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had been imposed upon Russia in the conferences of Tilsit.-But his Majesty had entertained the hope that a review of the tran sactions of that unfortunate negociation, and a just estimate of its effects upon the glory of the Russian name, and upon the interests of the Russian empire, would have induced his Imperial Majesty to extricate himself from the embarrassment of those new counsels and connections which he had adopted in a moment of despondency and alarm, and to return to a policy more congenial to the principles, which he has so invariably professed, and more conducive to the honour of his crown, and to the prosperity of his dominions.

This hope has dictated to his Majesty the utmost forbearance and moderation in all his diplomatic intercourse with the Court of St Petersburgh since the peace of Tilsit.

His Majesty had much cause for suspicion, and just ground of complaint. But he abstained from the language of reproach. His Majesty deemed it necessary to require specific explanation with respect to those arrangements with France, the concealment of which from his Majesty could not but confirm the impression already recei ved of their character and tendency. But his Majesty, nevertheless, directed the demand of that explanation to be made, not only without asperity, or the indication of any hostile disposition, but with that considerate regard to the feelings and situation of the Emperor of Russia, which resulted from the recollection of former friendship, and from confidence interrupted, but not destroyed.

The declaration of the Emperor of Russia proves that the object of his Majesty's forbearance and møderation has not been attained. It proves, unhappily, that the influence of that power, which is equally and essentially the enemy both of Great Britain and of Russia, has acquired a decided ascendancy in the councils of the Cabinet of St Petersburgh; and has been able to excite a causeless enmity between two nations, whose long established connection, and whose mutual interests prescribed the most intimate union and co-operation.

His Majesty deeply laments the extension of the calamities of war. But called upon, as he is, to defend himself against an act of unprovoked hostility, his Majesty is anxious to refute, in the face of the world, the pretexts by which that act is attempted to be justified.

The declaration asserts that his Majesty the Emperor of Russia has twice taken up arms in a cause in which the interest of Great Britain was more direct than. his own; and founds upon this assertion the

charge against Great Britain of having neglected to second and support the military operations of Russia.

His Majesty willingly does justice to the motives which originally, engaged Russia in the great struggle against France. His Majesty avows with equal readiness the interest which Great Britain has uniformly taken in the fates and fortunes of the powers of the continent.-But it would surely be difficult to prove that Great Britain, who was herself in a state of hostility with Prussia when the war broke out between Prussia and France, had an interest and a duty more direct in espousing the Prussian quarrel than the Emperor of Russia, the ally of his Prussian Majesty, the Protector of the North of Europe, and the Guarantee of the Germanic Constitution

It is not in a public declaration that his Majesty can discuss the policy of having at any particular period of the war effec ted, or omitted to effect, disembarkations of troops on the coast of Naples. But the instance of the war with the Porte is still more singularly chosen to illustrate the charge against Great Britain of indifference to the interests of her ally-a war undertaken by Great Britain at the instigation of Russia, and solely for the purpose of maintaining Russian interests against the influence of France.

If, however, the peace of Tilsit is indeed to be considered as the consequence and the punishment of the imputed inactivity of Great Britain, his Majesty cannot but regret, that the Emperor of Russia should have resorted to so precipitate and fatal a measure, at the moment when he had received distinct assurances that his Majesty was making the most strenuous exertions to fulfil the wishes and expectations of his ally (assurances which his Imperial Majesty received and acknowledged with apparent confidence and satisfaction); and when his Majesty was, in fact, prepared to employ, for the advancement of the common objects of the war, those forces which, after the peace of Tlisit, he was under the necessity of employing to disconcert a combination directed against his own immediate interests and security.

The vexation of Russian commerce by Great Britain is, in truth, little more than an imaginary grievance. Upon a diligent examination made by his Majesty's command, of the records of the British Court of Admiralty, there has been discovered only a solitary instance, in the course of the present war, of the condemnation of a vessel really Russian; a vessel which had carried naval stores to a port of the common enemy. There are but few instances of Russian vessels detained, and none in

which justice has been refused to a party regularly complaining of such detention.It is therefore matter of surprise, as well as of concern, to his Majesty, that the Emperor of Russia should have condescended to bring forward a complaint, which, as it cannot be seriously felt by those in whose behalf it is urged, might appear to be in tended to countenance those exaggerated declamations by which France perseveringly endeavours to inflame the jealousy of other countries, and to justify her own inveterate animosity against Great Britain.

The peace of Tilsit was followed by an offer of mediation on the part of the Emperor of Russia, for the conclusion of a peace between Great Britain and France, which it is asserted that his Majesty refu. sed.

