National Gazette

Letters from Portugal say, that the measures resolved upon by the Supreme Council to preserve the Empire from the principles now prevailing in France, are observed with the greatest rigor. It is not only prohibited to read French newspapers, pamphlets, &c. but any even upon similar matters, or the least partial interference, whether for or against the National Assembly, is treated as a crime. Several persons, both foreigners and natives, have been seized for transgressing those laws. The French Ambassador has lately desired the Court to deliver up a Frenchman of quality, whom he knew to have been seized for speaking his thoughts with too much freedom. The Court desired the Ambassador to rescue the victim from the hands of any jurisdiction where he should find him. The strictest and most diligent search has been made on the part of the Ambassador; but he being unable to find the ill-fated object any where, matters must rest as they are. Orders have been sent to the frontiers, and to all the harbors of the kingdom, to suffer no strangers to enter the country, nor go on shore, without his having been previously examined; and some strangers must, in similar cases, obtain a special permission from the Court.

The Portuguese troops are to hold themselves in a state of complete readiness. It is reported, that the Court of Madrid has requested an army of 12,000 auxiliaries from the Queen, to which her Majesty is said to have answered, that the present crisis of the affairs of the kingdom render it dangerous to send off any troops, whose presence was more than ever necessary to maintain peace: her Majesty, however, was ready, in case the cabinet of Madrid should require, to send subsidies in money to defray the expenses of raising and maintaining 12,000 men. All the civil departments have received orders speedily to collect all standing debts, to furnish the Royal Treasury with sufficient sums for any emergency.

[London paper.]