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to wit, that the king of England could not make any concession to a foreign power contrary to the constitutional freedom of his kingdom. Constitutions are arranging throughout Germany, and by degrees the representative system will be organised without trouble or noise. It appears that the diet will establish the basis of this grand edifice, by enacting principles to be common to all the governments respecting individual liberty, the liberty of the press, the equality of men in the eye of the law, and the privilege of not being taxed without their own consent. In the several states, notwithstanding the apparent relaxation of effort for establishing representative constitutions of government, there is much solicitude on the subject.

In Hanover they are occupied in framing a new mode of representative government. The diet is also occupied on financial and political subjects.

In Prussia the labours of the legislative body have been so far matured as to be presented to the council of state. The lines which separate the classes are the principal difficulties.

In Hesse the elector is attached to the ancient institutions; but the diet has resolved to reassemble to accomplish the work of a liberal legislation.

In Hesse Darmstadt, and Baden, the preparations for representative governments are accomplished, and only wait for the co-operation of the other states of Germany.

The liberal constitution established at Saxe Weimar, is in full activity.

In other parts of Saxony and Mecklinburg, they appear tardy.

In Wurtemburg the constitution presented by the king is adhered to.

In Bavaria the subject is yet before the council of state; the apparent purpose is to give the new institutions the form of provincial assemblies, rather than a central and general representation.

In Austria the only intention perceptible, is a new organization of the existing provincial administrations.

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The population of Sweden, according to the computation of 1815, amounted to 2,464,941. There are 1,765,397 peasants, 9,523 nobility, 15,202 of the priesthood, 64,755 citizens represented at the Diet; besides these there are about 50,000 persons not noble in civil and military offices, literati, land and mine holders, with about 500,000 persons in inferior employments. The population of 86 towns amounts to 148,029 of whom there were 36 towns under 1000 persons, 25 of from 1 to 2000, eight, from 2 to 3000, eight, from 3 to 4000, six from 4 to 10,000. Carlscrona, 11,860; Gottenburg, 21,788, and Stockholm, 72,939.

The system of paper money in Sweden has produced much embarrassment; and is said to be fast incurring the odium of the community. Ten persons have failed, in Gottenburg, for $2,240,000.

It is said the Baltic was open on the 1st of March; a circumstance that has not occurred for two hundred years.

RUSSIA.

The emperor has, by a special decree, abolished the cruel punishment heretofore in general practice of slitting the nostrils before transportation to Siberia. The Ukase reprobates the barbarous practice adopted as calculated to increase rather than prevent crimes and never to correct them; since by defacing the victim and fixing an indelible disgrace, there was neither hope nor happiness in prospect to invite repentance; and experience had proved that the punishment had no effect in prohibiting the number of crimes.

The Russian Consul at London, March 25, gave official notice that although the port of Odessa has been some months ago declared a free port, yet the period of the opening of the port has not arrived. The works requisite for forming the moat, and establishing the barriers around the city will necessarily delay the opening of the port until September next, at least, and perhaps longer.

The following is an extract of a letter from Petersburg. As paper here is dear and not so good as we could wish, we (the Russian Bible Society) had petitioned his majesty to allow us to import some Holland paper for the current year, and showed him that it would this year save us fifteen thousand rubles. He refused our request for the sake of Russian paper manufactories, but that the society might not lose thereby, presented us with fifteen thousand rubles."

ASIA.

EAST INDIES.

The war in India between the British

forces and the natives is very desultory and widely spread, but the important results are generally, thus far, in favour of the former. The Mahratta war, against the Peishwa, was considered as nearly terminated by the dispersion of the forces of the latter; but no very late news have been received from that quarter.

Holkar had taken the field to support the Peishwa, with a large army, and a strong British force under lieut. gen. Hyslop, and maj. gen. Malcolm proceeded against him. They brought him to action Dec. 21, and completely defeated him. The British loss amounted to 400 or 500 men, and that of the enemy is stated at 3000 men, with all his artillery, amounting to 40 pieces, and baggage.

Two victories had been also obtained over the Rajah of Nagpore who had followed the example of the Peishwa. On the 16th of December, Gen. Doveton defeated the Rajah, dispersed his army, took his whole artillery, and entered Nagpore. Dec. 19. brig. gen. Hardyman defeated another army of the Nagpore Rajah, near Jubbulpore, and captured 4 pieces of artillery.

No decisive event had occurred in the expedition against the Pindarees. The main force was still employed in this quar

ter.

It was reported about the 1st of Jan. that an army of Birmahs was preparing to invade the British territory on the Sylhet frontier, and that 15,000 men were assembled. Some precautionary rumours were thought necessary, but it was ascertained that this assembling of men was occasioned by a dispute between two rival Rajahs, and that no hostilities against the British were meditated.

AFRICA.

ALGIERS.

