the inmense sum he already annually received from the public purse. This we cannot but remember, and, remembering it, we are in no danger of forming an unjust judgment as to the conduct, the motives, and the public character of Mr. Pitt. degree of danger, from further concessions to the Roman Catholics, we should not determine against concession, till we were convinced, that this danger would be greater than the danger, which, from a refusal to concede, would arise to the church in common with the state. Against the insinuations, and I might say the abuse, as to myself, from the pens of some of the Orangists. and their partisans in this country, I may, I think, safely rely for a defence on the observation and judgment of those, who have Thus have I, with that brevity, perspicuity, and force I have been able, placed before the reader the facts and the arguments that have occurred to me relative to this case, leaving him, first to divest his mind of all personal and party considerations, next to form his opinion, and then, as a loyal sub-read what I have written upon subjects cons ject, as a lover of his country, and as an honest man, to act upon that opinion. July 1, 1805. WM. COBBETT. SUMMARY OF POLITICS. VIEWS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLICS. In a subsequent page of the present sheet will be found a letter upon this subject, to which letter I beg leave to request the attention of the reader. It breathes a spirit of moderation, which one must wish to see prevail in all discussions, but particularly in the discussion of a question involving the present tranquillity, and, probably, the permanent safety of the kingdom. The writer of the letter, to which I here refer, seems to think, that the claims, set forth in the pe tition of the Roihan Catholics, would, if granted, only serve as an encouragement to the preferring of further and more important claims; and, that, if we make this one step, we shall never be able to stop, till concession upon concession has destroyed the Protestant hierarchy in Ireland, after which the whole of the establishment would soon follow. If I were of this opinion, I should say, "graht nothing." For, I am thoroughly persuaded, that, if the Church of England establishment fall, the monarchy will not long survive it. But, I am not of the opinion of this writer; for, though I do not say, nor do I think, that the grants to the Roman Catholics could have stopped with the yielding to the claims set forth in the petition, I think that it may easily be shown, and I do flatter myself, that I shall; as opportunity serves, be able to show, that the very means of satisfying the Roman Catholics might be made eminently conducive, not only to the safety of the church, as the church now stands, but to the restoring of it to that degree of influence amongst the prople, from which every one must perceive it has fallen. When we talk, however, of dangers to the church, as a church, we must never forget its share of any danger that threatens the state; and, therefore, were we to conclude, that it would risk some loss of aduence, and, consequently incur some nected with the interests and honour of the Church of England. To the recollection of these persons I may safely appeal, whether I have ever, in compliance with the but too much prevailing notions of the times, imputed to the church establishment any portion of those calamities, which the nation has, either recently or at any former period, experienced; and whether I have not; on the contrary, seized every occasion that fairly offered itself, of endeavouring to maintain the establishment, and to resist. every attempt at encroachment on any of its rights of privileges. With what degree of success these efforts of nine may have been attended, it is not for me to say; but, I assert, without any fear of contradiction, that I have maintained the ground whereon. no other writer has ventured to make a stand; that I have never, in a single instance, flinched a hair's breadth from the cause of the church; and, that I have lived to see the day, when projects for robbing her of the rentainder of her patrimony are no longer openly avowed. Those who assent to the truth of these assertions, though they now see me agreeing in the expediency of further concessions to the Roman Catholics, ought, I think, to give me credit for a tho rough conviction, that those concessions might be made without any risk to the interests of the church. THE CONTINENT seems to begin to wear an aspect of war. It appears, that the bold strides of Napoleon, in Italy, have, at last, excited soine symptoms of a disposition to resistance on the part of Austria; and, if this disposition has not become visible till, possibly, it be too late, the fault, is, in a great incasure to be attributed to the ministers of England, whose system of politics, if any thing of theirs can be called a system, could not have been other than it has been, if the intention had