of them, our conduct will be governed by its decision. All this while, we should be actively engaged in collecting transports, and equipping a fleet for a long voyage. When I have mentioned the term invasion, I would not be understood to mean a violent attack upon Portugal by France and Spain, for the purpose of conquest, and the subversion of her independence for ever, but that insinuating mode of rendering the revenues, fleets, and forces of a state, subservient to the views which Buonaparte denominates, the occupation of a country, for the exclusion of the British. So that whether the French enter Portugal with or without the consent of the Prince Regent, is to us a matter of indifference; under our present circumstances we are bound to consider such a measure as an attack upon ourselves and accordingly to treat it in that light. For whoever enters the territory of our ally with a view to exclude us from all intercourse with him, does in effect, constrain us to consider that ally as an instrument forcibly appropriated by the foe for our injury; and therefore, though we may pity the oppressed condition of our ally, and abstain from inflicting any evil upon him, other than what may be necessarry for our own immediate preservation; yet, we are fully justified in making the greatest efforts to prevent his external resources from contributing towards the views of the common enemy. Hence our taking possession of our ally's transmarine dominions, and intercepting the returns of their industry, would be an act of tender benevolence towards him, as it would prevent those resources from falling into the hands of the power who is the disturber of our mutual friendship, and intercourse. From this principle, it follows, that we are not to wait until the French army under Junot shall have presented itself on the banks of the Douoro, before we proceed to action; but the very instant our minister at the court of Lisbon receives intelligence that they have arrived at Fontarabia, we should strike.

In this case, we must do one of these three things; First, we must obtain a temporary lease, or rather a mortgage of the Brazils, Goa, and Macao,* from the Prince Regent of Portugal, to be considered as discharged the moment that peace, and the independence of his country shall be restored; which deed will be our warranty for occupying those countries in his name. Or, secondly, if his royal highness should' refuse to accede to this moderate proposal, the fleet and transports which will have been getting ready all this while, will sail directly to Brazil, having proper civil commissioners on board, with a detachment of engineers, geographers, and naturalisto. The force sent ought to be so powerful as to command respect; but not a soul should be suffered to land before the cause and necessity of the expedition should have been explained to the inhabitants. They should be left, if they so pleased, under their present government; but the public revenue, and the commerce, should belong to Britain exclusively for the time being, while we guaranteed their security and property. It is to be observed, that in suggesting this arrangement, I am influenced by the events which have occurred in Spanish America, Although I be of opinion, that Portuguese America is not capable of making that resistance which their neighbours have displayed; I conceive it would not be adviseable to provoke it. Our interests would be better consulted, and their prejudices gratified, by a pacific nogociation, in which the interests of the two people would be arranged upon the most amicable footing. But if they should evince a disposition to reject our proffered protection, thus honourably extended to them, and only while their mother country is under the subjection or controul of a foreign power, it will then become necessary to resort to measures of force; and, provided the command of the army be confided to a general who will be particular in ordering his troops to load before they go into battle, should fighting be necessary, and who will make a judicious disposition of them, we shall attain our object without much bloodshed. The points of attack, and plan of operations, I shall take the liberty with great deference to submit to the public hereafter. Lastly, should the prince of Brazil, upon the representation made to him of the state of vassalage to which he would be reduced while a French army occupied his kingdom, accede to our proposal, which is not novel, but was seriously agitated and

* On our way to Brazil we should of course salute Madeira; and as to the settlements on the coast of Africa, two or three small armed vessels would suffice to protect their trade.

meant to be put into execution, in the year 1762, nothing then will remain for us to do, but to give every facility to this resolution. For, notwithstanding any appearances to the contrary, notwithstanding any apparent relaxations of hostile preparations, we may rest assured that Buonaparte will not permit Portugal to rest quiet. It has been said, that it is his interest not to discompose her tranquillity, because France derives great advantages at present from the Portuguese trade. This fact I am not prepared to deny; but, those advantages will not be considered by the governor of France as adequate to counterbalance the intercourse between this country and Portugal. His object is to exclude every thing British from the continent by main force; and it is perfectly indifferent to him, what temporary inconvenience his subjects sustain, provided he can ultimately succeed in the accomplishment of his design. If this reasoning in favour of the forbearance of France be admitted in one instance, it ought to be so in every other similar case; and then, it would be extremely easy to shew, that it is the interest of France, and of its master too, to be at peace with England, leaving her in the undisturbed possession of her maritime power.