The last accounts confirm the report that the new dey, Ali Hodgia, who has established his sway by the assistance of a considerable number of Moors, sets no limits to his fury and tyrannical deeds; that all the European powers, without distinction, are indignant at his brutality; that the consuls are menaced and kept in awe, by a numerous horde of negroes, which compose his guard; that they are obliged to confine themselves in their habitations, and that even this asylum is no security.

The plague continues to rage, carrying off 50 persons in a day, after an illness of 24 hours-it has spread into the interior. Recent accounts state the savage dey, Ali Hodgia, is dead, and that his former minister, Cogia Cavilla, has succeeded him.

AMERICA.

VENEZUELA.

By official despatches recently received in the United States, it appears that the patriots go on prosperously. Bolivar has published proclamations of amnesty to all who shall retire from the cause of the royalists, and report themselves at any one of his military stations, and also that they shall retain, in the service of the republic, the same rank which they may have held, while in the employment of the Spanish government. In his proclamation, he also states that the armies of Morillo and Boves have been almost entirely cut to pieces, and congratulates the friends of independence upon the auspicous progress of the patriot cause. Admiral Brion has been as successful on the water as Bolivar has been by land; and he represents himself to be well supplied with well-appointed vessels. The following is the report, made to him by Antonio Diaz, commandment of a flotilla, of the vessels captured at St. Fernando. Return of the public and private vessels captured at St. Fernando, on the Apure.

Gun boat Venganza, 1 4 pounder, brass, 2 swivels; do. Guyaniga, 1 8 pounder, brass; do. Dolores, 1 4 pounder; do. Isabella, 1 8 pounder, on the bow, 1 8 pounder, stern, both brass, & swivels; do. St. Francisco, 1 4 pounder; do. St. Carlos, 1 6 pounder; 3 Flecheras, with 3 swivels each, 1 4 pounder, iron, 2 do. brass, 70 muskets; found on shore, 4 swivels, 5 sloops, 3 perogues, 70 row boats. ANTONIO DIAZ.

St. Fernando, 8th Feb. 1818.

BRAZIL.

An extract of a letter from some one of the gentleman attached to the U. S. frigate Congress, speaks to the following effect.

"Buenos Ayres, March 4, 1818. "The Portuguese are still in possession of Monte Video. They have there four or five thousand men. Artegas, who is in possession of the surrounding country, keeps them cooped up within their lines, which extend about 3 miles from the city. Without these they dare not venture, unless in considerable bodies. The Portuguese and Buenos Ayrean government are on good terms: Artegas is at war with both. The Buenos Ayreans sent lately several hundred men against him: these, it is said, he defeated. He carries on a sort of partizan warfare; his soldiers are little better than savages, generally mounted men, admirable riders, inured to hardship and danger. It is impossible for an army to operate successfully against

them. They make an attack or an incursion, and are off in a moment."

The following compendious history of the present king of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves, and of his political condition, will be found interesting: it was first published in the Boston Weekly Messenger, as translated from the "Biographie des Hommes Vivans."

John VI. (Maria Joseph Lewis) king of Portugal, Brazil, and of the Algarves, born the 13th of May, 1767, son of Don Peter, king of Portugal, and of MariaFrances-Elizabeth, daughter of his predecessor; married in 1790, Charlotte Joachim, daughter of Charles IV. king of Spain, and declared himself regent of the kingdom on the 10th of March, 1792, on account of the mental derangement of his mother. He at first took no part in the war of the revolution, and contented himself with putting, in 1793 and 1794, a small corps of auxiliary troops, at the disposal of Spain, for the defence of the Pyrennes. By a pretty common result of this moderation towards France, and this co-operation of good neighbourhood with Spain, the prince regent saw himself, after the treaty of 1797, the object of the enmity of both those powers, forced to submit to a humiliating yoke, which was a little after to render more aggravating the treaties of Badajoz, (the 6th of Jan. 1801,) of Madrid and of London, by which Portugal ceded to Spain Oliveza, with a portion of the province of Alentejo, and received a new arrangement of boundaries in her American provinces. She also added to France a part of Portuguese Guiana. After the breach of the peace of Amiens, which had a little modified the burdensome conditions of the preceding treaties, the prince regent obtained, by great pecuniary sacrifices, a promise of neutrality, which Bonaparte was not slow in violating, under the pretext of succours which he reproached the prince with having furnished to the English fleet, which had departed from the Cape of Good Hope, for the conquest of Buenos Ayres and Monte Video. Notwithstanding the considerable advantages which the commerce of Portugal procured to France, for the importation of colonial products, and of materials necessary for its manufactures, Bonaparte also manifested an intention of marching an army upon Lisbon;-a threat, the execution of which, the war with Prussia obliged him to defer till after the peace of Tilsit. At this time, the prince regent was summoned, by a diplomatic instrument, which allowed him a delay of only three weeks

1st, to shut his ports against England; 2d, to detain all English subjects residing in his kingdom; 3d, to confiscate all English property. In submitting to the first of these requisitions, and rejecting the two others, the court of Lisbon displeased both France and England. The consequence was, an invasion of the Portuguese territory, by a French and Spanish army, and the blockade of Lisbon by an English fleet.

