upon the private conduct of subjects, to be imputed to edicts of the government. My sincerity has more than once prompted me to caution you, sir, that some individuals about you could do you neither honour nor credit, since, their reputation being blasted in other courts, no great opinion could be entertained of their morals in this. And do you know, sir, whether or not these people may be the authors of the story published by the Paris gazetteer? I have likewise mentioned several other things to you; and it was, perhaps, owing to my advices, that you avoided their consequences; as, for instance, general Bournonville's affair, when you wanted to make yourself master of his papers. Let your excellency call to mind my former conduct, and entertain a proper regard for the sincerity you have experienced from your affectionate servant, (Signed) THE PRINCE OF PEACE. If you choose, sir, I will give an account of what has taken place to the king my master, that it may be forwarded to the minister of his Britannic majesty, through the channel of his ambassador in London; and your excellency may, from the moderation and terms of my note, form an idea of the high respect I bear his Britannic majesty; since, if it were not for this just consideration, I should not have answered your last note. J. H. Frere, Esq. Madrid, April 20, 1804. I yesterday received the note of your excellency, which I have read with all the attention it merits. There is a very plain consideration which directly occurs to one's mind, namely, that your excel lency might have spared yourself the unpleasant task of continuing a painful correspondence. Your excellency does ne honour to tell me, that, being no minister, your correspondence cannot be drawn to any political consequence; and yet you propose to transmit it to the mini, ster of his most catholic majesty in London, for the purpose of show, ing your respect for his Britannic majesty. Your excellency adds, that, without such motive, you would not have thought yourself bound to answer my note. Upon this I must observe, that expressions of personal respect from a private individual to a sovereign, do not appear to me to be customary; and that, viewing the note of your excellency in this light, I would not undertake to lay it officially before his majesty. And yet, as it contains certain allusions to my conduct, I thought it my duty to transmit it to the secretary of state of his Britannic majesty, with proper explanations. If I return no direct answer to your excellency concerning those allusions, it is because I think them foreign to the subject upon which we hegan to correspond, and absolutely without an object, since your excellency has declared that you would not be looked upon as a minister. Moreover, nobody being present when the conversations in question took place, the discussion would prove endless, and be of no other use than that of presenting to the public the indecent spectacle of two persons, each of whom has some claim to their respect, mutually contradicting each other in the face of the whole world. (Signed) To his excellency the Prince of Peace.. J. H. FRERE Madrid, Madrid, April 23, 1804. I persuade myself that your excellency will not be surprised at the course I take, and which is, in my opinion, the only rational one. Since I desisted, in my note of the 17th, from the demand of a disavowal, our correspondence could no longer have any object. From the moment that your excellency declared that you would not be considered as a minister, I become sensible, that further discussions would only produce a personal altercation. This was the motive why I avoided discussing various points contained in the last note of your excellency, and it is also the motive which influences me at present. When your excellency has taken into consideration the situation you place me in, by stripping me, as well as yourself, of our ministerial characters, I am convinced you will not ascribe to a want of regard that which is, in reality, the result of the most serious reflection, by the general commanding the district, or by the commandant of the garrison, to assist in performing the duty thereof; or unless, from special circumstances, it should be deemed particularly desirable by the commanding general of the district. There will, however, be no objection to allowing ten days additional pay, at the rate of one shilling per man per day, to each non-commissioned officer, drummer, and private, of such corps of volunteer infantry, accepted subsequent to the 3d of August 1803 (if recommended for this purpose by your lordship), as may be wil ling to perform so many additional days' exercise in the course of the two ensuing months, without leaving their homes; but in this case they will not be entitled to the allowance for the purchase of neces saries, which is to be made exclusively to volunteeers who shall march for the purpose of training and exercise out of the towns to which they belong, or assemble within them for the purpose of doing the garrison duty thereof, or under the special circumstances before adverted to. a I have further to add, that it is not proposed to call upon any of the corps of infantry, serving upon the June allowances, to be exercised, on the whole, greater number than eighty-five days within the year; but in the event of their assembling on permanent duty for any time not ex ceeding that period, it is intended, that the number of days during which they shall be so assembled, shall be accounted as part of the eighty-five days' exercise, which, by the terms of their institution, they are bound to perform. And upon their so assembling on per, manent manent duty, it is to be understood that these corps are to be entitled to the like bounty in aid of necessaries as other volunteers. But it is not meant that any artillery should be placed on permanent duty, except in cases where they can have the advantage of being trained with some party or detachment of the royal artillery, or at least of being under the direction or instruction of officers or non-commissioned officers of the royal artillery. I have the honour to be, &c. Your most obedient To his majesty's lieutenants. CHELSEA OUT-PENSIONERS. The following order, relative to an extension of the out-pensions allowance for invalid and superannuated soldiers, has been circulated throughout the army: Horse Guards, April 28, 1804. The commander in chief directs it to be notified to the army, that his majesty has been graciously pleased to order it to be signified to his commissioners of the royal hospital at Chelsea, that hereafter soldiers discharged from any of the royal garrison battalions, with especial recommendatory discharge, as being disabled from further military duty, either from length of services, or from wounds received in the service, shall be in all cases allowed the out-pension of nine pence per day; and if totally incapacitated by infirmities or wounds from providing for themselves, that they shall be allowed a pension of one shilling per day. 1 His royal highness is persuaded that this recent instance of the king's benevolence towards his troops, and of his gracious consideration for their comfort in old age, will be attended with its due effect on the minds of the soldiery, and impress them with the liveliest sentiments of gratitude and affection towards his royal person and government. By