speech a new division of the country was pointed out, as a project proper for their attention. The ancient division of the Spanish provinces amounted to thirty-two, an apportionment so unequal as to occasion much local inconvenience. The prefects appointed by the Constitution, and those provincial assemblies to whom the administration of justice was confided, found the exercise of their respective functions much impeded, and in some instances entirely frustrated, by the great distance of some of their districts from the provincial capitals, and in many cases by the excessive population placed under their government. Some idea may be formed of this by the fact, that Catalonia alone contains under the present partition one thousand square leagues of territory, and upwards of a million of inhabitants, confided to one provincial assembly and one prefect. Under the new system this province is to be divided into four. The project at present recommended divides the whole country, and its adjacent islauds, into fifty-one provinces, fixing the maximum of the population of each at four hundred thousand people. This new organization is to be followed by a fresh census and valuation of property, in order to promote a more equitable assessment of taxes, and to fix the internal militia establishment on a better basis. This plan, creating no less than nineteen new provinces, and materially altering the boundaries of the old, must produce a considerable change in the geographical division of Spain; it will also produce much expense, by the creation of so many additional public functionaries: but, on the whole, the plan seems a good one, and its temporary inconveniences are likely to be much more than counterbalanced by the permanent beneficial effects which must result from the improved administration of the laws, and the more equitable collection of the revenue. The departmental division of France, originally proposed by the Abbé Sieyes, and acted on with such effect by Napoleon, gave rise, in all probability, to this alteration.

We are truly sorry to state that the yellow fever has appeared in the peninsula, and, notwithstanding all

the precautions of the board of health, continues to make dreadful ravages. In Catalonia and Arragon it rages with such fury, that on the 23d and 24th September the deaths, exclusive of children, amounted to 260! It is said that the entire population of Tortosa have fallen victims to it, and that the city is converted into a desart. The bishop fell in the cause of humanity, on the third day of an illness contracted during his exertions to comfort those afflicted; a death not unworthy of a Christian apostle. A natural alarm has communicated itself to France, and a lazaretto has been established at the Pas-de-Bissobie on the right bank of the Bidassoa, where every person coming from Spain is subjected to a quarantine, of a duration proportioned to the length of his journey. Those who come from an infected district are forced back. At Barcelona the mortality is stated as dreadful: hopes were entertained that the cool weather towards the close of September would have arrested the progress of this cruel disorder, but ninety had died on the last day of that month, and six hundred new cases were declared on the day following.

In Lisbon a strong anti-British feeling has shown itself, which certainly adds but little to the fame of Portuguese gratitude. The dismissal of Lord Beresford has been followed up by a fiscal imposition upon the importation of all British manufactures, of such a nature as to amount almost to a total prohibition. The English ambassador sent in a formal remonstrance against the imposition of these new duties, and next day had an unavailing meeting with the new ministry.

Some very extraordinary trials have taken place in Paris, the results of which mark, better than a volume of observations, the state of public feeling in that country. The principal was that of M. Barginet, who was indicted for a libel on the king, as the author of a pamphlet entitled “The Queen of England and Napo leon, who both died of cancer." The publication, which M. Barginet, who is a very young man, boldly avowed, manifestly ascribed to poison the death of the two distinguished individuals named in the title. In the

fifth page, the following expressions, which must serve as a specimen of the whole, occur: "But our young hands will not carry the censer before the idols to whom human blood is sacrificed-before we were subjects of kings we were citizens of a country; we will speak for it, and we I will wait for the future. Caroline was sacrificed to private interest, and Napoleon to policy. I hesitate not to repeat, that both died of the same distemper! Where will that cruel delirium end, which has taken possession of European cabinets? Weary of treachery and perfidy, have they resolved henceforward to employ only poison and the steel?" The jury, after some deliberation, acquitted the author of this production, probably upon the ground, though not expressed, that it was a libel rather on the king of England than the king of France. This was followed by the trial of M. Flocon, as the author of a pamphlet addressed to "Francis Charles Joseph Buonaparte, born at the Castle of the Tuilleries, March 20, 1811;" and its author, who also avowed himself, was charged with "an attack upon the order of the succession to the throne, an offence against the person of the king, and an offence against the members of the Royal Family." The passage on which the charge principally rested, was the following, "Twice have I seen the soil of France polluted by the steps of foreigners, whose arms have twice imposed upon us shame and slavery; and being then too young, I could not enjoy the glorious right of dying by the hands of the enemy. Time rolls on, things change, men pass away, sovereigns are alarmed, yes, for the sad offspring of a degenerate race!" M. Fiocon, who defended himself, contended that he had not transgressed the boundaries of free discussion allowed by the charter, and the jury agreed with him. So far we should have to congratulate France, on having thus acquired the invaluable privilege of the interposition of a jury before conviction and its consequences: but still she must advance much farther, before she enjoys the glorious freedom of discussion allowed in England. She

has a despotic censorship to abolish, and she has to guarantee her literary property against the interference of the police. Paris teems at this moment with placards, and pamphlets, and caricatures, on the death of Napoleon; but their existence is ephemeral; the very day on which they issue from the press they are seized, and suppressed by the bri gands of government. The publishers have latterly successfully evaded this interposition, by sending forth an immense impression at the moment from the press, which is instantaneously bought up by prearranged purchasers: this plan secures, at all events, some trifling profit, before the pillage commences. We have seen some of those productions, which are highly characteristic of the ingenuity and invention of that mercurial country.