The prince regent, who till this time had given very little attention to preparations for a retreat to Brazil, to which place he had thought of sending his son, the prince of Beira, now took the only determination which could place his person in safety. Seconded by the good dispositions of lord Strangford, minister plenipotentiary from the English government, and of rear-admiral sir Sidney Smith, who commanded the blockading squadron, the prince, by a decree published the 26th of November, 1807, announced his intention of retiring to the city of Rio Janeiro, until the signature of a general peace; and named a regency to administer the affairs of the kingdom during his absence. He set sail with his family on the morning of the 29th of November, with a fleet composed of eight large vessels of the line, four frigates, three brigs, and a schooner, and left the Tagus to perform his voyage. General Junot had so hastened his march, that his advanced guard, already arrived at Lantarem, a little village, two leagues from Lisbon, were able to view from the neighbouring heights, the Portuguese vessels, which with difficulty passed the bar. Had it not been for the difficulties of the country and the season of the year, occasioned to the troops, harrassed with fatigue, that general would have been at hand to watch the gates of Lisbon, and to dispute the retreat of the prince regent. Bonaparte had flattered himself, that he should have in his power the person and the family of the prince regent. He did not believe him capable of so much resolution; but the arrival at Lisbon of a Moniteur, in which it was announced, that "the house of Braganza had ceased to reign," had put an end to his indecision.

The fleet, although assailed by violent winds, arrived safely at Rio Janeiro. By an act of his authority, dated at this city, the 1st of May, 1808, the prince regent declared null and void, all the treaties concluded with the emperor of France, and named those of Badajoz, and of Madrid in 1801, that of neutrality in 1804, adding, that he would never lay down arms, but in concurrence with his friend and

ally the king of Great Britain, and would not consent in any case to a cession of Portugal, which formed the most ancient part of the heritage and rights of the house of Braganza. In the month of August following, in answer to a memoir which was presented to him by the princess his spouse, and the infant Don Redis Carlos of Bourbon and Braganza, who had followed him to Brazil, for the purpose of imploring his protection for the maintenance of their rights to the crown of Spain, usurped by Bonaparte, this prince published a declaration, by which he engaged to co-operate to the extent of his power, for the establishment of these rights, "forgetting," he added, "my just resentment against the conduct of Spain, which granted a passage to the French troops, and joined with France for the invasion of Portugal." We shall not relate here, the various events which have passed in Portugal since the departure of the prince for Brazil. We will only say, that by the convention of Cintra, the French army, commanded by gen. Junot, was forced, by the English army, to evacuate the country; that marshal Massena invaded Portugal, in 1810, but after various success, he was defeated by lord Wellington, aided by the Portuguese troops, who fought with great courage. Since that time the French have entirely abandoned Portugal, and it has always remained under the dominion of the prince of Brazil, who took the title of king, after the death of his mother, which happened in 1816.

In his trans-atlantic government, the prince has neglected nothing for the prosperity of his vast empire, where the comparative feebleness of the population, and the imperfection of the commerce, the manufactures, and the arts and sciences, left him every thing to create. He has proclaimed the principles of religious toleration, he has softened the rigors of the negro slavery, and granted lands, implements, and privileges, to merchants, cultivators, artists and labourers, of every nation, which came from Europe to establish themselves in the cities and uncultivated lands of his kingdom. Towards the end of 1815, the prince regent concluded with the court of Spain, the double marriage of the two princesses his daughters, with Ferdinand VII. and his brother, the Infant Charles Isidore. Notwithstanding these new family ties, the court of Rio Janeiro occupied, by a body of troops, in the month of January, 1817, Monte Video, and a part of the Spanish possessions, after having given assurances

that the king did not pretend to dispute with the court of Madrid any of her rights to the territory of Monte Video, but that he found himself under the necessity of taking military possession, until the contest between the Spanish colonies on the La Plata, and the mother country should be terminated. Spain did not seem satisfied with these declarations; but had the matter referred to the courts of Austria, Russia, France, Prussia, and England, who declared themselves mediators between the two powers, by a note signed by their respective ministers, at Paris, March 26, 1817.

