me to make known to you, that the Decrees of Berlin and Milan are not to be applied to any American vessel that has arrived in our ports since the 1st of November, or that shall, in future, arrive therein; and that such vessels as may have been sequestrated, on the ground of contravention to the said Decrees, are to form the subject of a special report. On the 2d of February I shall communicate to you the intentions of the Emperor, as to the definitive measure to be taken for distinguishing and favouring the American navigation.

Hamburgh, Dec. 17.-Special Council created by decree of the 19th October, 1810. Sitting of the 14th December.

The majority of the Special Council having met, it was represented that many merchants and traders from Holstein had for some considerable time been soliciting permission to make fresh declarations of colonial products, the entry of which had been lawful by Hamburgh. These merchants represented, that having only had the said products consigned to them, they were not able to know in time the intentions of their employers. The Council taking this circumstance into consideration, and conjecturing that it entered into the means of his Majesty the Emperor and King to facilitate the enjoyment of the favour intended by his decree of the 4th October, 1810, was of opinion, that there should be granted a longer time for the admission of their declarations, which shall expire on the 31st December, 1810. COUNT DE COMPANS. The General of Division, Chief of the General Staff, President of the Special Council.

PRUSSIA-Relative to the Confiscation of all Ships in which Colonial Produce and English Merchandise in the Ports of these Territories have been, or may be, introduced. Berlin 19th March.

We, Frederic, William, by the Grace of God, King of Prussia, &c.-By our Edict of the 28th of October last, have ordered the attachment and confiscation of all colonial, and other merchandize, which have been considered English, under the Continental System, but it was

not determined by the same Edict how the ships were to be disposed of by which such goods were introduced into our territories.-Yet it was before prohibited by our regulation of the 11th June, 1808, that every attempt, at any sort of trade, with England, or its colonies, should expose the offender to the penalty of confiscation of ship and cargo, and to further severe punishment. The same penalties have also been enacted in our later Edicts, in which we expressed our full determina tion to exert all our power for the completion and establishment of the said Continental System.In pursuance of this design, we Decree and Order as follows: -Art. 1. Any ship or ships wherever built, and to whatever nation belonging, the cargo of which consists of what has been considered the produce of England, either by growth or manufacture, must in pursuance of the Continental System, be seized the moment it reaches our harbours, or in any other way becomes subject to our jurisdiction. Art. 2. The penalty of confiscation follows such seizure without the necessity of any further legal formality, and it applies to all ships which are now in our ports, the cargoes of which have been conficated, or may be confiscated under our edict of the 28th Oct. 1810-Art 3. Our Privy Counsellor Heydebrech is commissioned to conduct the public sales of all confiscations made under the second Article, the produce of which is to be paid into our Treasury-Art. 4. the persons named in Article seven of our Decree of the 28th October, 1810, as our Commissioners, viz. the same Privy Coun◄ sellor Heydebrech, the Privy Counsellor Kuster, and our Privy Counsellor and Chief Justice Brunswick, are to furnish, if required, to the Captains or Owners of the ships confi-cated, certificates of such confiscation.Art 5 The same Commissioners are in all future cases to determine on the confiscation of ships, by which, according to the said Continental System, prohibited merchandize may be conveyed to our dominions, as hitherto they have done, with regard to the cargoes, and no appeal is to be made from their decision. Given at Berlin, the 8th March, 181. FREDERICK WILLIAM. HARDENBURGH.

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SUMMARY OF POLITICS.. PORTUGAL. THE WAR.-The boastings, respecting the retreat of Massena, have been so noisy, that there was not, until now, any hope of getting a hearing.The use I shall make of the apparent return of sober sense in the news-writers, is, to put a few questions to them, requesting them to have the goodness to bear in mind, that it is an answer the public will look for, and not abuse of him who puts the questions. You say, then, gentlemen, that the French General has run away; that he has fled in disgrace; and that this flight is indicative of the approaching total discomfiture of the French in Portugal and Spain, and of the utter ruin of their cause.. -Now, if this be so, what was the retreat of Lord Talavera last year? Was that running away? Did he flce in disgrace? And was his flight indicative of the total ruin of our cause in Portugal and Spain?-Behind our army Alineida fell, and a detachment of considerable force were beaten out of another fortress on the Cua. The reader will bear in mind what our losses were. Have the French sustained any such losses in their retreat! Have they suffered more than our army suffered? Have they had more, or have they had less, men taken prisoners, during their retreat, than we had during our retreat?—I should like to have an answer to these questions; but, as I dare say I shall not get it, I shall proceed to offer such observations upon the new aspect of affairs in Portugal as the occasion seems to call for.-Massena appears to have moved out of his quarters; or, in plain English, to have retreated, or run "away," if we will have it so, not because he was compelled by LORD TALAVERA or any body else; but, because he chose it, from whatever motive his choice was made. He was not attacked, observe. He was not even annoyed by us. Though our general had been receiving reinforcements and supplies for nearly five months, and though, as it is said, all the country was with us; still the French army kept its post within a few miles of our impenetrable lines, during the whole of

