belonging to your memorialists, together with their respective cargoes, were immediately seized and detained in the various ports of Spain, and shortly after disposed of by order of the government of that country, whereby your memorialists have sustained great and most grievous inconvenience and loss. That after the before-mentioned seizure and detention of the said vessels, and before their disposal, your memorialists caused many, though ineffectual representations of the consequences thereof, to be made to the government of Spain, and prayed that restitution of their property might be made to them, in pursuance of the terms of the treaties of amity and commerce then subsisting between the two countries.-That your memorialists humbly conceive the said detention and sale of their property, to be directly against the meaning and intention of many treaties formerly made, and as they presume, then in force between this country and Spain.--That by the 36th article of this treaty of peace, concluded between the late King Charles the Second, and 'the Court of Spain, in the year 1667, it was provided, "that if it shall happen hereafter, that any difference fall out between the King of Great Britain, and the King of Spain, whereby the mutual commerce and good correspondence may be endangered, the respective subjects and people of each party shall have notice thereof given them in time, that is to say, the space of six months, to transport their merchandize and effects, without giving them in that time any molestation or trouble, or retaining, or embarking their goods, or persons."--That by the 18th article of the Treaty of Utrecht, it is provided, "That if the disputes which are composed should at any time be renewed between their said Royal Majesties, and break out into open war, the ships, merchandizes, and goods, both moveable and immoveable, of the subjects on both sides, which shall be , found to be, and remain in the ports and dominions of the adverse party, shall not be confiscated, or suffer any damage, but the space of six months on the one part, and on the other shall be granted to the said subjects of each of their said Royal Majesties, in order to their selling the aforesaid things, or any other their effects, or carrying away and transporting the same from thence, whithersoever they please, without any molestation." --That in conformity to the said articles, and the reliance placed by your memorialists on the due observance of the terms thereof, the respective treaties in which they are contained, then remaining in full force, and the principle thereof acknowledged, your

memorialists presumed to hope they should have been restored to the full enjoyment of all their property so seized and detained in the ports of Spain, by virtue of the said proclamation. But it was at that time thought proper by the government of that country to pursue a contrary line of conduct; and the afore-mentioned ships, with their respective cargoes belonging to your memorialists were sold, as before stated, and no part of the produce thereof returned to your memorialists.That your memorialists having thus suffered for many years under the deprivation of a very great and valuable part of their property, have no resource but in the interference and mediation of your lordship, and they are rather emboldened to ap ply to your lordship on this occasion, not only by the natural justice of their claim to remuneration under the before-mentioned circumstances, and on the ground of the aforesaid several treaties, but also by the express terms of the 14th article of the Definitive Treaty of Peace just now signed be tween this country and France, conjointly with Spain and Holland.--That by the said 14th article of the Definitive Treaty it is expressly provided, "that all the sequestrations laid on either side, on funds, revenues, and credits, of what nature soever they may be, belonging to any of the contracting powers, or to their citizens and subjects, shall be taken off immediately after the signature of the said Definitive Treaty." And it is also, by the said article provided "that the decision of all claims among the individuals of the respective nations, for debts, property, estates, or rights, of any nature whatsoever, which should, according to received usages and the laws of nations, be preferred at the epoch of the peace, shall be referred to the competent tribunals; and that, in all those cases, speedy and complete justice shall be done in the countries wherein those claims shall be respectively preferred."That your memorialists humbly conceive, that no objection can be urged against the application of the universal principles of justice or the spirit or letter of the afore-mentioned particular treaties to their case, as now laid before your lordship, on the ground of the want of precedent; for your memorialists beg leave to remind your lordship, that at the close of the American war, a great number of owners of British vessels were in a situation exactly similar to that in which your memorialists at present unfortunately stand; their vessels, together with their cargoes, being in the French ports at the commencement of the war; and whilst there, seized, detained, condemned,

