were told, in 1793, that they had to choose between temporary privatious and atheism and bloodshed. They were made to believe, that they would all kill one another, if they did not go to war with the French infidels and republicans. George Rose told them, a few years later, that they were a sensible people; for that they may be assured, that there are now left very few persons indeed, who will not laugh at your rant about "rather seeing "the empire perish in honourable ruin, "than sink into a miserable existence." Sir, those who, by such Rolla-like rant, were induced to burn Tom Paine in effigy; those who subscribed their spoons and teapots in order not to be deprived of ** the blessed comforts of religion;" those who were made to believe, that the people of England would cut each other's throats if Messrs. Tooke and Hardy and their associates were not hanged for endeavouring to destroy rotten boroughs; even those persons, Sir, are not now to be made believe, that the country is to be sunk into "a mi .66 1 pillug up a part of their pro perty rather than be deprived of the "blessed comforts of religion;" and, now, when the French are become royalists again, and go to mass as regularly as ever, we are told that we have to choose between want of food and the loss of independence, though, at the very same time, the Emperor of France, so far from proposing to encroach upon our independence, is willing" serable existence" by peace, on a basis to leave us in full possession of all the many that will leave her in possession of the and extensive and populous islands and avowed object of the war, together with all countries that we have conquered during the conquests which she has made during the war; and, over and above all these, that war, and the bare expense of the illu that island of Malta, for the possession of minations and of the firing of the Park and which this war was avowedly undertaken. Tower guns, on account of which conquests' He is ready to yield even the plume; even would go no small way in feeding the fathe point of honour. He is ready to give mishing manufacturers. No, Sir; even up that for which the contest began; he, those persons are not to be inade believe, with all the charges of mad ambition and that such a peace would sink their country pride and haughtiness and insolence, which into a state of "miserable existence.”our ministers and their adherents are con- Equally inapplicable to the occasion was all stantly preferring against him; mad, am- Mr. Sheridan's bombast about our maritime bitious, proud, haughty, and insolent as rights. "By war," said he, Buonahe is, he is ready to yield up the prize for "parté never, thank God, can deprive us which he has been so long contending ra"of those rights; and I trust in God, that ther than not have peace. And, in an"he never will by negociation (hear! swer to such a proposition what do we "hear!). He complains of our zeal in hear? Why, new charges of ambition "behalf of those rights; of our zeal to and of insolence; and, we are asked, whe-" preserve inviolable the inheritance left us ther we prefer being conquered to " lempo- "by our brave ancestors, and to transmit "rary privation." No, Mr. Sheridan," it unimpaired to our posterity. Let him we do not prefer being conquered to "show to us any other country possessed of temporary privation; no, we do not "the same rights and privileges as England, prefer this; but, we do prefer, or, I, at "and exercising them with the same modeleast, prefer, a peace that would leave "ration (hear!). I should be glad to see (not England in possession of all she holds," that it could be matter of much gratificaand put Portugal and Sicily into the hands❝tion either) but if this temperate conof their sovereigns; I prefer a peace like this, with the usual accompaniments of peace, to the continuation of a war which has produced that state of things which is now in existence in England. I prefer a peace that would leave us in possession of all our conquests and that would make no stipulations about our maritime rights, to a war that may yet reduce hundreds of thousands to beggary and despair, and may, eventually, leave us neither conquests nor security. This, Mr. Sheridan, is the way to state the alternative, and not the way in which you have stated it; and, you "queror were to be invested with similar "rights and privileges, I should be cu"rious to see the practical rebuke inflicted " on English rapacity, by the character"istic self-denial, and moderation of the "French ruler. (Hear! hear! hear!) "England might challenge him to say, he "could have done what she had on similar "circumstances. He could be what she "was Esne Qualis eram? But rather than "concede what it would be dishonour to "yield; rather than stoop that flag that "had waved high for England in every 66 quarter of the world, I would scuttle the island, and let in the ocean to overwhelm | Letters," which you, in the name of your respective Meetings, have been requested to write to me, be pleased to accept of my best thanks; and of my assurance, that these marks of your approbation, coming, as they do, accompanied with such indubitable testimonials of your wisdom and talents, will not fail to operate as a great en couragement to my and that, as to those "effusions of ENVY," by which you perceive me to be assailed from so many quarters, and which you seem to look upon as calculated to excite disgust, I assure you, that they have with me a precisely contrary effect, as, indeed, they ought; for "effusions of ENVY" were never yet called