In opening the budget of 1808, the chancellor of the exchequer stated the supplies which had been voted to be 48,653,1701., from which was to be deducted the proportion furnished by Ireland, viz. 5,713,6011., which would leave a sum to be defrayed by Britain of 42,933,6011. The ways and means amounted to 43,076,0001. The loan for England and Ireland was ten millions and a half, of which eight were for the use of this country. The whole sum was to be funded in the 4 per cents, and the contractors for every 100/. advanced to the public were to receive 118 : 3 : 6, so that the public paid, for every 100/. capital, 4 : 14 : interest. In consequence of the loan of ten millions and a half, there was a capital of debt created to the amount of 12,408,3751., from which, after deducting a proportion of two seventeenths for Ireland, making 2,954.3751., there would remain as a permanent burthen upon Great Britain 9,454,0001., and an annual charge for interest of 475,536/.
Among the changes in military arrangement pro duced by the new ministry, was that of substituting a local militia for the unrcgimented levy of 200,000 men from the whole population, which the late ministry had determined on calling out and training to arms. This local militia was to be balloted for in the different counties, in proportion to the deficiency of volunteers in each, between 18 and 31 years of age ; nor were ex emptions to be made but at a very high fine. The offi cers were to possess the same requisites as to property as those of the existing militia, except in one instance, namely, that whoever had held the rank of a field offi cer in the army might hold the same rank in the militia, without such qualification. Volunteer corps might, if they chose, transfer themselves, with the approbation of his majesty, into this local militia. The period of service during the year was to be 2S clays, exclusive of the clays for assembling, marching, for which pay was to be allowed. The expense was calcu lated not to exceed the present volunteer establishment. It would not exceed four pounds per man for the year. Having a regimental force of 400,000 men, in addition to the regular army of 200,000, which might, if occa sion required, be augmented to :25040, the empire might be considered as secure.
Beaten and overawed by the armies of France, the Emperor Alexander sought refuge from the disgrace of submitting to Bonaparte, in affecting to be his cor dial ally ; and pretending to have changed his whole opinion of the true interests of Europe, joined with his recent conqueror in a plan for its partition. Almost immediately after the capture of Copenhagen, he de clared war against England ; complaining that she had harassed the Russian trade ; that she had refused his proffered mediation for a peace with France ; that in the late war against France, a war instigated by her self, she had promoted only her own selfish ends, and had sent out expeditions to Naples, Buenos Ayres, Si cily, and Egypt ; finally, that she had seized upon the Danish fleet. Austria and Prussia were also obliged to declare war against English commerce, though they had the decency not to accompany their declaration with a complaining manifesto.
The treaty of Tilsit was hardly concluded, when Bo naparte turned his views to the West, and resolved on the subjugation of Portugal and Spain. Perhaps it was his first design not to overthrow the thrones of these kingdoms, but, under the veil of alliance and union, to reduce them to the same abject dependence as the con federations of the Rhine, Holland, and Switzerland. With this view he had called the flower of the Spanish troops to serve in his late sanguinary campaigns in Ger many and Poland. Through his ambassador, Beauhar nois, at the court of Madrid, he fomented discord in the royal family of Spain, that he might assume to him self the arbitration of their differences. The French ambassador suggested to Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, the idea of intermarrying with a princess related to the Emperor Napoleon. The anxiety of the prince of As turias to avoid an union with another lady, selected for him by his greatest enemies at court, induced him to acquiesce in the proposition of Beauharnois, with the re servation, that it was to meet with the approbation of his royal parents; and he wrote a letter, signifying his wishes to the French emperor. This clandestine communica
tion, and other circumstances artfully prepared, gave colour to an accusation insidiously prepared against the innocent prince. A few days after he wrote the letter to Beauharnois, he was arrested and confined in the monastery of St Lawrence. On the 3 lst of October, all the members of the different councils of state being assembled, a declaration by the king was read to them, stating a discovery that the prince of Asturias had form ed a conspiracy for dethroning his father. He had been surprised, it was said, in his own apartments, with the cyphers of his correspondence, which were laid before the council of Castile, with instructions for them to in vestigate the whole matter. The whole Spanish nation instantly suspected, that the pretended conspiracy was an infamous calumny, fabricated by Godoy, the Prince of Peace, and Bonaparte, for the purpose of removing the only obstacle which then opposed their designs. The imprisonment of the Prince of Asturias, and the decree against his person, produced an effect quite con trary to the expectations of the favourite Godoy, who now receded in fear, and pretended to moderate a re • conciliation between the royal parents and their son. He dictated penitential letters from Ferdinand to both the king and the queen, and made the Prince of Asturias sign them while a prisoner. There is nothing in these confessions of a very heinous nature ; and they may all be fairly supposed to allude to the step which Ferdi nand had taken, in writing to Napoleon wittiout the king's knowledge on the subject el his marriage. But a decree, which had been addressed to all the clergy, ordaining a solemn thanksgiving to God for the king's dehverance, was meant to preserve the idea, that the prince had harboured designs against his father's go vernment, if not against his life. On the 5th of No vember, a royal edict as addressed to the governor ad interim of the council of Castile, declaring that the voice of nature having disarmed the hand of vengeance, the king had been moved by pity, and the intercession of the que( n, to pardon his penitent son, who had 'given information against the authors of the parricidal design. Such was the state of affairs, when a French courier arrived at the royal palace of St Lawrence, with a treaty concluded and signed at Fountainbleau, on the 27th of October, by Isquierido, the plenipotentiary of his Ca tholic majesty, and Martial Duroc, in the name of the French emperor. By this treaty it was agreed, among other articles, that the province of Entre Minho y Duero should he made over in entire property and sovereignty to the king of Etruria, with the title of king of Northern Lusitania. The province of Alentejo and the kingdom of the Algarves, in entire property and sovereignty to the Prince of Peace, to be by him enjoyed under the title of Prince of the Algarves. The provinces of Beira tras los Montes, and Portuguese Estremadura, were to remain undisposed of till there should be a general peace. The kingdom of northern Lusitania, and the principality of the Algarves, were to acknowledge, as their protector, his Catholic majesty the king of Spain, and in no case were to make peace or war without his consent. In case of the provinces of Beira and Portu guese Estremadura devolving at a general peace to the house of Braganza, in exchange for Gibraltar, Trinidad, and other colonies which the British had conquered from Spain and her allies, the new sovereign of these provinces was to contract, with respect to his Catholic majesty, the same obligations as the king of Northern Lusitania, and to hold his territories on the same con ditions. The king of Etruria ceded that kingdom in full property and sovereignty to the emperor of the French and the king of Italy. By a secret convention, it was agreed that French troops were to be admitted into Spain, where they were to be joined by bodies of Spanish troops, and marched into Portugal. Another body of French troops, to the number of 40,000, • were to be assembled at Bayonne before the end of Novem ber, to be ready to enter Spain in case the English should send reinforcements to Portugal.