This event was followed by a violent insurrection, which broke out against his authority in Pernambuco, where, after the murder of an officer, the factious, having at their head a man named Martinez, proclaimed a republic. The evil seemed to threaten the city of Bahia, and some other places in Brazil, with which, it was supposed the revolutionists had a good understanding. The king displayed much firmness to destroy the insurrection in the bud. He pressed upon Pernambuco by land and by sea, with such rapidity, that the insurgents having been forced to fly from the place before the royal troops, which came to attack them, the marine profitted by the absence of the chiefs, to seize the city; so that their bands, broken by the first shock, met with death or imprisonment in the same place where they had established a republic. Martinez was taken and shot.

About the same time, another conspiracy was discovered at Lisbon, of which the object seemed to be, as at Pernambuco, the establishment of a republic, on the ruins of the royal authority,—and the means to accomplish it, the murder of the civil and military chiefs, as well English as Portuguese, residing at Lisbon and throughout the kingdom. The same success here signalized the triumph of the king, by the arrest of a great number of conspirators, of whom some belonged to the first families of the nation.

John VI. by his ambassador at Vienna, M. de Marialva, concluded, in the first month of 1817, the marriage of his son the prince of Beira, with one of the daughters of the emperor of Austria, the archduchess Leopoldine, who was espoused at Vienna, in the name of the prince, by the Portuguese Ambassador. She sailed from the port of Leghorn, for Rio Janeiro, in the month of August following. John VI. was crowned king of Portugal and Brazil, at Rio Janeiro, the 6th of April, 1817.

REPUBLIC OF HAYTI.

Since our last, the important news has been received of the death of Alexander Petion, president of Hayti. He died on Sunday, March 29th, after an illness of only eight days. It is supposed that his malady was brought on by distress of mind, occasioned by an attempt, on the part of a desperate wretch, to assassinate him, which wrought in him an incurable despondency, that left him without a wish to live. He was buried with much pomp, on the 31st. His body was interred under the liberty-tree, opposite to the capitol;-his bowels, which had been previously taken out, were deposited in the national fort, and his heart was given as a bequest to his daughter. He is universally deplored. By the people to whom he gave independence, he is styled their Washington. Immediately upon his death, general Boyer was appointed his successor. The decree of the Senate, making the appointment, is as follows:Liberty. Equality.

REPUBLIC OF HAYTI.
DECREE OF THE SENATE,

Directing the nomination of the general of division, Boyer, to the office of president of Hayti.

The Senate, considering, that since the foundation of the republic, it has never experienced an event which was so painful, or deplorable as that which has just afficted unfortunate and stedfast Hayti,

Considering that it would be to expose the republic to evident danger, to defer the election of the citizen who shall henceforth direct the executive power, in the place of the virtuous Alexander Petion, deceased, the same who was the idol of the Haytians, and who, on that account, merited the surname of Father of his Country;

Wherefore, exercising the rights conferred by the 123d article of the Constitution, it decrees as follows:

Article I. Citizen John Peter Boyer, general of division, commanding the guard of the government, and the arrondisement of Port-au-Prince, is named president of Hayti.

Article II. The present decree shall be addressed to the secretary of state, exercising the executive authority, to have his execution to follow it, and to be printed and published throughout the whole extent of the republic.

At the national palace of Port-auPrince, the 30th March, 1818, 15th year of Independence,

PANAYOTY, President,
LAMOTHS, Secretary.

For the sake of exhibiting to many of our readers the manner in which the business of state is transacted by this govern ment, in addition to the above, we give the following public documents:

IN THE NAME OF THE REPUBLIC.

The secretary of state, provisionally charged with the executive power, having seen the vacancy of the presidency, orders that the above act of the Senate of the republic, be printed, published and executed according to its form and tenor, and that it be invested with the seal of the republic.

Given at the national palace of Portau-Prince, 31st March, 1818, 15th year of the independence of Hayti. JN. CME. IMBERT, By the chief of the executive power. The secretary general, B. INGINAC.

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John Peler Boyer, president of Hayti. We cannot, we think, commence the exercise of the power which the nation has delegated to us, better than by imitating the goodness that characterised all the actions of our illustrious predecessor. We have cast our eyes on suffering humanity, on those who, although culpable, have need of a moment of indulgence; wherefore we have thought fit to proceed agreeably to received principle, and not in opposition to the spirit of our laws, by enlarging all prisoners who are not stationed by capital crimes bearing the penalty of death. This favour is extended, for this time, to those under sentence, either on account of an offence against public order, or a fault against military discipline; the prisoners for debt shall also be enlarged, on furnishing security.

We trust, that by this act of clemency every one of those who shall receive the benefit of it, will consider himself bound to conform to the laws, never relapse into his faults, and prevent us for the future from employing a just severity. Declaring that nothing shall ever divert us from the greatest watchfulness over the public order, the respect due to the laws; and that we will always be inflexible against those who dare to contravene them.

Done at the national palace of Port-auPrince, the 2d of April, 1818, the 15th year of the independence of Hayti.

The secretary general,

BOYER. By the president: B. INGINAC

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