Holkar family, respecting the claims of that family to tribute from the Rajahs or others, or to any possessions situated to the north of the river Tapti, and to the south of the river Chumbul; but it is clearly to be understood, that as the Company's government agrees not to concern itself with the arrangements which Scindiah may make with the family of Helkar, respecting their claims or hereditary possessions situated between the Tapti and the Chumbul, that government will not take part in any dispute or war which may be the result or conséquence of any such arrangement or settlement.-Art. X. As Serjee Row Ghautka has acted in a manner calculated to disturb the friendship between the two States, the Maharajah agrees never to admit that chief to share in his councils, or to hold any public employment under his government.-Art. XI. This treaty, consisting of eleven articles, has been this day settled by Lieut.-Col. Malcolm, acting under the direction of the right hon. Lord Lake, on the part of the Hon. Company, and by Moonshee Kavil Nyne, on the part of Dowlut Row Scindiah; Lieut.-Col. John Malcolm has delivered one copy thereof in Persian and English, signed and sealed by himself, to the said Moonshee Kavil Nyne. To be Continued.

FOREIGN OFFICIAL PAPER. SWEDEN. Proclamation of the King of Streden on dissolving the Constitution of the State of Pomerania.

Concluded from page 160.

We are the more convinced of the imperfections of the present constitution, from the consideration of the rapid progress of industry, and the increase of population, in those countries where all those obstacles have ceased, which hitherto have deprived our German States of those sources of prosperity, so necessary to a well organised State. We have lately had a fresh proof of the dangerous consequences of the present order of things our order for raising the Pomeranian Militia, in consequence of a very unsuitable interpretation, has been referred by the States to an examination of the Tribunals of the Empire, at a time when the enemy threatened the frontiers of the country.The consideration of these important motives

the late events which have occurredand a desire to consolidate the security of the country, have reduced us to the neces sity of declaringThat the constitution which has hitherto governed our German

States do cease from this day; that the provincial states and councils are dissolved; and that all institutions relative thereto be abolished for ever.' But if, on the one hand, we have been forced to take this resolution, on the other we wish to prove, that our only design is to secure the future prosperity of our German subjects, and not to assume to ourselves oppressive rights; and of this we have thought that we could not give a more convincing proof, than by introducing

the Swedish constitution into our German States. As King of a free people, and as obeying only the law, we feel a particular pleasure in preparing a happier fate for our subjects of Pomerania and Rugen. Equal, both in respect of their duties to us, and in their immunities and privileges; protected by just laws, they will no longer form a body separated from the Swedish people; but will, on the contrary, enjoy in fraternal union the benefits of a constitution which has established, for ages, the security of that people.-We ordain, by this act, that the constitution of the Kingdom of Sweden, of the 21st of Aug. 1772; the acts of union and of security of the 21st of Feb. and 3d of April, 1789; the privileges and immunities granted to the four Estates of Sweden; and the law of that kingdom, be in future the fundamental and constitutional laws of our German states. We ordain, that all the necessary dispositions be made to put this act into execution. On this occasion we however declare, in the most solemn manner, to our Pomeranian subjects, that they shall never be subjected, either for the present, or the future, to the payment of the debts of the kingdom of Sweden, or to the imposts which have relation to it. Moreover, if any thing should occur with respects, peculiarly and properly, Pomerania and Rugen, and on which, conformably to the Swedish constitution, we ought to hear the humble supplications of the representatives of the country, we will convoke them in a general diet, in the country itself; this convocation, for which we shall give ulterior orders, shall be held without delay; and it will give satis faction to our heart, to see assembled round our throne a faithful people, who, no longer led astray by a complicated constitution, and fulfilling the duties of subjects, will second," by their assistance, our paternal efforts for their prosperity, in which we shall find, our highest recom.pence -From the Royal Head-Quarters at Griefswald, June 26, 1806. (Signed) GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS.

VOL. X. No. 6.]

193]

TO THE ELECTORS OF THE CITY OF
WESTMINSTER.
LETTER I.

GENTLEMEN,-On the 10th of May last, I addressed a letter to you upon the subject of the waste of the public money, under the head of "letter the first," it being then my intention to address a series of letters to you upon that, and other subjects, therewith connected. But, it being now become almost certain, that a dissolution of the present parliament will speedily take place, I propose to address to you about four or five letters thereupon, and upon your duties which will therefrom arise; which letters, that they may not be confounded with any others, I shall number from one to as many as they shall amount to.

