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Chilenian auxiliaries, to fall on the rear of the royalist army acting in Peru. Such a succession of important events had given fresh life and tone to every thing at Buenos Ayres, from whence all the Portuguese had been banished to Luxan.

Accounts from Buenos Ayres of the 14th April state, that General S. Martin was to set out in a few days from thence to join his army in Lima, and that he would have 10,000 men organized and ready to act against Peru, when the season for operation commenced. The differences between the government of Buenos Ayres and the Portuguese at Monte Video had been amicably settled. The Portuguese governor having apolo gised for the offensive part of his manifesto, Artagas had, about the middle of March, surprised the out-posts of the Portuguese army in the vicinity of Monte Video, and driven away 4000 head of cattle, upon which the Portuguese army took the field in pursuit of them; but falling into an ambuscade, in which they had lost nearly 600 men, they had retreated to Monte Video, followed by Artigas, who, when the last accounts came away, had possession of the mount, and the Portuguese had no footing beyond the reach of their guns. The Portuguese army did not exceed 5500 effective men, and it was supposed they would evacuate the place.

Some of the accounts state, that in the immediate vicinity of Buenos Ayres, the Portuguese had ceased to excite the slightest alarm. The troops at Monte Video were greatly tainted with insubordination. The Brazilian militia incorporated with the other troops had turned to the right about, and retired to their homes. The regular government troops remained behind; but in order to obtain supplies with the greater facility, they were obliged to be encamped in small divisions at considerable distances from each other.

The Caraccas Gazette of the 18th April, publishes the official detailed account of the recapture of Barcelona by the Spanish royalists, during the absence of Bolivar and his troops. The siege, however confined as to the scale of operations, was rendered memorable by a display of mutual animosity unknown to civil war. It appears that the defenders

of Barcelona were enthusiastic in their resistance to the besieging force-that the Spanish commander summoned them to surrender at discretion-that on his summons being rejected, he renewed the attack, and having prevailed at the close of a tremendous conflict, put 700 men, the remnant of the garrison, with half

that number of women and children, to the sword.

Asia.

EAST INDIES.

On the 5th November, the Frances Charlotte, with a detachment of the 78th regiment on board, struck on a reef off the desert Island of Preparis, which lies about half-way between Cape Nigrais, on the coast of Pegue, and the Andamans. On the 10th, Captain Weatherall, of the Prince Blucher, on nearing the island, fell in with some boats belonging to the Frances Charlotte, and took on board the crews, who had been several days without food. Learning that the rest of the seamen and troops, with a number of women and children, had got on shore on the island, he next day sent his boats to fetch the women and children, and as many men as possible. On the 12th they returned with Major Macpherson and his Lady, Mrs Macqueen, the wife of Captain Macqueen, Dr and Mrs Brown, Lieutenants Mackenzie and M'Crummen, with a number of Lascars and soldiers' wives and children. A storm coming on, frustrated an attempt to get off the remainder next day. Captain Weatherall then made sail for Calcutta, where he arrived on the 26th. Next day the Nautilus cruiser was sent off with a supply of provisions for the sufferers on the island, which it was supposed she would reach in six days; and to guard against any unfavourable occur. rence, another vessel was ordered to proceed for the same destination from Chittagong. There were left on the island six officers, ninety privates, and forty Lascars. There are several fine springs in the island, and the coast furnishes shell-fish in abundance; there is also plenty of wood. Hopes were of course entertained, that they would be able to hold out until the arrival of relief. About ten soldiers and Lascars were lost in quitting the wreck, in consequence of loading themselves too heavily with money and other articles.

The following is a sketch of the military strength of the powers bordering on the British dominions, according to letters from Calcutta, dated November 6:

1. The Seikhs possess a large track of country; their tribes are headed by Runjeet Sing, a warlike and ambitious leader. Their usual military establishment may be estimated at 28,000. The Seikhs under our protection can bring into the field about 17,000 soldiers.

2. Scindiah has about 40,000 soldiers; he is said to be in close alliance with the Rajah of Berar, and with the Bhurtpoor Rajah. He has acquired much strength since the Mahratta war, by bringing the feudatory states under his immediate

control.

3. Ameer Khan may have 28,000 soldiers; Mahomed Shah and Lall Sing, who generally act with him, can bring 20,000 more into the field. Ameer Khan is generally much in want of money; and when his troops become mutinous from being kept in arrears, he gives them perhaps half their pay, with authority to plunder to the amount of what is still due to them.

