HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
publican officer of the Louvestein 
party, entered East Friesland at the 
head of another part of the Dutch 
army, and reduced that province to 
obedience. At the conclusicn of 
the campaign, King Lewis returned 
to the Hague; and having there 
assembled the states of his king- 
dom*, he made them an opening 
speech, in imitation of the orations 
which his brother Napoleon ad- 
dresses, on similar occasions, to the 
legislators of France. In_ this 
speech he ingenuously owns that 
the finances of Holland are in the 
greatest possible disorder,, and that 
its foreign commerce is nearly an- 
nihilated : nor does he hold out the 
expectation of any solid improve- 
ment in these particulars till the 
return of peace, on the restoration 
of which he announces many great 
works and useful establishments to 
‘be undertaken. In the mean time 
he recommends two orders of knight- 
hood to be instituted, the one to be 
called the order of merit, and the 
other the order of union; and he 
informs the deputies, that enlighten. 
ed men, in various parts of the 
country, are employed in framing 
new codes of ciyil and criminal law, 
and devising new forms of judiciary 
establishment, which in due_ time 
shall be submitted to their consider- 
ation. Such is the rage of innoya- 
tion in every slip and scion of the 
imperial stock, that a country sub- 
ject to their » ra must not only 
submit to them as its masters, but 
change, at their caprice, all its. an. 
rient laws and institutions, how- 
ever useful and suitable, or venera- 
ble and respected. ‘The only con- 
solatory information in the speech 
of his Batavian majesty relates to 
* Dec. 5th. 
P4 
215, 
the. colonies still retained by the 
mother country, which he represents: 
to bein a flourishing condition. 
It shews us the notions entertained 
of representative government by the 
new military despots of the conti« 
nent,when we observe, that only three 
days before the meeting of this le- 
gislative assembly, + the king of 
Holland had, of his own authority, 
issued a royal decree, extending to 
all his dominions the provisions of 
the celebrated Berlin decrce of his 
brother Napoleon; and the ideas 
which the same class of persons ens 
tertain of the liberty of the press,. 
may be collected from the boast of 
the same royal personage to his lee 
gislature, that he had taken effec. 
. tual measures to repress the insolence 
of some journalists, who had ex- 
pressed themselves with unbecoming, - 
freedom of foreign powers. The 
journalists whom he punished might 
possibly deserve the chastisement 
they receiyed ; but thesummary pros 
ceeding"by which their licenciousness 
was checked, affords a melancholy 
sample of the subdued and degraded 
state into which the once free press 
of Holland has unhappily fallen. 
The domestic history of France, 
during the present year, is uncoms 
monly barren of incidents, and cons 
tains little else but an account of the 
journeyings and other acts of Bona- 
parte, before whom the senate, tri. 
bunate, legislative assembly, and 
other public bodies of his empire 
have dwindled into insignificance, 
‘and ceased to excite our interest or 
awaken our curiosity to their pros 
ceedings, 
Immediately after the ratification 
of the peace of Presburg, the Frenck 
emperor, haying first had an intere 
+ Dec, 1st, " 
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