order of his royal highness Note from general Green and commodore Hood to the governor of Surinam, previous to the capture of that colony. To his excellency the governor of the colony of Surinam. A considerable British armament of sea and land forces being arrived in the river Surinam, we, the commanders in chief of the same, judge it expedient at this crisis to summon the colony to an immediate surrender to his Britannic majesty's arms. The important situation which we now possess, with the decided superiority of our force, must, in case resistance be attempted, ensure a speedy and favourable issue to our operations; but the motives which have chiefly actuated his majesty in sending this expedition, and upon the principles of which we are directed to govern our conduct, induce us to propose a capitulation, so highly beneficial to the interests of the colony of Surinam, as to leave little doubt on our minds of being joyfully ac. cepted. But if, contrary to our well, founded expectations, the offers we now make make should be re jected, jected, it becomes us to state, in the clearest manner, that the effusion of blood, and all the calamities of war, in particular the destruction and ruin brought upon private property, which will be the inevitable consequence, must be attributed to you, and not to us. Being desirous to evince our inclination to allow every possible indulgence to the colony, consistent with our duty, and knowing it may require some time to assemble the constituted authorities for their decision, we are willing to wait twelve hours time for your answer; and at the expiration of which, should you not accede to our proposals, we shall consider it incumbent upon us to proceed to such further measures as our instructions point out. Dated on board his majesty's ship Centaur, off Bram's Point, 27th April, 1804. (Signed) CHARLES GREEN. SAMUEL HOOD. [According to the terms accompanying the above, the inhabitants were to enjoy their property; the exercise of their religion, &c.; the laws of the colony to remain in force; all ships of war, artillery, stores, &c. to be delivered up; the Batavian troops, to surrender prisoners of war, &c. These terms the governor refused to accept, and hostilities continued until the 4th of May, when the commanding officer of the Dutch troops proposed a new capitula tion. A negotiation was then commenced with him, and with the Dutch commodore Van Treslong, which terminated at last in articles, differing only in some slight modifications from those originally proposed by the British commanders.] CIRCULAR NOTE, Addressed to the ministers of foreign courts resident at the court of London. Downing-street, 30th April, 1801. The experience which all Europe has had of the conduct of the French government, would have induced his majesty to pass over in silence, and to treat with contempt, all the accusations which that government might have made against his majesty's government, if the very extraordinary and unauthorised replies which several of the ministers of the foreign powers have thought proper to make to a recent communication from the minister for foreign affairs at Paris, had not given to the subject of that communication a greater importance than it would otherwise have possessed. His majesty has, in consequence, directed me to declare that he hopes he shall not be reduced to the necessity of repelling, with merited scorn and indignation," the atrocious and utterly unfounded calumny, that the government of his majesty have been a party to plans of assassination:" -an accusation already made with equal falsehood and calumny by the same authority against the members of his majesty's government during the last war,-an accusation incompatible with the honour of his majesty, and the known character of the British nation, and so completely devoid of any shadow of proof, that it may be reasonably presumed to have been brought forward at the present moment, for no other purpose than that of diverting the attention of Europe from the contem. plation of the sanguinary deedwhich has recently been perpe trated trated by the direct order of the first consul in France, in violation of the right of nations, and in contempt of the most simple laws of humanity and honour. That his majesty's government should disregard the feelings of such of the inhabitants of France as are justly discontented with the existing government of that country-that they should refuse to listen to their designs for delivering their country from the degrading yoke of bondage under which it groans, or to give them aid and assistance, as far as those designs are fair and justifiable,would be to refuse fulfilling those duties which every wise and just government owes to itself and to the world in general, under circumstances similar to the present. Belligerent powers have an acknowledged right to avail them selves of all discontents that may exist in countries with which they may be at war. The exercise of that right (even if in any degree doubtful) would be fully sanctioned in the present case, not only by the present state of the French nation, but by the conduct of the government of that country, which, since the com, mencement of the present war, has constantly kept up communi, cations with the disaffected in the territories of his majesty, particularly in Ireland, and which has assembled at this present moment on the coasts of France a corps of Irish rebels, destined to second them in their designs against that part of the united kingdom. Under these circumstances, his majesty's government would be unjustifiable, if they neglected the right they have to support, as far as is compatible with the principles of the law of nations, which çi, vilized governments have hitherto acknowledged, the efforts of such of the inhabitants of France as are hostile to the present govern ment. They ardently desire, as well as all Europe, to see an order of things established in that country more compatible with its own happiness, and with the security of the surrounding nations:-but if that wish cannot be acccomplished, they are fully authorised, by the strictest principles of personal de. fence, to endeavour to cripple the exertions, to distract the operations, and to confound the plans of a government, whose system of warfare, as acknowledged by itself, is not only to distress the commerce, to diminish the power, and to abridge the dominions of its enemy, but also to carry de vastation and ruin into the very heart of the British empire. In the application of these principles, his majesty has commanded me to declare, besides, that his government have never authorised a single act which could not stand the test of the strictest principles of justice, and of usages recognised and practised in all ages. If any minister accredited by his majesty at a foreign court has kept up cor respondence with persons resident in France, with a view to obtain information upon the designs of the French government, or for any other legitimate object, he has done nothing more than what ministers, under similar circumstances, have always been considered as having a right to do with respect to the countries with which their sovereign was at war; and he has done much less than that which it could be proved the mi nisters and commercial agents of France have done towards the disaffected in different parts of his majesty's |