4. Holkar is poor, and has only 17,000 men-Ameer Khan, Mahomed Shah, and Lall sing, are nominally his generals.

5. The Pindarees are a tribe of military adventurers, who, having followed the standards of different chiefs, and, from the present tranquil state of Hindoostan, being out of employ, have joined with other vagrants, and have cemented themselves into one great body of 40,000 soldiers. These hardy troops infest the neighbouring provinces for plunder, and will fight under any chief who will best pay them.

On the 4th December, Mr Gordon Forbes and Colonel Loveday delivered over the French settlement of Chandernagore to the Commissioners appointed to receive it by Louis XVIII. A proclamation was issued, and Te Deum performed on hoisting the French flag, and the English and French functionaries partook of an entertainment, at which the healths of the kings of France and England, and of the Governor-General of India, were drunk with every demonstration of respect.

The Bombay Courier, of the 4th January, contains Major Lushington's ac count to the resident at Poonah (Mr Elphinstone) of his successful and persevering pursuit of the Pindarees on the 26th and 27th of December. The major is stated to have conducted the expedition with very great skill and address, and deserves the greatest credit. Only one British officer was killed, Captain Darke, of the 4th regiment of light cavalry; no officers were wounded. The principal object of the Pindarees in entering the Concan was to seize a large quantity of kincob (silks) which was exported from Bombay to Chowal for the interior, this they succeeded in, and it was their intention to sweep the coast as far as Surat.

Letters from Calcutta, of the 20th of January, mention, that the cotton harvest was expected to be very bad. They

also speak of the death of the Rajah of Nepaul. On his funeral pile one of his queens, one of his concubines, and five female attendants, resigned themselves to the flames, as a voluntary sacrifice in honour of his memory.

Batavia, March 3.-Conceiving that the annexed intelligence may be inter esting, it is forwarded to you, and may be depended upon.-His Majesty's ship Alceste was wrecked in the Straits of Gaspar, on the 18th of February. The officers, crew, and passengers, were all saved, and landed safely in Middle Island. His Excellency Lord Amherst, and his lordship's suite, arrived at Batavia on the 22d of February in open boats, and it happening that some British vessels were then lying in the roads, ready for sea, they were despatched the following mor ning to Middle Island to bring away the officers and crew of his Majesty's ship Alceste from thence. It is hoped that a considerable part of the baggage and property may be saved from the wreck. His Lordship and the gentlemen of his suite are in good health, and will return to England by the first ships expected on their homeward bound passage from China. The return of the vessels sent to Middle Island for the officers and crew of his Majesty's ship Alceste is daily expected.

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The following statistical account of this immense empire may perhaps at the present moment excite some interest:― Extent of empire in sq. miles, 1,297,990 The same in acres, 830,719,360 Number of inhabitants, Revenues in sterling, £12,140,625 This gives 256 persons to a square mile, or 2 acres to each, which is full one half more in proportion than the population of England.

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The revenues amount to 8 d. a-year each; so that as the British revenue stood in 1815, before the abolition of the income-tax, one person in England paid as much as 180 in China.

Industry in China is, nevertheless, car ried to the highest degree; and there are not to be found in China either idle persons or beggars. Every small piece of ground is cultivated, and produces something useful; and all sorts of grain are planted, not sowed, by which more seed is saved than would supply all the inha bitants of Britain and Ireland.

In that country every one labours, and even rocks are covered with earth, and made to produce. The sides of mountains are cultivated, and irrigation is very general, and conducted with great art and care. Cloth and paper are made

from various vegetables, which in Europe are thrown aside as useless.

In one word, they neither waste time nor space, nor materials, and pay scarcely any taxes; nevertheless they are so poor, that is, they enjoy so few of the necessaries of life, that the law permits the stifling of new-born children, when the parents have not the means of bringing them up!

This account is said to be from the best authorities, and affords abundance of materials for thinking to our speculative economists; but if any thing were wanting to complete the strange result of such a population and so much industry, it is, that the Chinese despise all other nations, but most of all commercial ones, and that they have always as much as possible insisted on having gold or silver in exchange for what they sell to strangers.

Lord Amherst and suite arrived at Canton on the 1st of January. The failure of the embassy is known to have arisen from the demand of the Chinese of the abject ceremony of prostration, which Lord Amherst resisted, not only on general principles of national dignity, but on the precedent established by Lord Macartney. The embassy, though not admitted to the Emperor's presence, was, however, treated in its way back with great and indeed unexampled attention, and the persons of the suite enjoyed a degree of personal freedom greater than was ever before enjoyed by any foreigners.

