The Recorder, Or, Lady's And Gentleman's Miscellany

FROM A BALTIMORE PAPER.

By the Ship Anthony Mangin, arrived here on Saturday from London, which place she left March 27th, we have received London papers to that date: The definitive treaty was not signed; a categorical answer was to be given on the 15th. Warlike preparations were going on in England, supposed by some as certain indications of approaching hostility, and by others as steps of precaution. The most profound secrecy with which the negotiations at Amiens is conducted, hides the causes of delay, or leaves them to conjecture, and excludes data by which to judge the issue of the negociations: the opinion seems more prevalent that the treaty will not be signed. Orders for victualling the channel Fleet for five months, under Cornwallis, the immediate sailing of so sail of the line, &c. have given rise to the belief that the ministry do not expect the signing the definitive treaty: some of the London editors appear rather in the belief that the warlike preparations are merely cautionary, and that the negociations at Amiens will terminate according to the general wishes of the world.

We subjoin the remarks of the editor of the Sun of the 11th March.

We view the situation of the country, at the present moment, not as some persons do with despondency, but certainly not without a great degree of anxiety. We are anxious, not so much to see the definitive treaty signed, not so much to be nominally at peace with France, but that we should be at peace with a reasonable hope of continuing so. The clamor raised against the former ministers was, they did not really wish for peace--the cry set up, amongst some persons, against the present is, that they wish for it upon any terms. These accusations are equally unfounded. If the pressure upon the people has been great, the circumstances of the times have been unprecedented. Not only have we been driven and forced to war, but no candid man will confidently say, that from its commencement to the present hour, we could have closed it without a sacrifice of our honor and independence. The spirit of party we know, has dictated another language. We have heard it said, that it depended upon ministers to terminate the war whenever they chose; but this assertion is contradicted by every notorious fact. The most favorable opportunity for obtaining peace, since the commencement of the war, appeared to be that which the present ministers so readily seized. We hope they will obtain it; but sure we are, that they will do every thing in their power for that purpose, consistent only with the honor and safety of the nation; and if they are required to sacrifice these, they will be as little ready to concede them as the country would be to justify them, if they ventured to make such concession. We do not presume to state, with any degree of accuracy, what may have passed in the course of the present negociation. It has been generally understood, the two questions in the preliminaries which remained for discussion, that which relates to the settlement of the island of Malta, and that which respects the payment of the expense of prisoners of war, have not yet been brought to a point. As to the first, any settlement of it, which would in fact give to France the dominion over it, we should look upon as entirely inconsistent with the spirit of the preliminaries; the other we consider as a subject of less importance; but it is clear, that according to the law of nations, to which the question is referred, each nation is bound to pay the expense of the maintenance of its own subjects when prisoners in an enemy's country.

If, as we have heard it reported, new pretensions have been brought forward, by France, we should look upon such pretensions, according to the nature of them, either as evidence of insincerity in the whole negociation, or as urged only to be again conceded as the price of some other condition, which it was the real purpose of the negociation to obtain. If it is the object of Buonaparte to be acknowledged as president of the Italian republic, although we do not think the question itself of great consequence, yet even that point might be brought forward in such a disposition as to render it impossible to concede it; and it will always be recollected that there can be no justice in such a proposal, as it is a title acquired by the chief consul since the signature of the preliminaries. The quo animo must be as much the subject of consideration with his majesty's ministers, as the matter itself which is brought forward for discussion in the course of negociation.

But we feel with many of our countrymen that it is essential to our interests that the negociation should not be permitted to continue to be protracted. There can be no fair ground to lengthen it; and it is evidently disadvantageous to this country, that it should long continue in its present state. Ministers we know are aware of this, and we are satisfied that after having given time for the fair discussion of every unsettled point, after having offered every arrangement which a fair construction of the preliminaries called upon them to propose, they will insist firmly upon these fair and just pretensions, and that much time will not elapse before this important question is brought to a point. We might have inferred this from their general character and dispositions, but we have stronger ground for asserting that such will be their conduct.