His Majesty did not refuse the mediation of the Emperor of Russia, although the offer of it was accompanied by circum stances of concealment, which might well have justified his refusal. The articles of the treaty of Tilsit were not communicated to his Majesty ; and specifically that article of the treaty in virtue of which the mediation was proposed, and which pre-、 scribed a limited time for the return of his Majesty's answer to that proposal. And his Majesty was thus led into an apparent compliance with a limitation so offensive to the dignity of an independent Sovereign. But the answer so returned by his Majesty was not a refusal. It was a conditional acceptance. The conditions required by his Majesty were a statement of the basis apon which the enemy was disposed to treat; and a communication of the articles of the peace of Tilsit. The first of these conditions was precisely the same which the Emperor of Russia had himself annexed, not four months before, to his ow. ac ceptance of the proffered mediation of the Emperor of Austria. The second was one which his Majesty would have had to require, even as the ally of his Imperial Majesty; but which it would have been high ly improvident to omit, when he was invited to confide to his Imperial Majesty the care of his honour and of his interests.

But even if these conditions (neither of which has been fulfilled, although the fulfilment of them has been repeatedly required by his Majesty's Ambassador at St Petersburgh,) had not been in themselves perfectly natural and necessary, there were not wanting considerations which might have warranted his Majesty in endeavouring, with more than ordinary anxiety, to ascertain the views and intentions of the Emperor of Russia, and the precise nature and effect of the new relations which his Imperial Majesty had contracted.

The complete abandonment of the inte

rests of the King of Prussia (who had twice rejected proposals of separate peace, from a strict adherence to his engagements with his Imperial ally,) and the character of those provisions which the Emperor of Russia was contented to make for his own interests in the negotiations of Tilsit, presented no encouraging prospect of the result of any exertions which his imperial Majesty might be disposed to employ in favour of Great Britain.

It is not while a French army still occupies and lays waste the remaining dominions of the King of Prussia, in spite of the stipulations of the Prussian treaty of Tilsit; while contributions are arbitrarily exacted by Francefromthat remant ofthe Prussian Monarchy, such as, in its entire and most flourishing state, the Prussian Monarchy would have been unable to discharge; while the surrender is demanded, in time of peace, of Prussian fortresses, which had not been reduced during the war; and while the power of France is exercised over Prussia with such shameless tyranny, as to designate, and demand for instant death, individuals, subjects of his Prussian Majesty, and resident in his dominions, úpon a charge of disrespect towards the French Government; it is not while all these things are done and suffered, under the eyes of the Emperor of Russia, and without his interference on behalf of his ally, that his Majesty can feel himself called upon to account to Europe for having hesitated to repose an unconditional confidence in the efficacy of his Imperial Majesty's mediation.

Nor, even if that mediation had taken full effect, if a peace had been concluded under it, and that peace guaranteed by his Imperial Majesty, could his Majesty have placed implicit reliance on the stability of any such arrangement, after having seen the Emperor of Russia, openly transfer to France the sovereignty of the Ionian Republic, the independence of which his Imperial Majesty had recently and solemnly guaranteed.

But, while the alledged rejection of the Emperor of Russia's mediation between Great Britain and France, is stated as a just ground of his Imperia! Majesty's resentment, his Majesty's request of that mediation, for the re-establishment of peace between Great Britain and Denmark, is represented as an insult which it was beyond the bounds of his Imperial Majesty's moderation to endure.

His Majesty feels himself under no obli gation to offer any atonement or apology to the Emperor of Russia for the expedition against Copenhagen. It is not for those who were partics to the secret arrangements of Tilsit, to demand satisfac

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tion for a measure to which those arrangements gave rise, and by which one of the objects of them has been happily defeated. His Majesty's justification of the expedition against Copenhagen is before the world. The declaration of the Emperor of Russia would supply whatever was wanting in it, if any thing could be wanting to convince the most incredulous of the urgency of that necessity under which his Majesty acted.

But until the Russian declaration was published, his Majesty had no reason to suspect that any opinions which the Emperor of Russia might entertain of the transactions at Copenhagen could be such as to preclude his Imperial Majesty from under taking, at the request of Great Britain, that same office of mediator, which he had assumed with so much alacrity on the behalf of France. Nor can his Majesty forget that the first symptoms of reviving confidence, since the peace of Tilsit, the only prospect of success in the endeavours of his Majesty's Ambassador to restore the ancient good understanding between Great Britain and Russia, appeared when the intelligence of the siege of Copenhagen had been recently received at St Petersburgh.