But, even upon the supposition that the sense of this interest should predominate over the mind of the French ruler; that the balance of trade between France and Portugal be in favour of the former; and that, consequently, he may feel disposed, on that account, to forbear from executing this part of his scheme; I maintain that this consideration alone would be a sufficient reason for inducing us to acquire the exclusive commerce of the Portuguese colonial settlements. While he is striving by every measure of violence, fraud, and circumvention, to destroy the commerce of Great Britain, which he well knows is the source of her strength and prosperity; surely, it is incumbent upon her to exert every terve to monopolize as much of it as she can undertake to manage, and to sieze every opportunity, as well as to pursue every method in her power, to exclude France from participating in the commerce of the rest of the world.

My limits do not permit me to enlarge any further upon this topic, but I shall return again and again to the charge; and I trust I shall hereafter exhibit the Brazils in such a light, as to make the people of this country not regret their defeat at Buenos Ayres, provided the former can be placed under the power, or direct influence of Great Britain. The abundant fertility, products, and conveniences, both for trade and navigation, which are to be found in Brazil, render it, at once, a station of envy and security.

WAR WITH DENMARK.

The most arduous and unpleasant undertaking, in which this country has ever been engaged, has been brought to an honourable termination; but for an adequate account of the whole transaction, I must refer my readers to the next number, as the mass of matter now actually printed, is more than sufficient for the three following numbers.

STATE PAPERS.

MANIFESTO, OF HIS EXCELLENCY THE VICEROY OF PERU, ON THE CAPTURE OF BUENOS AYRES BY THE ENGLISH. (FROM THE PERUVIAN MINERVA.) Although I am convinced the perusal of the three proclamations, published at the city of Buenos Ayres by the English general Beresford, must have filled with indignation, the breasts of all his majesty's loyal subjects, and particularly of those who enjoy the happiness of inhabiting this metropolis, so much favoured and distinguished by our sovereigns; yet I cannot refrain from indulging myself in pointing out to my countrymen, the venom, hidden under the hypocritical professions of the enemy, therein contained; for which purpose, without recurring to any other argu ments, I shall confine myself solely to a retrospect of the recent atrocious conduct observed by that nation in every quarter of the globe. Years after years, have set in and passed, during which all Europe has witnessed the English government using every means it can invent, for cementing and propagating its detestable tyranny, availing itself of every circumstance favouring such a purpose; stooping to practices the most vile and infamous, setting aside the most sacred principles of the rights of man, and trampling upon all the usages and customs, for many ages universally received and observed amongst civilized nations. Far from proceeding, either in carrying on war or negociating peace, with that noble frankness and good faith, the

characteristics of nations generous and brave, it recurs to dark artifices of fiction and seduction, to dazzle and corrupt the unwary, who are weak enough to trust and confide in its perfidious promises. Such is the object of the three proclamations which I have mentioned; to lull to sleep the understanding of the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, with hopes of an imaginary happiness; to blindfold them, that they may not perceive the abyss of evil which surrounds them; to cover as with a garland of flowers, the iron chairs which their oppressors have prepared for them; to stupify the native energy of those active Spaniards; to alienate from their hearts, if it is possible, the love, the fidelity, and gratitude they owe to the most benevolent and just of all monarchs; to prevail upon them for ever to lay down their arms, nor think of avenging themselves and retrieving their lost honour, but solely to aspire to the felicity of being numbered among the vilest slaves of the tyrant of the seas. From these motives, they speak of the great advantages which they pretend would result from an alliance with Great Britain: under that government, they say, oppression is unknown; they promise immediately to free their commerce from the heavy duties and imposts to which it has been subjected, to respect the catholic religion and its holy ministers, and that the local laws and national customs shall remain untouched; and they conclude with stating, that their only object is to protect the eastern coasts of South America, and render it a country the most prosperous in the universe. But where is the man, of sense and judgment, who does not immediately discover, under such affected expressions, the vile language of hypocrisy and fiction, so foreign to the intrepid soldier, and natural only to the cowardly legions of those sordid islanders? Where is the man whose blood does not boil, on hearing the sacred names of protection, humanity, and benevolence, pronounced by a government, stained with recent robberies, perfidies, and murders ?-by a government which does not cease sowing the seeds of discord and rebellion every where ?-by a government which has so lately, before our eyes, kindled a fire in the fairest part of the globe, (alluding to Europe,) whose provinces we have so recently seen inundated with streams of the blood of its inhabitants? --by a government which has so basely forsaken its allies, by hastily withdrawing its troops, from all those parts where any of the invincible battalions of Buonaparte made their appearance ?-by a government whose friendship has proved so baneful and ruinous to so many powerful princes, and covered with mourning and desolation the immense countries situated between the fertile banks of the Adige, and the frozen lakes of Bohemia ?-by a government, lastly, which has so long endeavoured to erect the throne of its tyranny upon the spoils and tombs of all other nations, and which, of late years, has not even shrunk, in the face of the whole world, to adopt as a basis of its machiavelian system of politics, the plan of perpetual war; a plan at which humanity shudders; a plan which posterity will record and hand down to our remotest descendants as a memorable monument of the ferocity and barbarity to which egotism, and a thirst for monopoly, can precipitate a nation which lent its ear to no voice, but that of its arrogant and unnatural avarice? Generous men of Lima! Let us fling far from us, with that contempt which they so well deserve, those infamous proclamations, with which the English general pretends to surprise the innate fidelity of our countrymen, who inhabit the banks of the river. Plata. Let us look upon them as an insult to our honour, as an attempt against our happiness, and a plan directed to the destruction of our native land! Merchants! the same men, who now pretend to have possessed themselves of Buenos Ayres, solely with a view of protecting your commerce, are the same who have precipitated it into a state of rain, so prejudicial to your useful speculations, and to which you see it reduced. They are the same who commenced the present hostilities, by capturing three of the king's frigates, and blowing up another. They are the same who seized upon your defenceless ships, peaceably navigating the seas, under a confidence that the Spanish flag, which they displayed in the air, would protect them against all injuries from a nation with which we were not then at war. A general indignation was manifested by all the cabinets of Europe; but even this was insufficient to induce those avaricious and cruel islanders to restore the treasures which they had so unjustly taken, with the blood of so many innocent victims. Spaniards! that perfidious nation, which now pretends to appear to the inhabitants of Buenos Ayres as, of all others, the most humane, is the same which, not six years since, sent a squadron and an army before Cadiz, at a time when the plague reigned within its walls, spreading