forth without a tole I am sensible, that I am envied beyond my merit, I ought to be the more anxious to make myself worthy of the honour that is thus involuntarily conferred upon me. "them and it, sooner than consent to a "surrender of that charter to which nature "had set her seal, and which seemed to "have been secured by the guarantee of "PROVIDENCE itself!" "Pious "to the last!" This is such fustian as might extort cheers from a dozen or two half drunken sailors na boðli al ron. down fair, where there are hundreds of them at this moment under the diverting influence of showmen and mountebanks of all degrees of skill and of all prices; but, I must regard it as a pretended and not a real speech of Mr. Sheridan, as far as relates to this passage. If we could regard it in any other light, what must we think of all this talk about the flag waving high for Eng-rable share of merit in the object; and, if "land, and about scuttling the island;" what must we think of this Jack Tar-like slang; what must we think of all this in the way of answer to a proposition, which said not one single word about our flag, or our navy, or our maritime rights?- Not only did the Emperor of France propose nothing hostile to our maritime rights, but he expressly proposed to leave us in possession of all those conquests, which our navy had enabled us to gain, and the continued possession of which necessarily implied a naval superiority in every part of the world. Why, then, does this hireling news-writer (for the thing must be his) at- Bolley, July 29, 1812. tempt to make the people believe, that Napoleon has proposed to deprive us of our maritime rights? The reason is, that he sees the government has rejected the overture of France; and, it is his business to justify that rejection.. -I shall return to the subject in my next; and, in the mean while, I think, I can rest satisfied, that the people of England do, or will very soon, see the matter in its true light; and will not be long at a loss to discover the real cause of the rejection of an overture so manifestly fair, and to England so honourable and advantageous. Wм. COBBETT. Bolley, July 28, 1812. I thank you most sincerely for your kind wishes as to my family and domestic concerns; and I hope that not a man of you, and that no one belonging to you, will ever know distress, though that is, alas! too much to hope with the prospect that we now have before us. I am your faithful friend, WM. COBBETT. PUBLIC PAPERS. (Continued from page 128.) To Messrs. Wm. Barry, Preses, and Mr. the rights of his family to the Duchy of Ol- | for me to indulge such hopes, because you denburgh.- -Such are, my Lord Duke, the yourself, my Lord Duke, had constantly in grounds which I have been ordered to point the course of the first interviews which folout, and the admission of which, in what lowed my communications, encouraged them, relates to the evacuation of the Prussian by the justice which you did to the spirit in States and Swedish Pomerania; the reduc- which those communications were conceivtion of the garrison of Dantzic to its esta-ed, at once conciliatory and pacific, and blishment, previous to the 1st of January 2011 and the promise of a negociator with Sweden can alone render possible an amicable arrangement between our Courts. It is with much regret, notwithstanding the time which has elapsed since I communicated them verbally to your Excellency, that I still find myself altogether uncertain with respect to the effects of my proceedings.Notwithstanding the favourable inferences which I was happy to draw from the interview which his Imperial and Royal Majesty was pleased to grant me on Monday, as well as the assurances I received from your Excellency, I cannot forbear to inform your Excellency anew of that which I represented to his Majesty the Emperor, as well as formerly to you, viz. that if to my great regret the intelligence should reach me that Count Lauriston had quitted Petersburg, I would conceive it my duty to apply immediately for passports, and quit Paris. PRINCE ALEX. KURAKIN. Copy of a Nole from Prince Kurakin to the Minister for Foreign Relations.-Paris, 23d April (7th of May) 1812. chiefly directed to satisfy his Majesty the Emperor Napoleon, with respect to all the requisitions he has hitherto made of Russia. His Majesty the Emperor and King, in the course of the audience granted me on April 27, having desired that I should immedi ately discuss with your Excellency the propositions which I was directed to make, had induced me to contemplate the possibility of giving an account to the Emperor, my master, after the lapse of a very little tune, of the reception his offers had met with. Never did circumstances of a more urgent nature justify a desire, and entreaties consequent thereon, to receive a speedy answer; nevertheless, my Lord Duke, I have not yet received one. My pressing and reiterated applications, my daily visits to your Excellency, have been attended with no other result but your refusal to enter into an explanation with respect to the propositions in question, grounded on a want of orders to that effect from his Imperial and Royal Majesty. It is impossible, my Lord Duke, to deceive oneself as to the fatal effects which such delays as these must inevitably produce. The daily increasing proximity of the armies of his Imperial and Royal Majesty and his Allies to the Russian Empire, may, in a moment, bring about events, after which all hope of the preservation of peace must vanish; and which, indeed, at this very time have destroyed the probability of preserving it. The only method by which Europe may be saved from the evils which menace ner, is the acceptance of the conciliatory offers which the Emperor, my master, has ordered me to make. Yet not only no answer from your Excellency has informed ine that they were accepted, but you have also hitherto refused to enter into the explanation I have solicited, and still solicit, with respect to the manner in which those offers are viewed, or to what, in the aggregate of our propositions, may not have proved agreeable to the Emperor.Amidst the critical circumstances in which the two Em My Lord Duke,-Near fifteen days have elapsed since I have made the communications enjoined by my last instructions, brought by Baron Serdobin, and which I hastened to submit to you two hours after I had received them.