1810, and that its army which was to subdue Spain in the summer of 1810, was in December, 1810, in a very meagre condition, notwithstanding the conscription sweeps away every male from fifteen to eighteen years of age, both inclusive?

Every appearance of trade has vanished in Holland; the merchants have shut up their counting-houses, and all the persons in their service have been dismissed without the possibility of obtaining any employment. The universal distress has however fallen most heavily upon the hospitals and other charitable institutions, whose only support was the property which they had in the public funds, for in the present impoverished state of the country no voluntary contributions can be forth-coming. By Buonaparte's decree annihilating two-thirds of the national debt, these institutions were at once deprived of all their resources, and the wretched objects whom they had hitherto supported were left destitute. More than ten thousand helpless wretches have, in consequence of this decree, been turned out of hospitals and other charitable institutions to starve, to perish in the streets. Accordingly numbers actually die from want daily in the streets of Amsterdam and other Dutch towns and cities. In the midst of this general calamity the French officers and soldiers display the most unfeeling barbarity and the most wanton insolence: they are quartered upon such of the inhabitants as still retain any portion of property; twelve, fourteen, or sixteen of them are often quartered upon a single individual.

The miserable state of Prussia may be seen from the following facts. In June 1810, the Prussian government decreed, that all the securities for the money to be borrowed in Amsterdam shall bear £5 per cent. interest; although all loans negotiated in Prussia bear only £ 4 per cent. Besides the voluntary loan of 1,500,000 crowns negotiated in Ber

lin, the richer inhabitants are apprized that they must advance a forced loan of 500,000 crowns, to repay a loan obtained at Hamburgh on the most disadvantageous terms, during the war of 1806-7. Of the loan to be negotiated in Holland for the King of Prussia, amounting to 32,000,000 of crowns, 20,000,000 are to be paid in cash; and 12,000,000 in mortgages granted by the Silesian States for a loan to Austria in 1734-5-6, when that country was Austrian territory. Neither Frederic the Second nor any of his successors have ever paid any interest on this loan; so that 150 florins of the original debt is now become 375. For the payment of 625 florins in money, a new mortgage on the country of Glatz and other royal domains for 1,000 florins will be granted. An office is established at Berlin for the distribution of 1,760,000 florins for the payment of the interest, and the gradual discharge of the capital from the year 1811 to 1860. But the Dutch declined to advance this loan, alleging that they doubted the permanency of the King of Prussia's tenure in the security which he offered for the payment of interest on, and the gradual discharge of the capital of the sum proposed to be borrowed. Upon this, Buonaparte ordered the following note to be written, testifying his love for the King of Prussia, and his determination to guarantee the integrity of the Prussian dominions. A surer proof of the impending destruction of Prussia cannot be found than in these professions of Napoleon's love; he told us in M. Champagny's most insulting letter to General Armstrong, dated 6th August 1810, that he loved the Americans; and as a demonstration of that love he has seized and plundered all the American property upon which he could lay his grasp. He loved the Dutch, and accordingly has reduced their whole nation to absolute beggary and want. He loved the Spaniards and Portugueze, and in consequence has laid waste all their habitations with fire and sword.

The note runs thus. "To his Excellency Baron Von Knobeldsorf, Minister Plenipotentiary of Prussia in Holland. M. Le Baron, The reports which some persons have thought proper to circulate in Holland respecting the future destiny of Prussia, have come to the knowledge of the Emperor; and I have not omitted to inform my illustrious sovereign that the Dutch capitalists have been prevented from taking a part in the loan for the use of his Majesty, the King of Prussia, from an idea that these reports would be verified. I now have it in charge to contradict these reports in the most positive manner, and to assure you that his Imperial and Royal Majesty takes the most sincere interest in the preservation and re-establishment of Prussia; and that the maintenance and integrity of the Prussian Monarchy cannot in the smallest degree be a subject of doubt. The undersigned, Ambassador of his Majesty the Emperor and King, guarantees in the name of his Imperial and Royal Majesty, the territorial pledges given by Prussia as a security for the loan negotiated by that Power in Holland: and declares that no attempt shall ever be made to annul it. Signed, Count de la Rochefoucauld. Amsterdam, May 15th, 1810." The Dutchmen however did not then advance the required loan to Prussia; and since that time, Buonaparte, by annexing Holland to France, sponging the public debt, and destroying all the remains of trade, has rendered them utterly unable to raise the loan.