The inviolability of the Baltic Sea, and the reciprocal guarantees of the powers that border upon it, guarantees said to have been contracted with the knowledge of the British Government, are stated as aggravations of his Majesty's proceedings in the Baltic. It cannot be intended to represent his Majesty as having at any time acquiesced in the principles upon which the inviolability of the Baltic is maintained, however his Majesty may, at particular periods, have forborne, for special reasons, influencing his conduct at the time, to act in contradiction to them. Such forbearance never could have applied but to a state of peace and real neutrality in the north and his Majesty most assuredly could not be expected to recur to it, after France has been suffered to establish herself in undisputed sovereignty along the whole coast of the Baltic Sea, from Dantzick to Lubeck.

But the higher the value which the Emperor of Russia places on the engagements respecting the tranquillity of the Baltic, which he describes himself as inheriting from his immediate predecessors, the Empress Catherine and the Emperor Paul, the less justly can his Imperial Majesty resent the appeal made to him by his Majesty as the guarantee of the peace to be concluded between Great Britain and Denmark. In making that appeal, with the utmost confidence and sincerity, his Majesty neither intended, nor can he imagine that he offer

ed, any insult to the Emperor of Russia. Nor can his Majesty conceive, that in proposing to the Prince Royal terms of peace, such as the most successful war on the part of Denmark could hardly have been expected to extort from Great Britain, his Majesty rendered himself liable to the imputation, either of exasperating the mesentment, or of outraging the dignity of Denmark.

His Majesty has thus replied to all the different accusations by which the Russian Government labours to justify the rupture of a connection which has subsisted for ages, with reciprocal advantage to Great Britain and Russia; and attempts to disguise the operation of that external influence by which Russia is driven into unjust hostilities for interests not her own.

The Russian declaration proceeds to announce the several conditions on which a lone these hostilities can be terminated, and the intercourse of the two countries renewed.

His Majesty has already had occasion to assert, that justice has in no instance been denied to the claims of his Imperial Majesty's subjects.

The termination of the war with Denmark has been so anxiously sought by his Majesty, that it cannot be necessary for his Majesty to renew any professions upon that subject. But his Majesty is at a loss to reconcile the Emperor of Russia's present anxiety for the completion of such an arrangement, with his Imperial Majesty's recent refusal to contribute his good offices for effecting it.

The requisition of his Imperial Majesty for the immediate conclusion, by his Majesty, of a peace with France, is as extraor dinary in the substance, as it is offensive in the manner. His Majesty has at no time declined to treat with France, when France has professed a willingness to treat on an admissible basis. And the Emperor of Russia cannot fail to remember that the last negociation between Great Britain and France was broken off, upon points imme diately affecting, not his Majesty's own interest, but those of his Imperial ally.

But his Majesty neither understands, nor will he admit, the pretension of the Emperor of Russia to dictate the time, or the mode, of his Majesty's pacific negotiations with other powers. It never will be endured by his Majesty, that any Government shall indemnify itself for the humiliation of subserviency to France, by the adoption of an insulting and peremptory tone towards Great Britain,

His Majesty proclaims anew those principles of maritime law, against which the armed neutrality, under the auspices of the

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Those principles it is the right and the duty of his Majesty to maintain: And against every confederacy his Majesty is determined, under the blessing of Divine Providence, to maintain them. They have at all times contributed essentially to support the maritime power of Great Britain; but they are become incalculably more valuable and important at a period when the maritime power of Great Britain constitutes the sole remaining bulwark against the overwhelming usurpations of France; the only refuge to which other nations may yet resort, in happier times, for assistance and protection,

When the opportunity for peace between Great Britain and Russia shall arrive, his Majesty will embrace it with eagerness. The arrangements of such a negociation will not be difficult or complicated. His Majesty, as he has nothing to concede, so he has nothing to require. Satisfied, if Russia shall manifest a disposition to return to her ancient feelings of friendship towards Great Britain; to a just consideration of her own true interests; and to a sense of her own dignity as an independent nation.

Westminster, December, 18. 1807.

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We had, previously to the ships com.. ing to an anchor, sent to the Governor to surrender the island to his Britannic Majesty, offering the terms we were authorised to make, which were acceded to. The troops were immediately sion of all the forts, and had the 3d landed; and before dark were in possesand 11th regiments encamped, with their field-pieces, a little to the west of the town. In regard to unanimity and cordial co-operation, it is sufficient to say, it was Sir Samuel Hood I had to act with; and the object, the service municated to all the same sentiments, of his country. His ardent zeal com. and the utmost unanimity prevailed. I had the fullest reason to be satisfied with the zeal and ardour of all the office:s and troops under my orders.