The last despatches from Captain Maxwell of the Alceste frigate, at Canton, communicate very important geographical information. It appears, that after the ships under his direction quitted the Gulf of Pe-tche-lie, they stood across the Gulf of Leatong, saw the great wall winding up one side of the steep mountains and descending the other, down into the gulf, and instead of meeting with the eastern coast of Corea, in the situation assigned it in the several charts, they fell in with an archipelago, consist ing of at least one thousand islands, amongst which were the most commodious and magnificent harbours; and the real coast of the Corean peninsula they found situate at least 120 miles farther to the eastward. Captain Maxwell from hence proceeded with the other ships to

the Leiou-Kieou islands where they met
with an harbour equally as capacious as
that of Port Mahon, in Minorca, expe-
riencing from the poor, but kind-hearted
inhabitants of those places, the most
friendly reception.

Africa.

AFRICAN EXPEDITION" Sierra Leone, May 12.-It is feared that all communication between Captain Campbell and Sierra Leone is cut off, by the following circumstance :-Colonel M'Carthy, governor of Sierre Leone, had received intelligence of two vessels, supposed Americans, under Spanish colours, taking in slaves, up the river Rio Noonez, at the town, whose chief has always been considered as a staunch friend of the English and the abolition, and the very man by whose means all correspondence between us and the expedition has hitherto been kept up; he is a powerful chief, and a well-informed man, having been educated in England, and always been in the English pay; that is, receiving valuable presents from time to time from the governor. The Colonial brig was sent to ascertain whether it was so. On her arrival, finding if was the case, a message was sent to this chief, requesting his assistance, if necessary, in capturing these vessels (a brig and schooner, well manned and armed,) who apparently seemed determined to make a desperate resistance. He not only refused, but sent word to say, that if attacked, he would protect them to the utmost of his power. Notwithstanding, they were attacked the same evening, and carried in the most gallant manner. On gaining possession, the vessels lying nearly alongside the bank of the river, the comman. der of the Colonial brig finding himself completely exposed to the natives, who assailed him on all sides with musketry, arrows, &c. was obliged, in his own defence, to turn the guns of the vessels upon them. The consequence was, that in the morning the banks of the river were covered with dead. The vessels have since arrived at Sierra Leone. This unfortunate occurrence taking place before the expedition is out of his territories, he no doubt will avenge himself by annoying them we are all afraid so."

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MAY.

BRITISH CHRONICLE.

Lord Sidmouth's Circular.-Opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown, referred to in the Circular Letter from Viscount Sidmouth, to his Majesty's Lieutenants of Counties in England and Wales, dated 27th March 1817.

We are of opinion that a warrant may be issued to apprehend a party charged on oath for publishing a libel, either by the Secretary of State, a judge, or a justice of the peace.

With respect to the Secretary of State in the case of Entick v. Carrington, as reported by Mr Hargrave, though the Court were of opinion the warrants, which were then the subject of discussion, were illegal, yet Lord Camden declared, and in which, he stated, the other judges agreed with him, that they were bound to adhere to the determination of the Queen v. Derby, and the King v. Earbury; in both of which cases it had been holden, that it was competent to the Secretary of State to issue a warrant for the apprehension of a person charged with a scandalous and seditious libel; and that they, the judges, had no right to overturn those decisions.

With respect to the power of a judge to issue such warrant, it appears to us, that at all events, under the statute of the 48th Geo. III. ch. 58, a judge has such power, upon an affidavit being made in pursuance of that act; a judge would probably expect that it should appear to be the intention of the Attorney-General to file an information against the person charged.

With respect to a justice of the peace, the decision of the Court of Common Pleas in the case of Mr Wilkes' libels only amounts to this that libel is not such an actual breach of the peace as to deprive a member of parliament of his privilege of parliament, or to warrant the demanding sureties of the peace from the defendant; but there is no decision or opinion that a justice of the peace might not apprehend any person not so privileged, and demand bail to be given to answer the charge. It has certainly been the opinion of one of our most learned predecessors, that such warrants may be issued and acted upon by justices of the peace, as appears by the cases of Thomas Spence and Alexander Hogg, in the year 1801. agree in that opinion, and therefore think that a justice of the peace may issue a warrant to apprehend a person, charged by information on oath, with the publication of a scandalous and seditious libel, and to compel him to give bail to answer such charge. Lincoln's Inn, \ Feb. 24, 1817. S

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W. GARROW. S. SHEPHERD. 2.-Academical Society. This day and yesterday, several applications were made to

the Middlesex and London Sessions, for licenses to Medical, Literary, and Philosophical Societies, which were granted. The Academical Society, to whom a license had been refused on the 18th ult. as noticed in our last month's Chronicle, again applied to the London Sessions, when, after some discussion regarding the proceedings on the former occasion, a license was granted, in terms of the petition of the Society. Some of the magistrates complained, that the sentiments which they had expressed when the petition was formerly refused, had been misunderstood or misrepresented.