horror and destruction. The English admiral, who, from his cabin windows, could feast his eyes with the spectacle of mountains of corpses yet unburied, and the gloomy sight of the funeral piles, yet had the courage to challenge our valiant chief to surrender, or to prepare himself to suffer all the rigears of war. The commander of a Moorish corsair, having fallen in with a con. voy, carrying victuals and medicines, at the expense of the pope, to the city of Marseilles, then infested by a destructive plague, not only refrained from capturing those ships, but spontaneously convoyed them to the port of their destination; and the English admiral, on a similar occasion, threw balls and shells into Cadiz, with an intent of reducing it to a heap of ruins. Spaniards! those who now publish a law at Buenos Ayres, enjoining slaves to obey their masters, are the same who fomented, and still continue to encourage, in the island of St. Domingo, the most atrocious re➡ bellion recorded in the annals of nations. We have all witnessed that, while the sanguinary Dessalines, at the head of innumerable bands of assassins, marched along the coasts, with the murdering steel in one hand, and the incendiary torch in the other, with fire and sword, spreading desolation, destruction, and death, whereso. ever he went, an English squadron vigorously blockaded the capital, in order that no one solitary victim might escape the African fury. Indians! You who are such interesting objects of the tender care of our most amiable monarch! that nation, which has taken possession of Buenos Ayres, has ever treated the Aborigines of America and Asia with the most inhuman cruelty. When, in the course of the last century, they found it impracticable, by force of arms, to subjugate the brave inhabitants of the Floridas, they concluded a specious peace, and during that peace, regaled them with poisoned liquors and clothes, which caused deaths without number. Their East India company has already extirpated the greater number of the mild inhabitants of Malabar, Bengal, and Coromandel, and would extirpate them all by one single blow, if they required not their labour in the manufactories of their richest and finest stuffs. That terrible famine is still recent in our memory, when millions of Indians perished, and which being foreseen by the English factories, they timely stored all the rice and other provisions, which the scanty harvest of that year had yielded. Indians! wheresover the English nation has gained a footing, your's has been enslaved, reduced, and destroyed, without mercy. All you people, inhabitants of Peru! let us, on this important occasion, display all our loyalty and courage. Let us speedily wash away the foul stain, cast upon arms of Spain by the surrender of Buenos Ayres. Let us instantly fly to arms, in the defence of our holy faith, and of our beloved sovereign; and let us plunge into the deep currents of the river La Plata, those outcasts of smugglers and pirates, who having by surprise possessed themselves of one of the most interesting parts of America, diffident of the power of their arms, and in dread of our just vengeance, now attempt, by means of the detestable artifices of seduction, to induce us to forego the performance of our most sacred and inviolable duties, and to turn deaf ears to the pathetic and penetrating voice with which our country now calls upon us for

assistance."

LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 13.

the

Downing Street, Sept. 13.---Lieutenant-colonel Bourke, deputy quarter-mastergeneral to his majesty's troops serving in South America, arrived this morning at the office of the viscount Castlereagh, one of his majesty's principal secretaries of state, from the Rio de la Plata, with a dispatch from lieutenant-general Whitelocke, addressed to the right honourable William Windham, of which the following is a copy:

Buenos Ayres, July 10, 1807.-SIR, I have the honour to acquaint you, for the information of his majesty, that upon being joined at Monte Video, on the 15th of June, by the corps under brigadier-general Crauford, not one moment was lost by rear-admiral Murray and myself, in making every necessary arrangement for the attack of Buenos Ayres. After many delays, occasioned by foul winds, a landing was effected, without opposition, on the 28th of the same month, at the Ensinada de Barragon, a small bay, about thirty miles to the eastward of the town. The corps

employed on this expedition were, three brigades of light artillery, under captain Fraser; the 5th, 38th, and 87th regiments of foot, under brigadier-general sir S. Auchmuty; the 17th light dragoons, 36th and 88th regiments, under brigadiergeneral the honourable William Lumley; eight companies of the 95th regiment, and nine light infantry companies, under brigadier-general Craufurd; four troops of the 6th dragoon guards, the 9th light dragoons, 40th and 45th regiments of foot, under colonel the honourable T. Mahon; all the dragoons being dismounted, except four troops of the 17th, under lieutenant-colonel Lloyd. After some fatiguing marches, through a country much intersected by swamps, and deep muddy rivulets, the army reached Reduction, a village about nine miles from the bridge over the Rio Chuelo; on the opposite bank of which the enemy had constructed batteries, and established a formidable line of defence. I resolved, therefore, to turn this position, by marching in two columns from my left, and crossing the river higher up, where it was represented fordable, to unite my force in the suburbs of Buenos Ayres. I sent directions, at the same time, to colonel Mahon, who was bringing up the greater part of the artillery under the protection of the 17th light dragoons, and 4th regiment, to wait for further orders at Reduction. Major-general Leveson Gower, having the command of the right column, crossed the river at a pass called the Passo Chico, and falling in with a corps of the enemy, gallantly attacked and defeated it, for the particulars of which action I beg to refer you to the annexed report. Owing to the ignorance of my guide, it was not until the next day that I joined with the main body of the army, when I formed iny line, by placing brigadier-general sir Samuel Auchmuty's brigade upon the left, extending it towards the convent of the Recoletta, from which it was distant two miles; the 36th and 88th regiments being on its right; brigadier general Craufurd's brigade occupying the central and principal avenues of the town, being distant about three miles from the great square and fort; and the 6th dragoon guards, 9th light dragoons, and 45th regiment being upon his right, and extending towards the Residencia. The town was thus nearly invested; and this disposition of the army, and the circumstances of the town and suburbs being divided into squares of one hundred and forty yards each side, together with the knowledge that the enemy meant to occupy the flat roofs of the houses, gave rise to the following plan of attack :--- Brigadier-general sir S. Auchmuty was directed to detach the 38th regiment to possess itself of the Plaza de Toros, and the adjacent strong ground, and there take post; the 87th, 5th, 36th, and 88th regiments were each divided into wings; and each wing ordered to penetrate into the street directly in its front. The light battalion divided into wings, and each followed by a wing of the 95th regiment, and a three-pounder, was ordered to proceed down the two streets on the right of the central one, and the 45th regiment down the two adjoining; and after clearing the streets of the enemy, this latter regiment was to take post at the Residencia. Two six-pounders were ordered along the central street, covered by the carabineers, and three troops of the 9th light dragoons, the remainder of which was posted as a reserve in the centre. Each division was ordered to proceed along the street directly in its front, till it arrived at the last square of houses next the river Plata, of which it was to possess itself, forming on the flat roofs, and there wait for further orders. The 95th regiment was to occupy two of the most commanding situations, from which it could annoy the enemy. Two corporals, with tools, were ordered to march at the head of each column, for the purpose of breaking open the doors; the whole were unloaded, and no firing was to be permitted until the columne had reached their final points and formed; a cannonade in the central streets was the signal for the whole to come forward. In conformity to this arrangement, at half-past six in the morning of the 5th instant, the 38th regiment moving towards its left, and the 87th straight to its front, approached the strong post of the Retiro and Plaza de Toros, and after a most vigorous and spirited attack, in which these regiments suffered much from grape-shot and musketry, their gallant commander, brigadier-general sir S. Auchmuty, possessed himself of the post, taking thirty-two pieces of cannon, an immense quantity of ammunition, and six hundred prisoners. The 5th regiment, meeting with but little opposition, proceeded to the river, and took possession of the church and convent of St. Catalina. The 36th and 88th regiments, under brigadier-general Lumley, moving in the appointed order, were soon opposed Supplement to No. XII.—VOL. III.

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