been to aid Napoleon in the subjugation of the remainder of Europe; Our quarrel with France, as far as can be fairly inferred from the conduct and even Fon the declarations of the ministers, is for a teltish object; for Malta. Taking them upon their own grounds, the French have a full right to contend, that Malta was the sole object of the war. There was, as we over and over again complained, at the outset, no other visible, no other professed, object'with the men in power in this country; and, therefore, it is, as we said it would be, that the powers of the Continent have eyed us with mistrust, and have, accordingly, been calm, if not indifferent spectators of the contest. They saw, that it was a contest, in the issue of which, as far as related to our professed and apparent cbject, they had no interest. There was nothing great, nothing liberal in the cause; no wonder, therefore, that we have met with no greatness or liberality in those, to whom we looked for the means of sustaining it. The powers of the Continent have not forgotten the peace, the ignominious pence, of Amiens. Russia and. Austria have not forgotten the losses of Sardinia and Portugal; nor have they forgotten our acquisition of the territories of Ceylon and Trinidad, by the giving up of which acquisition, they now know, that a compensation, if not a reinstatement, might have been, obtained for the King of Sardinia. * And, those powers well know, though the remaining partisans of Mr. Pitt appear to have forgotten it, that the ministers who began and who concluded that peace are still in place, and have, of course, still the power of acting the same part again, as far, at least, as the French will let them. Mr. Pitt did, indeed, talk of " repressing the ambition and chas tising the insolence of Buonaparté;" but, the powers of the Continent, like Doctor Primrose, have heard these words some"where before." They have found to their cost, that it is not the threats but the promises, of this gentleman, that are to be dreaded; a truth which they might have learut twenty years ago by listening to Lord North, who, upon one of the debates about India, said that he never absolutely despaired of any cause that Mr. Pitt did not solemnly promise to maintain. The powers of the Continent have learnt from dear bought experience, that Mr. Pitt's words do not kill Frenchmen; and the French have, during the same period, learnt to despise and to laugh at those turgid and verbose harangues, of which, at last, the soft Cymons of England begin to be weary of the repetition.Nevertheless, so bold, so apparently boundless, are the strides of Napoleon, that it seems to be next to impossible that Austria should not make some sort of effort to arrest his progress. What may be the consequence of such efforts no man can tell. The danger * Register, Vol. III. p. 744, and p. 1921. on the side of war as well as on the side of a continuation of peace is so tremendous, that there is, at the present moment, no contemplating either, with that steady and tranquil view which is necessary to the forming of a rational conclusion upon the subject. MARQUIS WELLESLEY.It is impossible to touch upon the subject of conquests, and the annexation of territory, ́. without having one's and drawn towards that ill. fated peninsula, dhat great republic of states, which, for many years past, has been groaning under the rod of England, and, though the conquests and annexations of the French conqueror differ as widely from those of Lord Wellesley as the combats of Richard Coeur de Lion differed from those of Don Quixote against the procession of meuks, or the flock of sheep, yet, we see that the French fail not to justify themselves by his Lordship's example, and, we may rest assured, that, to all the other great and numerous evils of our India wars and conquests, we have to add no small part of the danger which we now experience from the divided and enfeebled state of the continent of Lurope. The subject of Lord Wellesley's wars, respecting which, in imitation, dobiless, of Caesar, he has favoured, the world with some reasonably voluminous commentaries, seems, at last, to have attracted the serious attention of the House of Commons, where MR. PAULL, whom report represents as a gentleman well qualified for the task, has, within these few days, moved for the production of certain official documents, preparatory to an investigation, which he has promised to institute carly in the next session of parliament, relative to two particular points in Lord Wellesley's conduct, namely, his ag gression on the Vizier of Onde, and his ap pointment of and great pecuniary cllowances to, his brother Mr. Wellesley, as a Liculenant Governor. These two points are, one would think, very simple; yet, Mr. Padll will do well not to make too frequent a call for papers, of which, though he appears to be a very young man, he may be assured, that Lord Castlereagh will furnish him with more than he will be able