We are sorry to have to place in the very front of our domestic intelligence the premature, but total failure, of all the splendid anticipations to which his Majesty's visit to Ireland had given rise in the minds of those who possessed a superficial acquaintance with the character of that people. The gaudy and hollow bubble of conciliation has burst, and a system of outrage, robbery, murder, and assassination has commenced, scarcely to be paralleled in the annals of any civilized country. The counties of Limerick, Mayo, and Cavan are at present the chief seats of the disturbance. In the former of these counties the outrages are of the most horrible and aggravated nature. A most respectable magistrate, a Mr. Going, was attacked upon the public highway, and, to use the vulgarly emphatic phrase in which the intelligence of his death was announced in Dublin, "his body was made a riddle of!" Any one of the seven wounds inflicted on him must have proved mortal; and such was the daring ferocity of his assassins, that even the dead body was obliged to be guarded home by a military escort. The unfortunate gentleman was distinguished for his loyalty, and has, we regret to state, left a large family almost unprovided for. verinment have offered a reward of 2000l. for the apprehension of his murderers, who, as if to show that

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they were actuated solely by a sanguinary spirit, left his watch and a large sum of money he had on his person untouched! At a meeting of the Irish privy council, it was resolved, and too justly, to proclaim this district. In various other parts of this unfortunate country, midnight meetings, robbery of arms, and incessant organization, prove clearly enough that these outrages originate in previous concert. If any thing were wanting to show this, it would be the almost incredible, but too well authenticated, fact, that in an hour after the murder of Mr. Going, it was announced to the country by bonfires upon all the hills, and echoed by a savage yell of exultation from the villages! If this system be not speedily and manfully suppressed, we should not be surprised at a renewal of the horrors of 1798. In the mean time, the different factions in Dublin seem labouring to evince how hollow and hypocritical were their promises of forbearance. The obnoxious toast which brought down public censure upon Alderman Darley has been repeated, in spirit, though not in terms, by the new Lord Mayor, who is in high favour with his party in consequence, and does not appear at all in disfavour with the government, as the Lord Lieutenant was not only present when the toast was given, and drank it, but toasted in return, "the Dublin Corporation." If the King was in earnest, when he so strenuously recommended conciliation, this is strange conduct; and if he was not -but it is hard to say, whether the "emerald flowers," and the "laurel crowns," and the shouts of servile and disgraceful adulation, which alternately insulted the spirit and understanding of himself and Lord Londonderry, deserved any other return than derision and disappointment.

The reception of his Majesty at Hanover has been quite as loyal, though with much less of servility and ostentation. He is splendidly lodged at the beautifully-situated palace of Herrenhausen, and on the 10th of October made a solemn public entry into the capital of his German dominions, accompanied by his royal brothers the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge, and attended by all the

nobility of the kindom. A grand triumphal arch was erected in his honour, and a salute of 110 pieces of artillery announced the moment at which he passed under it! The city was splendidly illuminated in the evening. We lament to add that his Majesty has had a slight attack of the gout, which confined him to his chamber, and for a time interrupted the national festivities. It is confidently reported, that he means to visit Berlin before his return, and also that he has acceded to the urgent entreaties of the French monarch to receive in Paris some return for the numberless favours for which Louis is indebted to this country. Lord Lauderdale has received a summons to meet his Majesty in that capital on the first of December.

Sir Robert Wilson has laid before the electors of Southwark copies of all the correspondence which has passed between him and the Duke of York on the subject of his dismissal from the service. He has demanded to know what charge has been preferred against him, who has preferred it, and that he may meet his accusers before a competent tribunal ;— he has also demanded from Lord Sidmouth depositions which were said to have been made against him, in order that he might prosecute the parties who made them for perjury: these demands have all met with a direct refusal. It appears, however, from a published note of a conversation between Sir Robert Wilson and Sir Richard Birnie, that there has been no written information given against the ex-general. In the mean time the public have warmly discussed the subject, and a subscription has been opened to remunerate Sir Robert for his pecuniary losses. This already amounts to a very considerable sum, and the leading Whig Lords have contributed munificently; the Duke of Bedford, Lord Darlington, Lord Fitzwilliam, Sir Francis Burdett, and Mr. Lambton have each subscribed five hundred pounds; and a number of others in proportion. A meeting was held at the City of London Tavern for the purpose of advancing this object, at which it was agreed, that any overplus which might exist after defraying Sir Robert Wilson's losses, should be handed over to the