and sold, by virtue of edicts or orders issued by the court of France for that purpose; and on the settlement of peace between the belligerent powers, the government of this country, on a representation made on the part of those British owners, was pleased to interfere, and obtained for them from the government of France, the full value of the property that had been so condemned and sold. That under the aforesaid circumstances, your memorialists must suffer a very great and irreparable loss, unless the government of this country shall be pleased to exert itself on their behalf.--Your memorialists therefore, most humbly pray your lordship to take their case into your lordship's consideration; and that your lordship will be pleased to interfere, on the part of His Majesty's government, and to obtain for your memorialists, such compensation for the before-mentioned detention and sale of their property, as shall be reasonable; or to pro cure for your memorialists, such other relief, in respect of the matters before stated, as to your lordship's judgment and goodness shall seen meet.——And your lordship's memorialists, &c.

Letter to

MEMORIAL OF SHIP-OWNERS-
Lord Hawkesbury from the Agent of the
Ship-Owners, dated 22 Dec. 1802.

MY LORD, Mr. B-, during the last Sessions of Parliament, had the honour to present to your lordship, on the part of the Owners of sundry British ships which had been seized and detained in the several ports of Holland, France, and Spain, previously to the commencement of the late war with those countries, three memorials, praying your lordship's interference on the part of His Majesty's government with those several powers, for the purpose of obtaining from them soine reasonable compensation for the loss and injury sustained by the memorialists, owing to the detention and sale of their property under the orders issued in regard thereto by those governments respectively; and the answer which your lordship was pleased to return to Mr. B-on the

subject of those memorials having been communicated by him to the parties interested, they beg leave very respectfully to thank your lordship for the consideration you have had the goodness to bestow upon their case; but at the same time trust your lordship will permit them to express their apprehension from the terms of your answer, that they may have failed to state the nature of their situation with sufficient accuracy, and that you will pardon the liberty which they have presumed to take in suggesting to your reconsideration such an explanation as they

hope may induce your lordship to afford them that assistance and protection which from the equity and justice of their case they have been led humbly to request from the British government on their behalf. Your lordship, as it appears to them, may have considered that the ships alluded to in the memorials, were condemned by sentence of the Courts of Admiralty, of the respective countries therein-mentioned, for some cause originating with or after the Declaration of War between the beligerent powers, which would subject them agreeably to the rule of the law of nations to the penalty of confiscation, whereas the property in question had in fact entered into, and was remaining at the respective times of the seizure thereof, in the ports where it was seized in the innocent course of peaceful commerce, and with entire cofidence on the part of the British owners; that all their rights therein were intitled to be held sacred and inviolable, a confidence in which they had the greater rea-son to rely in as much as if a difference of opinion should be entertained as to the general rule of law, applying to cases so circumstanced, when unrestrained by any conventional regulations, but which the memo rialists scarcely think can prevail, consistently with justice and equity, still they were entitled expressly to protection in that respect under the faith of treaties in which it had been reciprocally contemplated and agreed between Great-Britain and the several powers to whom those ports belonged; amongst other the provisions and stipulations therein-contained, that in case of any war thereafter breaking out, six months should be allowed to their respective subjects for the removing of their merchandize and effects, or otherwise disposing of them as they should see fit, whereas even before any Declaration of War, solemn or unsolemn, the said ships and cargoes in question were not only detained but sold as stated in the said memorials. Under all which circumstances it appears to the British owners interested in this unfortunate affair, and as they trust it will to your lordship, that in whatever form, or by whatever tribunal their property was thus ordered to be disposed of, such a sentence cannot be supported as an adjudication duly passed upon the property of the subjects of powers becoming hostile under the circumstances and relations aforesaid, or by which the same can be considered as legally divested.--A very short examination of the dates of these transactions will establish the fact, that the orders of the respective powers of Holland, France, and Spain, by virtue of wh.ch the persons app'ying to your lordship on this

occasion, were deprived of their property, were made and issued, and carried into effect, far within the time allowed for the protection of property, in case of war, by the treaties to which they have taken the liberty to refer; and they look with additional confidence to the event of this application, from your lordship's intimate acquaintance with the law of nations, and the sound principles of natural justice. Humbly presuming to hope, that your lordship will, upon reconsideration of their case, with that condescension and goodness which have always marked your lordship's conduct, be yet inclined to listen to their representation, and to procure them relief, according to the prayer of their memorials, or in such other way as it may seem most expedient to your lordship to be granted with reference to the losses they have respectively sustained. I am, my lord, with great respect, your lordship's most obedient and faithful servant.