to read before his locks are as white as silver. This is not the age when men read folios; and our warriors in the East, who seem to be all animated by ́ ohe soul, as to this matter, scorn to put their' hands to any thing short of a folio. With the other good things of the East, they seem, too, to have appropriated to them clves the Eastern manner of writing, by the aid of which they so swell out their relations and confuse their facts, that, a plain country gentleman, after having gone through a dozen or two of pages, not being able to dis cern what part is to be regarded as history, and what as romance, throws down the folio, with the observation, that "government 66 which Lord Hawkesbury has just received in a letter from the Mayor of Liverpool, at which port Capt. Marshall arrived on "the 20th uit.; and Lord Hawkesbury requests the Lord Mayor will be so good as to communicate the information therein contained to Lloyd's Coffee-house." The entry from the Log Book of the Triton is as follows.- "Information was received here (St. Lucie) this day, May 14, from Captain Morris, commanding at the "Diamond Rock, that a French fleet, con sisting of sixteen sail of the line, six fri"gates, and three brigs, had this morning passed the Rock, and gone into Fort Roy"al, Martinique.On the 21st of May was boarded by a boat from his Majesty's "ship Goolan, Captain Ayscough, of Cape "Sarana and St. Domingo, to whom Cap"tain Marshali communicated the above "information, and with whom he imme 66 diately proceeded to Jamaica. Ga Mon"day the 10th of June, Captain Marshall was spoke by his Majesty's frigate, the "Mercury, Captain in lat. 40.. must be supported," and slap goes his vote for the minister. With submission, therefore, to Mr. Paull, I retain my opinion, that, to call for papers from the ministers, particularly upon India Affairs, is not the way to come at, truth, nor to produce effect upon the members of parliament, or upon the public. It is beginning at the wrong eud. The facts ought to be well ascertainedby the mover, before he opens the subject, who has, then, nothing to do but explicitly to state and perseveringly to urge his charge, leaving the ministers to defend themselves, and, if their defence consist of false assertos, then it is quite time enough to call for papers to disprove those assertions, which papers would necessarily lie in a small compass, or, at least, the parts whereon the parties were at issue would be easily selected, and would, of course, be read, understood, and speedily decided upon. A different course has, however, in compliance with custom, been adopted by Mr. Faull; and, for the present, I have only to say, that I sincerely hope, that he may discover perseverance suitable to the importance of the subject he has undertaken, and that that perseverance may be crowned with success, being clearly of opinion, that, from every thing that has been published relative to the two points in question, the conduct of Lord Wel-line, besides frigates and sloops of war.————— lesley is unjustifiable. And, here, I cannot resist, by way of conclusion, from observings that the declaration which the debate reporters have imputed to Sir William Boroughs, namely, that there was nothing contrary to law in the act of appointing Mr. Wellesley to the situation of Lieutenant Governor with great pecuniary allowances, has stricken me, as I know it has many others, with a degree of astonishment, which even a due conside-sity of providing for the defence, both by ration of that gentleman's situation and probable views has not been able entirely to re move. "51. N. and long. 48. W. bound from Ja"maica for Engrind, and to whom Captain. Marshall made the communication." The combined force is stated to be, of French, 11 sail of the line and 7 frigates; of Spanish, 5 sail of the line, 1 frigate, and 1 bigThe English force, under Admirals Dacres and Cochrane, consists of 9 ships of the Of Lord Nelson, who has about 10 sail of land and sea, of those valuable possessions; and that I have more than once expressed my apprehension, that, while we were THE COMBINED FLEETS our vigilant mi-watching over the land of Egypt, in which nisters have found, at last, in the harbour of Martinico. The intelligence comes from St. Lucia, where it had, on the 14th of May, been notified, that an enemy's fleet of ic sail of the line and 6 frigates had gone, a day or two before, into the harbour of Fort Royal, Martinico, The following is a copy of the note of Lord Hawkesbury, communicating this intelligence to the, Mayor of Lon-strength and prosperity. The Brazils, tl e don. "Lord Hawkesbury presents his com"pliments to the Lord Mayor of London, and sends hina inclosed an entry from the "log-book of the Triton, Capt. Marshall, dated St. Lucie the 14th of May last, we had no more interest, than we bad in the lands which, as some suppose," make part of the moon, the enemy would capture, or at least, lay waste (for that I regarded as his object) those possessions which we have held for so long a time, which are so congenial to the nature of our warlike force, and which have been found so conducive to our national Cape of Good Hope, Ceylon, have all becn mentioned as the probable cbjects of the combined expedition. But, there was great in robability in these conjectures. Nao leon and his councillors make a great deal of 17]. JULY 6, 1805.