Before I proceed to submit to you the observations and suggestions, which, upon the abovementioned subject, present themselves to my mind as being likely to be useful at the present moment, give me leave to express a hope, that you are duly impressed with the importance of the subject itself; for, if you regard, or, if you act as if you regarded, the days of an election as a time merely for keeping holiday and making a noise; as a time for assembling in a tumultuous manner, without running the risk of smarting under the lash of the law; if, like the slaves of Rome, whose tyrannical and cunning rulers let them loose, once in a while, to commit all manner of foolish and beastly acts, in order thereby to terrify their own children from the commission of such acts; if, like these degraded creatures, you suffer yourselves to be made the sport of those who solicit your votes, then, indeed, will you verify the assertion of the French writer, from whom I have selected my motto; then, indeed, will you deserve to be slaves all the rest of your lives. But, my hope is, and, indeed, my expectation is, that your co duct will be exactly the reverse; that, 1st, you will look back to the days of your forefathers, and revive in your minds the arduous and successful efforts, which, at various times, they made for the preservation of the privilege, which you will soon have an opportunity of exercising,

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and that you will duly reflect upon the nature of that privilege: that, 2dly, you will view, in its true light, the present situation of your country, and that you will diligently and impartially enquire, whether all the evils we endure, and all the dangers that threaten us, are not to be ascribed to the folly and baseness of those, who have possessed, and who have so shamefully abused, their privilege of choosing members of parliament; that, 3dly, you will enquire, whether, at any time heretofore, the members whom you have chosen, have held to their professed principles, or their promises, and that you will endeavour to ascertain the cause of their desertion of their principles and of you; that, 4thly, you will, beforehand, while you have time well to weigh and to consider, enquire, and resolve upon,, what sort of men those ought to be whom you shall elect, and what sort of security you ought to demand for their holding to the principles which they profess; and that, 5thly, you will, as soon as may be, determine upon the very men for whom you will vote, and in support of whom, as your representatives in the parliament, as the makers of the laws to which you are to submit, as the guardians of your property and your personal freedom, you will use all the lawful, means within your power. To assist you. in these considerations and enquiries is the object of the letters that I am now beginning to addres to you; and though I am well aware. that the far greater part of you stand in need of no such assistance, yet I am persuaded, that want of the habit of reflecting in some, and want of leisure in others, have heretofore prevented them from forming right opinions upon the subject, and, under that persuasion I cannot refrain from endeavouring to do some little in the way of guiding those opinions upon the present important occasion, begging you to bear in mind, however, that it is not my in ention to offer myself to you as a candidate, unless it shall be found, that no other man in the kingdom has the public spirit to stand forward upon that ground, whereon alone I think any man ought to be chosen as a member of the House of Commons, and particularly as a

member to represent the City of Westmin

ster.

1. In looking back to the days of our forefathers, we find them, in ancient times, fallen in a state of personal bondage to the few great possessors of the soil, who were the only part of the subjects of the king enjoying anything worthy of the name of freedom; we find, that, from this degraded state they began to rise under the reigns of those Kings of England, who carried the English banners in triumph over the fields of France, who won and who left, as an everlasting memorial of the valour of Englishmen, those Lillies, which, only six years ago, were effaced from our arms; we find, that the right, or the duty, of voting for members of the House of Commons, which right had, by those gallant kings, been conferred upon every man not a mere bonds-" iman, was, by a foolish and cowardly successor, restricted, in many cases, to persons having a certain portion of property of a particular kind; we find, that, in more recent times, the advisers of the kings, the creatures who swarm about a court, and who rob the people of their substance as the drone robs the industrious bee, contrived various means of rendering the representatives of the people the mere tools of the court, and, that, when unable to succeed in corrupting them to their purposes, they caused the parliament to be dissolved; we find, that, when this scheme had been tried to its utmost without success, a weak and bigot king endeavoured to govern without a parliament, and soon after we find him driven from his throne, the crown being settled in succession upon another family, and provision being made, a solemn compact being entered into, that, for ever afterwards, the people should have an opportu nity of choosing a new House of Commons once in three years; we find, however, that a House of Commons, so elected, became parties to a law for depriving the people of this right, and for making the term seven years instead of three, from the passing of which law we may date the rapid decline of public liberty, and the no less rapid increase of the public burdens. Until that fatal day great and almost constant were the exertions of the people to maintain their due weight in the government; since that day, they have made but few and those very contemptible exertions; but, how, when they see that there is no hope left of safety from any other soarce, ought they not to rouze themselves? Ought they not to exert their power as often as it comes into their hands? The object of our ancestors in contending, with their lives,

for their rights as relating to the choice of members of parliament, was, to keep a check upon the power of the crown; to prevent the king, or his favourites, from taking from them any more of their property-than what should be found necessary for the support of the government and for the carrying into effect such measures as should be found requisite for the good of the nation in general; to prevent their substance from being drawn from them to fatten idlers and profligates; to prevent any part of their fel low subjects from becoming oppressors of the rest; to prevent, in short, the loss of their freedom and of the enjoyments therefrom arising. The means was the power, given to representatives of the people, of refusing to grant money to the king. And, when I say the power, I mean the real power of refusing, and not the mere nominal power of refusing; for, if the power be merely nominal, it is no power at all; and, if it be never exercised, it is merely nominal. "does

