country to Europe, produce which they had imported into the former in the same bottoms, from the colonies of our enemies, have exactly the same exculpatory facts to allege; the defence, on this ground alone, might justly forfeit the credit which it in the first instance received. It would be strange, indeed, if so many men, had all been accidentally, and reluctantly, driven to consult their own interest to the utmost possible advantage, through a disappointment in their more abstinent views; and compelled to go eventually to the best markets, instead of selling, as they designed, at the worst.

Too much time may perhaps appear to have been spent on the history of these circuitous voyages, which, though an extensive, form but a single branch, of the abuses I wish to expose.

It was however not unimportant to shew in it, the true subject of those violent clamours with which the public ear has been lately assailed. The recent invectives of the Moniteur, and the complaints of the American merchants, which have been echoed by our own newspapers, and falsely alleged to have produced concessions from his Majesty's government, have all had no sounder foundation, than the late conduct of our prize courts as here explained, in regard to this indirect trade. The sole offence is that those

tribunals, finding themselves to have been deceived for years past by fallacious pretexts, have resolved to be cheated in the same way no longer. They have laid down no new rule of judgment, but only learned to be more circumspect than before in the admission of excuses by which a subsisting rule was evaded. It is on this account only, and the consequent capture of some American West Indiamen supposed to be practising the usual fraud, that we are accused of insulting the neutral powers, of innovating on the acknowledged law of nations, and of treating as contraband of war, the produce of the West India Islands (C).

Though these collusive voyages, are the most general abuse of the indulgence given by the royal instructions, and are a mode of intercourse with the hostile colonies, peculiarly productive of a fraudulent carriage for the enemy on his own account under neutral disguise, the suppression of the practice would by no means remedy the enormous evils which result from that intercourse in general.

An adherence by our prize tribunals to their recent precedents, will perhaps put a stop to the re-exportation from neutral ports, of the same

(C) See Appendix.

colonial produce, in the same identical bottom, and on account of the same real or ostensible owners by whom it was imported; but a change of property in the neutral country, will be a false pretence easily made, and not easily detected (D): nor will the substitution of a different vessel, add very much to the trouble or expence of the transaction. Two ships arriving about the same time, in the same harbour, may commodiously exchange after landing their cargoes, and proceed with them to the same places of destination. A transhipment does not indeed, according to the established rules of judgment in the prize court, legalize a transaction which would have been unlawful if continued in the same bottom; nor would the landing the goods and re-shipping them in a different bottom, be considered, in the case supposed, as any better than a transshipment; but by such an expedient the transaction might be effectually concealed. In short, new methods of carrying the produce of the hostile colonies to any part of Europe, will not be wanting, nor will there be any dearth of means for amply supplying those colonies with the manufactures of their parent states, so long as both are permitted not only to be brought to, but export

(D) See Appendix.

ed from, a neutral country, according to the existing instruction.

Having shewn how much has been indulgently conceded to the neutral flag, in respect of the colonial trade of our enemies, and how much more it has licentiously and fraudulently assumed, I proceed to notice, as briefly as possible, the highly alarming effects.

The mischief, to correct which the rule of the war 1756 was first applied, was of a partial and limited kind. In that war, neutral ships, though admitted into some of the colonial ports of France, were by no means the sole carriers of their produce or supplies. The enemy continued to employ his own commercial flag, as far as his inadequate power of protecting it extended; and neutrals were rather partners in, than assignees of, the national monopoly.

In the American war, their participation in this commerce was still more limited.

But during the last war, and in the present, a far more comprehensive innovation has taken place. France and Holland have totally ceased to trade under their own flags, to or from the ports of of their colonies; and have appa

any

rently assigned the whole of these branches of their commerce, to the merchants of neutral

states.

Spain, though with more hesitation, and by gradual advances, has nearly made as entire a transfer of all her trade with her colonies on the Atlantic, and if any reservation now remains, it is in respect of some part only of the specie and bullion, for conveying which a ship of war or two may be occasionally risqued. Even those most valuable exports, have been largely intrusted to the neutral flag at Vera-Cruz, Carthagena, La Plata, and other ports; while the still more important commerce of the Havannab, and of Cuba in general, has known no other protection*.

Of the French colonies in the Antilles, of Cayenne, and Dutch Guiana, while that country was hostile to us, of the Isles of France and Bourbon, of Batavia, Manilla, and of all other Asiatic settlements which have remained under a flag hostile to this country, it may be truly affirmed that neutrals have been their only carriers. The mercantile colours of their respective countries, and of their confederates, have been absolute strangers in their ports. Even the gum trade of

* Cases of the Flora, Arnold, Gladiator, Emelia, Vera Cruz, &c. &c. at the Cockpit.