-The State of the Army.-Mr. Cochrane Johnstone. sentations against us; but, they are not such fools as in earnest to envy as the possession of that Empire, though we hear a ministerial writer congratulating the public that the combined fleets have not taken that direction. Napoleon well knows what possessions are most valuable to us, and those he appears resolved to take from us, to destroy, or, at the very least, materially to injure. What, therefore, are we to think of the writers in the ministerial papers, who rejoice, or, who pretend, at least, to rejoice, that the combited fleets are safely moored in the West Indies! That the French intend to employ their troops against the blacks in Saint Domingo is quite improbable. They will, I should think, at once pitch on upon our Leeward Islands, and not go to Jamaica, where, from the intelligence they will have received they will fear to have to face Lord Nelson, than whom they would rather meet with Satan himself. Indeed, the apparition of Lord Nelson will haunt them, from the moment they hear that he is in pursuit of the:n; and, except in case of accident to him (which God forbid!), they will find it difficult to stir fro:n under their batteries for more than a fortnight or three weeks after their arrival at Martinico. So that, they may, probably, be able to effect nothing more than a capture of one or two of the Leeward Islands; which, however, they may render not worth our recovering, even if we had troops to spare for the undertaking. 'Of Antigua they will be likely to make sure on account of its dock-yards, and of the additional means thereby to be acquired of iarrassing our trade. When Lord Nelson has arrived, they will probably go and remain quietly under their batteries of Fort Royal; and, in that case, the very least evil arising to us from the expedition, will be, the cost in money and the waste in lives arising from the necessity which we shall be under of keeping, in the West Indies, twenty sail of the line more, during the war, than we should have wanted there, had we not sent a writer of Epigrams to the court of Madrid! How dearly have we paid; and how dearly shall we yet pay, for being ruled by a ministér beset with " young friends !". [Since the above was written, intelligence has been received by government, that the Combined Fleets were still at Martinico on the 22d of May.] THE STATE OF THE ARMY has undergone another examination by Colonel Craufurd, who, on the 28th ultimo, proposed, after a very long and very able speech; a resolution upon the subject. Mr. Pitt, like the Copper Capain, scorned to stoop to a defence," from his own lips, at least, and left it, therefore, to flow from those of Lord Castlereagh. There was a day, when conduct like this in Mr. Pitt, might, with some persons, have passed for dignified; but that day is passed; for neither silence nor any thing else will ever be attributed to dignity of mind, in the man who has sought for a reconciliation with, and who has lived in a state of abject political subjection to, persons, whom, only a few months ago, he characterised by every phrase he could think of descriptive of "in capacity and imbecility.” Colonel Craufurd having, during his speech," noticed the ludicrous circumstance, that he himself, might, in consequence of the present system, find himself under the command of a certain pastry-cook in the city of London, to whom he very pointedly and very properly alluded, the hirelng part of the press, through the means of which any man may procure the publication of my thing, pro-, vided he be willing and able to pay for it, has been animadverting very severely upon what they call the indelicacy and zilite vality "of the allusion; but, all those who heard Colonel Craufurd's speech must at once reject such an accusation; for, he spoke very handsomely of the pastry-cook in question, as a pastry-cook; and, as to the particular charges of illiberality and in-, delicacy, nothing can be farther from the truth, for he expressly applauded the pastry, of the Volunteer Colonel, dwelt with erident pleasure on the delicacy of it; and, of course, encouraged a liberality of purchase, in the eaters thereof. All that he found 'fault with, was, that the talents, by which the said pastry was produced, were directed from their proper sphere, especially as such diversion might tend to the destruction of the lives of men, to say nothing about the liberties of the country. The objection of, Colonel Crufurd was not to the cook in, question assuming the rank of Colonel, and exercising