I have the honour to enclose the articles of capitulation which have been agreed upon. Capt. Murphy of the 88th regiment, Brigade Major to the Forces, will be the bearer, and communicate any further particulars your Lordship may be desirous of knowing; and I humbly recommend him to his Majesty's gracious consideration.

Terms of Capitulation for the Island of Madeira and its Dependencies, agreed upon by his Excellency the Governor and Captain General, Pedro Fagundes Bacelar d'Antas e Menzes, on the part of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of Portugal, and by Rear Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, Knight of the Bath, and Major-General Beresford, on the part of his Britannic Majesty.

ART. I. That, on signing of the present treaty, the island of Madeira and its dependencies shall be delivered up to the Commanders of his Britannic Majesty's forces, and to be held and enjoyed by bis said Majesty, with all the rights and privileges, and jurisdictions which heretofore belonged to the Crown of Portugal.

II. That it is agreed the said island shall be evacuated and redelivered to his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of Portugal, or, to his heirs and successors, when the free ingress and egress to the ports of Portugal and its colonies shall be re-established as heretofore; and when the Sovereignty of Portugal shall be emancipated from the controul or influence of Fiance.

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III. For the present, the arms and ammunition of all kinds to be delivered and placed under the possession of the British Commanders.

IV. Public property shall be respected, and redelivered at the same time, and under the same circumstances, with the island. His Britannic Majesty, during the period his troops shall occupy the island, reserving the use of all such property, and the revenues of the island, to be applied to the maintenance of its religious, civil, and military establishments. For the above purpose, all the public property, of whatever description, to be formally delivered up, and received by the Commissaries respectively appointed for that object.

V. All private property on the island of Madeira, belonging to the subjects. of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent of Portugal, to be respected.

VI. The free exercise of religious worship to be maintained, and protected as at present established.

VII. The inhabitants to remain in the enjoyment of their civil constitution, and of their laws, as at present established and administered.

'Done at the palace of St. Lorenzo, Funchale, Madeira, 26th Dec. ' 1807.

Pedro Fagundes Bacelar D'Antas E Menezes, O Governador e Capitao-General da Ilha da Madeira.

Sam. Hood, Rear-Admiral, K. B. W. C. Beresford, Major-General, Admiralty-Office, Jan. 23.

A dispatch, of which the following is an extract, has been received at this office from Rear-Ad. Sir Samuel Hood, K.B. &c. addressed to the Hon. William Wellesley Pole, dated on board his Majesty's ship Centaur, Funchale Bay, Madeira, 29th December, 1807. Extract of a dispatch from Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, K. B. &c. dated Centaur, Funchale Bay, Madeira, 29th December 1807.

SIR,

I have the pleasure to acquaint you, for the information of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, that the island of Madeira has surrendered to his Majesty's forces confided to the command of Major-General Beresford and myself.

The squadron (Centaur, York, Captain, Intrepid, Africaine, Shannon, Alceste, and Success,) and transports, arrived on the 23d, off the island of Porto Santo, and off this bay on the forenoon of the 24th; and though the ships were rather baffled by the light winds under the land, on entering the bay, every ship was anchored conformable to my wishes; and being placed within a cable's length of the forts, and the army ready to disembark, the troops were immediately allowed to land, and take possession of the principal forts. Next day we met the Governor at the Palace of St Lorenzo, and arranged the articles of capitulation, which were signed on the 26th, in the presence of the civil and military officers of the island.

As Major General Beresford will give all other particulars relative to the island to his Majesty's Secretary of State, I shall only add, from the cordial good understanding that has subsisted between us, as well as between the whole of the army and navy, had there been a resistance, every thing we could have desired was to have been expected from both services.

I have to express my entire satisfaction of the Captains, officers, and men, of his Majesty's ships on this service; and send my first Lieutenant, George Henderson, with this dispatch. He is a very excellent officer, and I must refer their Lordships to him for any further information; and I beg leave to recommend him to their Lordships' notice.

From the following letter from an officer on service at Madeira,,it will be seen that it was not expected that the conquest would have been so easy :

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"We arrived in this (Funchale) bay on the 24th of December, in 17 days from Cork. The orders which we received before we made the land, pre

pared us to expect a determined resistance, and we were for several days on the qui vive, receiving ammunition, scaling ladders, &c. from the ships of war. Ourforce consisted of four regiments aud two companies of artillery. The disposition for the attack was bold. We were to have landed immediately in front of the town, on the beach, with a line of fortified wall in our front, the whole length of the place, with several

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