A few words will suffice for Austria, whose finances have not been improved, either by her alliance with Buonaparte, or her cessation of all commercial intercourse with Britain. In July, 1810, 19 florins, 20 kreutzers, in government paper, i. e. Vienna bankbills, were paid for one Dutch ducat in coin; 18 florins 58 kreutzers, for an Austrian ducat; 38 florins for a louis d'or; and 8 florins 12 kreutzers, for a

crown of convention, so called in compliment to the late convention. In August, 1810, the Austrian government-paper was at so great a discount, as to pay 460 florins in bank-bills for 100 florins in specie.

Nor is the distress of Germany generally, less severe. In September, 1810, the French garrison was entirely withdrawn from Hamburgh to be marched into Sweden; and the duty of guarding the city is devolved upon boys of twelve years of age to fifteen, taken from among the inhabitants; so effectually has the conscription swept away the effective population of the Hamburghers. In November, 1810, the new duties on colonial produce, imposed by Buonaparte, took effect in Holstein and the whole of the North of Germany. Goods were every where abandoned, through inability to pay the duties; and failures were almost universal among the merchants. Goods which had been in store for several years at Hamburgh, and even those which had been bought at auction ten years before, were compelled to pay the duties; namely, £50 per cent. ad valorem, and that value determined by the French officers. The duties are commanded to be paid within forty-eight hours from the time of announcing them, or the goods are to be all confiscated. Now it is simply impossible for the majority of the holders of colonial produce to pay the money at so short a warning; and accordingly their property is taken. Those who have the means and åre weak enough to pay the duties, in order to redeem their property for the present, will be sure to be called upon for another heavy impost on it before they can possibly find a purchaser for their goods. Indeed, the greater part of the property now proposed to be redeemed at the rate of £50 per cent. has been already re-purchased, in like manner, from the French government. The Hamburgh merchants consider these oppressions as a proof of the desperate state of Buonaparte's finances. This tariff of new duties,

dated at Fontainbleu, October 2d, 1810, is introduced into Italy, Prussia, Westphalia, and all the Rhenish confederation, Sweden and Denmark. To this add the decree, dated Paris, October 19th, 1810, ordering" all merchandises, of whatever description, the produce of English manufacturies, at present in France or in any other country, to be publicly burned; and any one importing such goods, to be branded on the forehead with the letters V. D." Who can doubt of the most deplorable condition of the people of continental Europe, under the dominion of a man who is yet styled by some writers amongst us, as the political regenerator of Europe, the magnanimous and enlightened arbiter of the world? &c. &c.

It may be proper to notice in passing, that so entire is the want of confidence among the Spaniards in the new government of Joseph Buonaparte, that the cedulas, i. e. the paper money emitted by Joseph as the currency of his Spanish and American dominions, were in December, 1810, at ninety-two per cent. discount, and the bills of San Fernando, the former government paper, were at eighty-two per cent. dis

count.

What benefit does Russia derive from her share in the conspiracy against British commerce? Her finances have long been in a disorderly and disastrous condition, nor has she hit upon precisely the most correct motle of relieving her embarrassment, in this respect, by probibiting her ports to England. M. Ricard in his "Traité General du Commerce," &c. 3 vols. 4to. published at Paris, An. 7. de la Republique Française, Tome Troisieme, pp. 36, 62. says that the ordinary trade between Russia and England nets a balance of £3,000,000 annually in favor of Russia, and that nearly the whole of these three millions sterling used every year to and their way into France, in the purchase of the tiner French manufactures, knicknacks, toys, and frippery. So that in this instance