the functions thereunto attached over the volunteers, but to his exercising those functions over the real soldiers. What would it be to him whether Colonel Pitt took the command of Colonel Pattypan, or Colonel Pattypan of Colonel Pitt? But, when it becomes only possible, that either of them may assume the command over him, it then becomes him, or any real soldier; it then becomes him, as an officer of the army and as a friend to his country, to make and to urge his objection. The cc MR. COCHRANE JOHNSTONE. currences relating to this gentlenian, late a Colonel in the army and the Governor of Dominica, having, and not without reason, excited air extraordinary degree of attention and interest, I regret, that I have not, at present, time to make, upon the subject, those observations, which have presented themselves to my mind, and to which, in my next sheet, I shall have to solicit the. at, tention of the reader. The subject was introduced in the House of Commons, on the 28th ultimo, by, General Fitzpatrick; and, closely connected as it evidently is with the first interests of the regular army, I should not think myself justifiable in the eyes of my readers, if I lost one moment in laying. before them, with as much accuracy as the nature of the case admits of, the sentiments. and the words of General Fitzpatrick, whose universally acknowledged judgment and integrity must give a favourable impression with respect to any cause that he espouses. I rise, Sir," says he, "to mention a sub-. ject on which it is my intention hereafter "to submit a motion to the House; and I "wish to take the present opportunity of "doing so, because it relates to that military administration which is to form part. "of the business of this day's discussion.. The present advanced state of the sessions "will prevent my being able to bring for ward any motion, though I wish it much. "It is, however, a subject of such extreme "importance, that it is necessary for ane to "take some notice of it. The House may "be assured I shall state it in form on a "future occasion, and as early as possible. "The subject consists of a very gross and alarming evil; one which, I appre"hend, has but lately crept into the admi"nistration of the military law of this country. I trust, the practice to which "I allude is an innovation of not many years standing. I am informed it is. It respects the execution of the duties of the "office of Judge Advocate General of the " "law places in his Majesty the right of "confirming or remitting their sentences, ." but I do not believe that the law or the "constitution of this country could ever in"tend that the officer of the crown, in the "exercise of such a prerogative, should, be "the Judge Advocate of the Army. I be "lieve he is at present the sole adviser of "the crown; I believe that this practice "has prevailed only during a part of the "time the Right Honourable Baronet has "been in possession of it. Formerly the "transmission of sentences of courts mar"tial was through the office of the Secretatary at War. The Secretary at War of "course became responsible for the advice he gave. With respect to his deci σε sion, I am not sure that I think that was sufficiently solemn for a decision "on. so important a point. I cannot "conceive why the lives, fortunes, and "characters of his Majesty's military offiCCYS should not be entitled to as solemn c "consideration as those of every other subject in the country. Every one knows "that those important couceriis, as they "affect other classes of his Majesty's sub 16 jects, are decided by his Majesty in coun cil. I think the same. solemnity ought "to be observed with regard to the sen"tences of courts martial; but that will "be a question for future consideration.) "That this practice does prevail, and has "been attended with great hardship to in dividuals, I shall be enabled to shew in. a case that has lately occurred, and has "spread the greatest alarm throughout the "whole army: I allude to the case of σε COLONEL COCHRANE JOHNSTONE, agen-" "tleman who, after a trial by a court"martial, and an honourable acquittal, has, at the instance of the Judge Advocate, "been exposed to the penalties and punishment attendant upon guilt. This is what. I shall submit to parliament. I am aware "that an appeal from the sentence of any court-martial to this House is a delicate question; but in the present case the appeal is in favour of the court-martial, "and seeks redress against the effects of " undue influence. I beg pardon for dwel"ling so long on the subject. I have risen "to give this notice, and I shall bring for"ward the motion early next sessions. It "will consist of two branches; one will "be a complaint against the exercise of "the office; the other will refer to the 66 means of defining the power of the of "ficer, and will suggest some provisions as to the manner of his conducting him"self in future."- In these sentiments ́every one, who has any regard for justice, |