SUMMARY OF POLITICS. MILITARY FORCE.--Upon this subject, certainly of the first importance, at this time, the public have been anxiously waiting. for that investigation which the notified motion of Mr. Windham promised to afford. That motion having, however, been so unexpectedly postponed, some observations, which the motion would, perhaps, have rendered unnecessary, may now, without any impropriety be submitted to the readers of this work.--To come at a fair view of the state of our military means, and to show the inadequacy of Mr. Pitt's project for improving these means, we must first look back at the several steps by which we have arrived at our present situation in this respect.

The moment the late cabinet, under the advice and with the decided and unreserved approbation and support of Mr. Pitt, had concluded the treaty of Amiens, they set themselves to work to reduce our military force, and, we must not forget here, that they have since declared all those to be

nature's fools," who expected that peace to last. That "peace of experiment" was bardly made, however, when they reduced the army, including militia and fencibles, from 250,000 to 126,000 men. Mr. Yorke stated, that 72,000 militia (confining ourselves now to Great Britain) were disembodied, because it was the custom to disembody the militia at the conclusion of peace. For the same reason 20,079 men of the fencible regiments were inmediately disbanded. Invalids to the amount of 5,172 men were reduced and scattered over every part of the iingdom, whence, when the signal of war was again given, they were called together,

to their great inconvenience and injury, which must, doubtless, have caused a considerable reduction in their numbers. There were, 7,025 men discharged, of whom no description was given; but, allowing these to have been entitled to their discharge, there were 8,945 belonging to foreign corps discharged, and who did not want their discharge; and, of the cavalry, 10.439 men. Of these two latter descriptions we began to inlist again in ten months after the reduction took place; and, the bounty, including contingencies, of 19,438 men (a number equal to that of the foreign corps and cavalry unnecessarily discharged) cannot have amount. ed to a sum far short of 500,0001-While this work of reduction in our regular and disciplined force was going forward, the ministers did not, however, appear disposed to neglect that of a different description. So early as the 26th of June, 1802, a permanent code for the militia of England and Scotland, introduced by Mr. Yorke, was passed into a law. The number for England was fixed at 40,000 to be augmented, in case of need to 60,000 men; for Scotland, at 8,000 to be, in like case, augmented to 12,000. As soon as the parliament met again, in the autumn of 1802, a militia for Ireland (where the former militia had been completely disbanded) became a favourite object, and, on the 17th of December in that year, an act was passed for raising a militia in Ireland, amounting to 18,000 men; not by ballot, but by a bounty at two guineas each man. This bounty being, upon the approach of war, found to be too little, an act was passed, on the 7th of April, 1803, for allowing a bounty of four guineas each man for this Irish militia, and that, too, at a time, when the bounty for the regular army was still kept down at five guineas.-Soon after, however, the ministers of the "incapable" cabinet, as Mr. Pitt called it, began to see, that, having called out, or ordered to be called out, their militia and supplementary militia, consisting, in the whole kingdom of 90,000 men; having created a competition ct bounties, under which the regular army was completely at a stand; having so well succeeded in this, they began to see, after having been told of it a thousand times, that no men could be obtained, or were likely to be obtained, by the ordinary mode of recruiting, for general service, and for submis sion to regular discipline under experienced officers. They were convinced of this, They acknowledged their conviction. The manufacturers were thrown out of work, yet no regular recruits were raised. The bounties for home service had risen so bigh, that nothing but downright stupidity could lead