"To what," some one may say, "all this tend, but to convince me, that all "exertions on the part of the electors "would be useless?" Yet, this is not so. The fault has been with the independent electors; for, though, owing to several causes, there always will be, until a material change in the representation takes place, a great majority in favour of whomsoever is minister; though the representation arising from the decayed boroughs will always produce, in point of mere numbers, the means of overbalancing any thing that can be done by the independent electors, still, these latter, are able, if they were willing, to make such a choice as would be a sufficient means of protection against all the schemes of oppression that ambition or rapacity could devise. The electors of boroughs, where their numbers are small, or where they are, in some way or other, dependent upon one or two rich men; the electors of such places, whether they actually take bribes, or not, have some excuse for becoming the miserable and degraded tools of a corruptor. Their crime is, indeed, detestable; they deserve to be held in execration; their names ought to be inscribed upon the gallows-tree, after their carcases have therefrom been carried piece meal by the fowls of the air; "BE

SUCH THE FATE OF THE VEN DERS OF THEIR CHILDREN'S LI"BERTIES AND HAPPINESS," ought to be uttered from the lips of every honest man; but, still, they have some excuse; they have the excuse of the hungry robber and assassin, whose crimes they equal and

whose fate they deserve. But for you, Electors of Westminster, what excuse shall be made for you, if you fail in the performance of your duty; if you violate so sacred a trust? If you, who have all the political advantages that time and place can give; who well understand what is right, and who have no temptation to do what is wrong; who can plead neither ignorance nor want; who are, in short, as free as you could pos-. sibly be made by any scheme of liberty that human art is capable of devising; what shall be said for you, if, setting at nought all considerations of country and of individual honour, you become the passive instruments, the trodden down things, of some half dozen of opulent men, whose only merit, in the eyes of the world, would be, that they would hold you in a degree of contempt surpassing that which they entertain for the beasts that perish?

To hear some persons talk of an election for Westminster, a stranger to the state of things would believe, that the electors were the bondsmen, or, at best, the mere menial servants of a few great families. The question, upon hearing such persons talk, seems to be, not what man the electors may wish to choose, but what man is preferred by a few of the noblemen, though, by-the-by, it is well known, that the law positively forbids such noblemen to interfere in elections. Notwithstanding this law, we hear the boroughs called after the names of the peers who are the owners of them; we hear that such a peer has so many members in the House of Commons, and such a peer só many more; and this we, at last, have become to hear and to talk about with perfect unconcern; but, this is no excuse for you. Neither peers nor any body else can render you dependant, if you are disposed to be free. You are nearly twenty thousand in number. Your trades and occupations are, generally speaking, full as necessary to your employers as their employment is necessary to you. If you are turned out of one house, there is always another ready to receive you ; if you lose one customer, you gain another; you need court the smiles, you need fear the frowns, of no man, and no set of men, living. Some few unfortunate dependants there may be amongst you; but, the number is so small as to be unworthy of notice, when compared to the whole. Yet, under theso circumstances it is that we hear of the interest of such or such a nobleman, and, indeed, of such or such a nobleman's Butler or House-keeper; and, after hearing what we do hear in this way at every Westminster election, it seems surprising, that the Butler

does not himself become your representative in parliament. The king has his powers; the peers have theirs, and ample powers they have, every one of them being his own representative in parliament. These powers it is our duty to maintain; but, it is also our duty to maintain our own powers, and, if we basely surrender them at the command of the Butlers and Footmen of peers, we deserve every species of insolence that the minds of Butlers and Footmen are capable of conceiving. To make use of any interested' motive for the purpose of inducing an elector to give, or to withhold, his vote, is a crime in the eye of the law, which has provided injunctions and oaths, which has prepared sh me and punishment for every such crime; but, to attempt to induce an elector to vote contrary to his conscience, is also a personal offence, that every honest man will resent with as much indignation as he would an accusation of perjury. How scandalous, then, is it that tradesmen should patiently listen to the commands of their customers, nay, that they should obey those commands, in direct opposition to the dictates of their own minds, from the paltry consideration of gain, which, when compared to the weight of taxes, brought upon them from the want of real representatives, is as a farthing to a pound!

