, this treaty with Sweden has opened the way to events, which the malignant anti-jacobin never before dreamed of, and of which, perhaps, he does not yet dream. He has nothing in his eye but the immediate annoyance of Buonaparte; but the man who is under the guidance of his reason, and not of his passions; the man who has no selfish motive at bottom, and who can view the matter with an impartial eye, must perceive, and will perceive, that this recognition of the Crown Prince of Sweden has most important consequences in its train; and, for my part, as I am convinced that those consequences will be favourable to the freedom and happiness of mankind, and hostile to every system supported by corruption and hypocrisy, I cannot refrain from repeating an expression of my delight with the treaty that has been the subject of so much cavil on the part of the Whigs, who, by no accident, ever find [906, in the Morning Chronicle, leaving the reader to stop as he goes along, and to make such remarks as occur to him. He will perceive, that Mr. Swan's motion was lost, at last, by a majority of three. Debate in the Honourable House, on Monday the 21st of June, 1813, relative to the conduct of the Duke of Leeds at Hellestone. Mr. Swan moved that the Spe fault with any thing that is really injurious cial Report of the Hellestone to the country. HONOURABLE HOUSE.It is seldom that I take much notice in my Register of what passes in the Honourable House. Election Committee be now read. the Duke of Leeds with having The Report, which charged There has, however, a transaction occurred violated the law and the privi now, which is well worthy of notice.leges of the House, having been After the last election for the borough of accordingly read, Hellestone, a petition was presented against the sitting members, and the committee, who examined into the matter, made a special Report to the House, charging the Duke of Leeds with having violated the law, and the privileges of the House. Mr. Swan said, in bringing forward the motion which he was about to submit to the House, he had no political interest to anOn Monday last this report was taken into swer, and no resentments to graconsideration by the Honourable House. tify. The Chairman of the ComA Mr. Swan made a motion for prosecut-mittee 'had declined to submit ing the Duke of Leeds, and the Honourable any motion to the House on the House determined THAT THEY WOULD Report, although the majority in the Committee was 11 to 3. The House ought to be informed of the proceedings of the Committee. NOT PROSECUTE THE DUKE OF LEEDS.The name of Thomas Crogan was mentioned during the debate; and, it may be useful for the reader to know that a somewhat similar report was made against Thomas Grogan, to the Honourable House, for misconduct at the election at Tregony; and that the Honourable House sent the said Thomas Grogan to Newgate, where he is now confined by the authority of the Honourable House.- -I shall make no com nimously of opinion, that those The Committee were unavoters who had benefited by the corrupt influence which had been proved had disfranchised themments upon this transaction, but I will do selves. He should be sorry to my best to spread the knowledge of it say any thing against the Noble through the world. I wish it to be made Duke alluded to in the Report, known to every creature that is able to read, or against the Honourable Memin every country upon earth. It is a thing bers returned, but he conceived that will do good wherever it shall go: I will put it in larger print, that old people it incumbent on him in this case and that children may read it. It is one of to lay before, the House the nathose things which produce impression at a ture of the transactions which had taken place, and to state the great distance from the spot. One of those mation to other countries as well as our |