3.-Duke of Wellington's Plate.-The magnificent service of plate which was sent by the Prince Regent of Portugal to this country, some months ago, as a present to the Duke of Wellington, and which is understood to be worth £200,000, has been in the possession of Mr Garard, the silversmith in Panton Street, in the Haymarket, since its arrival. Great numbers of the nobility and others have been admitted to see it. The devices are ingenious and appropriate, and the workmanship of the most exquisite description. Among other articles, there are fifteen dozen of plates, knives, forks, and spoons, weighing about 100,000 ounces.

Fatal Boxing Match.-A fight took place a few days ago near Oxford, between two persons of the names of Clayton and Witney, which terminated in the death of the former. We hope the attention of the legislature will speedily be drawn to these disgraceful scenes; and are glad to hear that the magistrates have interfered on some occasions since, to prevent the recurrence of such brutal exhibitions.

6.-Fiars of Lanarkshire.-At the annual meeting of the Commissioners of Supply, held at Lanark on Wednesday the 30th ult., the report of a former meeting respecting the Fiars was ordered to be printed, and circulated in the county, and transmitted to the conveners of other counties, preparatory to applying for an act of parliament to regulate, more consistently and equitably, the mode of striking the fiar prices of grain in future. We have seen this report, and it goes far to prove the necessity of legislative interference in regard to this very important measure; or at least, that the present practice is, in the instance referred to, and we have reason to suspect in many others, highly objectionable.

The Army. List of Regiments now in the West Indies, America, Gibraltar, the Mediterranean, and Africa.

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13.-On Friday morning, the 9th, a dreadful fire broke out in the premises of Mr Berstall, timber-merchant, Bankside, Southwark. It being low water, the engines could not be supplied from the Thames, and the wells being very soon nearly exhausted, a tank of lime water on the South London

Gas Light Works in the vicinity, was emptied into the engines, and found extremely serviceable in extinguishing an immense body of fire arising from a pile of timber. Wherever the lime water fell on the burning materials, it not only extinguished the flame, but it was remarked, that the materials once wetted with the lime water would not again take fire. The loss to the proprietors is at least £10,000.

19.-Scots Appeal.-David Black, townclerk of Inverkeithing, against Major-Gen. Alexander Campbell of Monzie.-At the general election in 1812, the district of burghs, of which Inverkeithing is one, was keenly contested by General Campbell and the Right Honourable Sir Thomas Maitland. In this burgh there is no annual election of counsellors; but to entitle them to vote, they must be inhabitant burgesses. On the day of election, two gentlemen in the interest of General Campbell, whom Mr Black knew to have no residence within the burgh, appeared at the meeting, and tendered their votes. The friends of General Maitland protested against their votes being taken, and called on Mr Black, as returning officer, on his highest peril, to make a fair return. General Campbell also objected to some voters, and called on Mr Black to reject them both parties thus recording their opinion, that Mr Black was bound to exercise a sound discretion. Mr Black, accordingly, expressed and minuted his opinion, that the two gentlemen first alluded to had no right to vote; but he agreed to mark them in the mean time, if tendered under protest, and stated, that if an eminent lawyer, whom he meant to consult, should think the votes good, he would give effect to them in the return. This lawyer, now the Right Honourable the Chief Commissioner, gave a written opinion, that the votes should not be counted, and that Mr Black was entitled to exercise his honest discretion in such a case, and, in consequence of his knowledge of the facts, bound to make out a commission in favour of General Maitland. This was done; but General Campbell had still a majority of the commissions in his favour. Notwithstanding carrying his election, however, General Campbell presented a petition and complaint to the Court of Session, in which Mr Black was accused, in the most intemperate language, of setting law at defiance, of having incurred infamy, and of being totally unrestrained by the obligation of his oath, the fear of disgrace and condign punishment ;" and which prayed 66 that he should be fined in the statutory penalty of £500, imprisoned for six months, and de

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