Men who have been born slaves, who, and whose fathers before them, have never had an idea of freedom, may be pilied, but they cannot reasonably be blamed, any more than the Pagans of Peru could be blamed for their want of Christian faith. Yet, it is not rare to hear Englishmen speaking contemptuously of those nations who quietly submit to the absolute will, and who lick the foot, of a ruler; but, if such nations be objects of just contempt, what shall be sad of us, if, with all the noble examples of our ancestors before us, with all the laws which their valour obtained and their wise dom has secured, we give up, and that, too, from the basest of motives, all the real freedom, which we enjoy, or which we might enjoy? In the exercise of perfect freedom at elections, we are not only secured by the law; not only does the law say, that we shall be permitted freely to make our choice of persons to represent us; but, it commands us not to be bassed, and it provides heavy penalties for all those who attempt to bias us. In short, men must arrive at a state of sheer baseness of mind, before they can suffer themselves to be indaced to vote for persons, of whom, in their consciences, they do not approve; and this must be more especially the case in a city

like Westminster, where it is mor y impossible that any motive of real interest should exist sufficiently powerful to bias a rationa! man.

The possessor of the elective franchise is the holder of a trust; he acts not only for himself, but for his country in general, and more especially for his family and his children. To violate his trust, or to neglect the performance of what it imposes upon him, is, therefore, not merely an act of baseness, not merely a degradation of himself, but a crime against others; and, a man so acting, ought to be regarded by his neighbours as a public offender; as an injurer of every other man; as a person to be shunned and abhorred; as a person very little, if at all, less detestable than one who betrays his country into the hands of an enemy. It is no justification of such a man, to say that those who bias him are his superiors, or that the temptation is great. In the case of Westminster there is no temptation at all; and, besides, what crime is there which might not, upon such a principle, he justified? And, as to the " superiors" who bias, they may be superior in riches; but, in every other respect, are they not the basest of mankind, except only those who are biassed by them? Are they not violators of the law? Are they not hypocrites of the most odious description? Are they not, with the sound of loyalty and patriotism on their lips, the worst of enemies to their King and their country? I shall be told, that, in some instances, even the Clergy have used the means of corruption at elections. I hope such instances are rare; and it cannot but shock any one to know that they at all exist; but, if they existed in ever so great a number, no countenance would thereby be afforded to the corrupted; for, of all detestable characters, the most detestable assuredly is, what is called an electioneering parson." From the chalice of such a priest one would flee as from a goblet of poison; and if ten such instances could exist, without producing an ecclesiastical censure and punishment, the Church ought to be destroyed, root and branch, for ever.

66

Having now endeavoured to describe to you the nature of the privilege, which you will speedily be called upon to exercise, I shall, in my next, proceed upon those inquiries, the result of which will, I trust, Convince you, that it is entirely owing to the shameful abuse of that privilege, that we now have to lament being so situated as to have very little to hope either from peace, or from a continuation of the war In the

meanwhile I am, Gentlemen, yours &c.&e. W. COBBETT.

Botley, 6th August, 1806.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. PEACE. Of the state of the negocia tion between England and France, it is next impossible, that any one but the ministers themselves should know any thing. It is, perhaps, true, that negociations, in some shape or other, have been going on ever since March last; but, confident as some persons seem to be of a speedy termination of the war, it does not appear to me as being in the smallest degree probable. Lest, however, I should be deceived, in this respect, it may not be amiss to offer a remark or two upon the terms of which the writers, who are opposed to the ministry, are representing as proper to be demanded and insisted on, and the chief of which are, that France should enter into a commercial treaty opening all ports to us, and that she should give us security, that she will not make a sudden attack upon us after the conclusion of the peace, or, in other words, that the Boulogne Flotilla should be destroyed. If we would agree to burn the British fleet, it is probable, that Buonaparté would agree to burn his boats; but, I venture to say, that he will not burn a single boat upon any other condition. To hear these writers, one would imagine, that we were negociating at the end of another Queen Anne's War. But, the fact is, they expect no such terms. Shallow and uninformed as they may be, they well know, that, after the proposing of such terms, Lord Lauderdale would not remain at Paris long enough to pack up his papers. They know this, and they are mean enough to hold a high-sounding language, in order to provide themselves before hand with a sort of consistent ground for censuring such a peace as they know must be made, if any peace at all be made, under our present circumstances. In order, however, to give a colour of reason for these feigned expectations as to terms, these writers, and particularly my foolish friend of the MORNING POST, deal largely in flattering descriptions of the advantageous posi. tion" in which this country is now placed; and, as if he was resolved to set ridicule and contempt at open defiance, he dwells with peculiar delight upon the flourishing state of our finances! The reader will need no detail to convince him of the folly of such a writer; but it is out of my power to refrain from laying before him the following statement upon the subject, taken from that print of the 5th instant.- "But, it is said that

"