-I had the honour personally to inform his Imperial and Royal Majesty, in the course of the audience granted on Monday, the 27th of the same month, of those propositions of the Emperor, my august master, which constituted the immediate object thereof. The hopes which I had reason to entertain, from all that his Majesty was pleased to say, in the course of the audience, with respect to his anxious desire to prevent, by conciliatory steps, a rupture, which threatens Europe with a new war, induced the agreeable expectation that my proceedings would succeed to the satisfaction of the Emperor, my master, whose wishes have never been other than for the preservation of peace, and his alli-pires are placed, the prolongation of such ance with France, and to have the essentially equitable and moderate mode, through me, become the basis of an amicable arrangement.It was the more reasonable delays to explanations calculated to produce reconciliation, admits of no other interpretation than a pre-conceived resolution not to enter into any explanation of the kind, and THE DUKE OF BASSANO. consequently an election of war, I must noting to your Excellency fresh assurances of conceal from your Excellency, that as this my high consideration. is the point of view in which I must consider any new delays which may prevent my receiving a categorical answer to the communications which I have made, pursuant to the orders of the Emperor, my master; I must therefore Copy of the Answer of Prince Kurakin to the above Note.Paris, April 27, (May 9,) 1812. Duke, that if, in the course of the interview which you have fixed for to-morrow, I should be still so unfortunate as to find you unprovided with instructions from the Emperor to give me an answer to my propositions, and that an answer assuring me that they are accepted without any modification whatsoever (for your Excellency is fully aware that I am not authorized to admit of any), I shall in that case find myself, in consequence of the departure of his Majesty, the Emperor and King, which is announced for to-morrow, and which will preclude all hope of the expected answer, placed under the necessity of considering the withholding of such answer as an indication of an election being made of war, and my further stay at Paris is altogether superfluous; and deeply regretting that I have not been able to contribute to the preservation of that peace and alliance, in the establishment of which it has been the greatest happiness of my life to have participated for the last five years, I shall be obliged to demand passports from your Ex-gence I have received of his design to cellency, to enable me to quit France; and I earnestly request that in such case you will obtain orders from his Imperial and Royal Majesty to grant them without delay. Receive, my Lord Duke, assurances of my high consideration. My Lord Duke-I have just received a letter from your Excellency, dated this day; and you will permit me to evince my great surprise at the question it contains, and which I imagined I had completely obviated by the frankness with which I had communicated, without any reserve whatever, the final instructions which I received from His Imperial Majesty my august master. Your Excellency is aware of the conciliatory propositions which form the object of them, and which clearly and decisively prove the anxious wish of my august master, to preserve peace and his alliance with the Emperor Napoleon. I am always ready to arrange with you as to the most proper form to give them, by a Convention which I will sign with you, sub spe rati, although unprovided with particular and special powers for the purpose; and I can safely answer your Ex-, cellency, in consequence of the perfect : knowledge I have of the intentions of the Emperor, my master, and of the intelli PRINCE KURAKIN. Copy of a Nole from the Minister for Fo- Sir-I have received the Notes which you did me the honour to address to me on the 10th of April and the 7th of May. Before I can possibly answer them, I must inquire of your Excellency whether you have full powers vested in you to form, conclude, and sign an arrangement of the differences which have arisen between the two Powers; and in case you have received such powers, I must beg, that, in conformity to the Custom of all Cabinets, you will make a preliminary communication to that effect.- -I have the honour of offer. 