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that time.- What did Massena retreat for, then, at last? Want of the means of feeding his army.And, is it not a shame to hear people talk of other motives after the nation has been told, for the hundredth time, that the French were starving, and that, four months before they began their retreat, they were eating soup made of their horses? Is it not a scandal to hear people now pretend, that the retreat arose from other causes than those of a want of subsistence? And, what, then, had our commander to do in producing this retreat? He did, and, I believe he could do, just nothing at all towards the effecting of this object. The country was eaten up; and Massena had no fleet to bring him supplies; he had no harbour for American merchantmen to enter, and, if he had, he would have had no Exchequer to pay five or six dollars for a bushel of grain; he had no thousands of tons of shipping employed in carrying to him across the seas, oats, and hay, and even litter for his horses; in short, so far from having any of these things, so far from having a maritime retinue equal in number to his army, if we include the hands employed in shipping the supplies; so far from this, he had no supplies at all, and, be it borne in mind, the country, when he entered it, was, as these newspapers told us, laid completely waste, by the good will and wishes of the peoplethemselves, so much did they hate him. In a country thus wasted and thus hostile to him did Massena live upon mere forage, and lie in front of our army, for about five months, and, at the end of that time, not having another meal left, and not being able to get another, did he march off unmolested. -Is this a thing for us to boast of? Is this a thing that we ought to be proud of? He staid till the roads were has able; he staid till he could drag his waggons and cannons along. And, why was he suffered to stay so long? Why was he not attacked before the roads became good enough for him to go upon them?- -There might be good reason for this; it might have been dangerous to attack him; but, then, it must be confessed, that, with means so scanty, he must have.

first found them, whence he drew them all across Portugal after him, and which drawing cost such horrible devastations to the country that it was his business, and, doubtless, his wish to protect? In July last both armies were nearly upon the spot that they are now upon; but, how is Portugal changed? What is now the lot of the People of that miserable country? Am I told, that this drawing after was a mere invention of our venal news-writers, in order to make their court to the family of the Commander; am I told, that he himself never said, that he went away before the French from choice; am I told, that his retreat was from necessity? My answer is, that he never has, as far as I know, talked about this drawing of the French after him. I find, in none of his dispatches, words of that meaning. But, to our point at issue that signifies nothing at all. His literary eulogists asserted this. They held this forth to the country. It was sucked down by the credulous part of the people, and affected to be believed by the full-blooded Anti-jacobins, who were not deceived but who wished to aid in propagating the deception.And, it is worth observing here, what a plight silly lying eulogists sometimes put a man in. Nothing can be more disadvantageous to Talavera than the idea of the trap, and the drawing plan; for, what has he, then, done? why, he has succeeded in a plan of getting the French into a trap, and then he lets them out without hurting them; and, this he does, too, observe, at the expence of all the horrid devastations that are said to have taken place in Portugal, that is, in the country which he was sent to protect. To believe this of him is to believe the worst of him that a man can believe. If we believe this, we must believe, that his wish was to be a scourge to Portugal, or that he really is no more fit to plan and conduct a campaign than a baby two months old. This is what we must believe of him, if we believe what was said by his eulogists about the drawing after and the trap. This, however, is what neither I nor any man of sense does, or can, believe. But, then, we must, on the other hand, believe, that his retreat was not a matter of choice; that, from some cause, to us (or to me, at least, unknown) he did not think proper to attack or to wait the attack of, the French upon the frontiers of Portugal last year; and that his retreat, like other retreats, was, of course, to be regarded, as a proof of conscious ina

bility to contend with the enemy; or, in other words, as a proof of fear of being beaten in a battle with that enemy. -Put it thus, and all that has followed is natural enough; all that has followed might have been expected, except the sudden retreat of the French, which, in the case here supposed, really reflects honour upon Talavera, who, has, by some means or other, gained strength and confidence, while the enemy has lost both. Suppose him, as I do, to have been obliged to retreat before the French last year; suppose this, and then the recent change is a thing to praise him for; but, if you maintain the notion of a trap, you then make the recent change in the situation of the armies, or matter of blame to our commander.Aye, but, then, these literary parasites see several great inconveniences in giving up the drawing after and the trap idea. For, in the first place, how came it to pass that Ta-. lavera, whose business it was to defend Portugal against the French, was unable to face them upon the frontiers of that country? Either he wanted men or supplies, or his army was not such an one as he could place confidence in, or, he did not choose to run any risk in battle himself. Now, either of these would not have suited the purpose of the venal men ; and, therefore, they resorted to the assertion, that his retreat before the French was a premeditated thing; that it made part of the plan of the campaign; that it was a thing, not only to be expected but applauded; a thing not to regret, but to rejoice at: and, accordingly, rejoice we did most boisterously.But, on the other hand, these venal personages did not seem to perceive that a difficulty might arise out of the notion, which they had so successfully propagated. They did not perceive, that it was possible for the French to be in retreat before us; and, that, whenever this should happen it would be very difficult to make out a clear distinction, and to persuade people of any sense at all, that it was not drawing after in one case as well as in the other.- -We now hear nothing said about drawing after into a trap; yet, the trap work is, to say the least, now as likely to be in the view of Massena as it was in the view of Talavera last, year. Why should the French be supposed to flee from motives of fear any more than us? The French are going away, or have gone away before Tala vera; well, and he went away before them. It is only turn and turn about,