a wandering lad into the army. But these facts produced no good effect in the minds of the ministers. It never entered into their minds to remove the cause of the evil; to do away the fatal competition by putting a stop to the levies of the supplementary militia, which were then going on: no; but, on the contrary, to increase that competition threefold, and to render recruiting for the army perfectly desperate, by introducing and passing into a law, the project generally known under the appellation of the army of re erve; that mongrel force, to be commanded by regular officers, whose services were without limit, but the service of the men to be limited both as to time and place, five years being the period for which they were to serve, and their engagement being posi tively not to serve any where but in the United Kingdom, and the three islands, Jersey, Guernsey, and Alderney. When asked, why, if they had had a measure like this in view, they did not bring it forward sooner, the ministers answered, that, if they had so done, it would have interfered with the raising of the supplementary militia, though they had been, over and over again, told, that the raising of the supplementary militia would prevent the success of any project more efficient; and, though to this day, much more than one half of the supplementary militia has never been raised at all, we know that the army of reserve act has been carried into effect only in part. This measure was adopted in three acts of parlia ment, one, for England, passed on the 6th of July, 1803; for Scotland, on the same day; and, for Ireland, on the 11th of that month. The numbers were to be, for England, 34,000, men; for Scotland, 6,000; and, for Ireland, 10,000. Thus, if the whole of the men, intended to be raised by these acts, had actually been raised, there would have been 50,000 more, making, in the whole, 140,000 men, locked up from general service, with the exception of such as might choose to enter into the regular army, after having been enrolled in the army of reserve; and, as they were to receive a bounty for so doing, they must be regarded as being, as far as these acts operated upon them, locked up from general service. The numbers raised for the army of reserve, according to a return laid before the parlia ment in the month of May last (just before the introduction of Mr. Pitt's project), were as follows: England, 31,758; Scotland, 5,537; Ireland, 8,197. * But, as, when a sportsman tells you of the number of birds

See this Return: Parliamentary De

ba es, Vol. II. Appendix, p. lxv.

he has shot, you must always make considerable allowance not only for those that he could not find but also for those that flew away; so, when you hear an army of reserve minister stating the numbers of men he has raised, you must take good care to make a liberal deduction for casualties; that is to say, for men claimed as thieves, &c. by the civil power; and, particularly, for those that have deserted.--And here we must stop a liul, in order to take a view of the melancholy, the horrid, the disgraceful consequences, of this mode of raising an army. From the return, above alluded to, it appears, that, in England, 31,758 men were raised, under the army of reserve act; that, out of this number, 1,752 had been rejected, or claimed by the civil magistracy; and that 4,117 had deserted. Out of the 5,537 men raised, as it is called, in Scotland, 161 had been rejected or claimed as above, and `364 had deserted. In Ireland, cut of 8,197 men raised, 203 had been claimed, and, 1,170 had deserted. So that the totals stand thus: Men raised for the army of reserve.. 45,492 Rejected, or claimed as thieves,

The dead are not noticed. They were not 600 in number; and, besides, that is a head of casualties, to which every description of men is liable, though certainly not in an equal degree. The bounty, at an average of not less than 30 guineas a man, had been paid for 45,492 men, amounting to 1,432,998 1. But, of this money 66,6541. had been thrown away upon persons unfit for service, or claimed as thieves, &c.&c. by the magistracy; and, 178,0061. had been bestowed upon wretches who took it mere ly to desert with it; for, it must be observed, that, the acts began to operate in August, 1803, and that the 5, 651 men had deserted before the first of May, 1804, einbracing a space of only nine months. The money is, however, nothing in comparison. with the disgrace, the infamy, to the army, which must arise from all this desertion. Here is a measure, which had, in the month of May last, produced 37,725 effective men, and which had, during the same space of time, produced 5,651 false oaths; 5,651 acts whereby the perpetrators were, in the eye of the law, put upon a level with felons, and were, upon conviction, rendered liable to be transported, or put to death! And, were we, then, reduced to such