1 transmit to me full and special powers, that in the event of the basis proposed by me being agreed to by His Majesty the Emperor and King, the arrangement which I shall sign, will be ratified by His Imperial Majesty. I must observe to your Excellency, that even if I were in possession of, at this time, full special powers for the purpose, according to established custom, still the ratification of the two Sovereigns would be necessary, before the act could receive full and complete validity. I have to express my deep regret, that, in the midst of such urgent circumstances, when every instant may produce. the commencement of hostilities, the silence which has been observed by the Minister of His Imperial and Royal Majesty, during the long period of fifteen days, with re-. spect to the manner in which His Majesty viewed the basis of arrangements which I have been ordered to present to him, should have so considerably retarded the possibility of concluding them.I must express to your Excellency my astonishment. at your thinking the explanation into which I have entered, or rather repeated, neces sary (as I have had already the honour of very explicitly detailing in our former interviews every thing that constitutes the present question), before you could answer my notes of the 30th of April and the 7th of May. Your Excellency does not mention that of the 6th of May, to which I have an equal right to require, and do equally require, an answer. -I earnestly * that you will let me have the tree answers as soon as possible. They must contain explanations which are indispensably necessary to enable me to fulfil the very positive duties imposed upon me by the situation in which I am placed.Receive, my Lord Duke, fresh assurances of my high consideration. PRINCE ALEX. KURAKIN. Copy of a Leller from Prince Kurakin to the Minister for Foreign Relations.Paris, 29 April (11 May), 1812. My Lord Duke-I intended going this morning to your Excellency's, for the purpose of reminding you that I had not received an answer to my letter of yesterday, when I received that which you did me the honour to write me last night, some hours previous to my departure, which, from what you had the goodness to state to me, I did not suppose would have taken place for two or three days longer. Although you are so kind as to say I shall have the passports which I required, I have received only that for the Gentleman of the Chamber, Kologrivoff, on which even it is not noted that it is for a courier going to Petersburg. which you think should determine me to prolong my stay at Paris, and not to press for my passports. -This silence, on your part, places me exactly in the same situation as when I first required them.-Not having been able to obtain from you the official and written explanation which I required, of the reasons which should induce me to postpone my departure an explanation which I reckoned on being able to submit to the notice of my august master, in order the more fully to acquaint him of the hope which you entertained of the still existing possibility of an accommodation -I find myself compelled to renew my most pressing solicitations for passports, grounded upon the unhappily too great certainty that my presence here can be of no longer use. I beg your Excellency may have the goodness to make his Royal and Imperial Majesty acquainted with this formal requisition, on my part, the first time that you may have any communication with him. I indulge a hope, that his Majesty is too well aware of, and will too readily call to mind, the personal attachment which has caused me so zealously to fulfil my duty, in endeavouring to preserve peace and concord between the two empires, to admit of his supposing, that the requisition I make for permission to quit my post is grounded upon any thing but the complete and painful certainty I feel, that every hope of being able, in the character of a negociator, to bring about a reconciliation is cut off.Although I have to acknowledge many personal obligations to your Excellency, I shall I beg your Excellency to send me the consider it as a greater proof of friendship three others which you promised me for than you have yet honoured me with, if you the persons attached to my chapel and will exert yourself to enable me to quit a household, and who are to set off with place which you must be aware it cannot be carriage drivers for Vienna, already en- otherwise than extremely painful to me to gaged for the purpose, and with continue in, since the departure of his Royal to whom not being able to send them and Imperial Majesty, and that of your at the appointed time, I have suffered a loss Excellency, deprive me of the satisfaction of the price agreed on with them for the of thinking that I am capable of effecting carriage from here to Prody.Your Ex- any thing useful. I am about to quit cellency has not thought proper to answer Paris, never to return thither. I shall rethe three communications, made to you on main at my country-house at Sevres, till the 30th of April and the 6th and 7th of your Excellency shall have sent me my May, with respect to the more important passports. I shall there anxiously expect objects of our intercourse, notwithstanding your Excellency's answer to enable me to the established custom of answering every set off, having already made every necesofficial communication made by an Ambas- sary arrangement for the purpose, and sent sador, in a manner so authentic, and under away such part of my household as I could such pressing circumstances. Neither have dispense with, only retaining the few seryou written to me, according to promise, vants who are to accompany me on my to acquaint me with the motives which in- journey.- -I renew, my Lord Duke, the duce you to consider an arrangement be-assurances of my high consideration. tween the two Powers as yet possible, and respect away PRINCE ALEX. KURAKIN. |