Senegal, has been made over to neutrals, and its garrison supplied by them in return *.

But why should I enumerate the particulars of this unprecedented case, when it may be truly affirmed in few words, that not a single merchant ship under a flag inimical to Great Britain, now crosses the equator, or traverses the Atlantic Ocean.

Though to the generality of my readers this proposition may seem extraordinary, and perhaps too strange to be believed, yet it forms only part of a still more comprehensive and singular truth -With the exception only of a very small portion of the coasting trade of our enemies, not a mercantile sail of any description, now enters or clears from their ports in any part of the globe, but under neutral colours (E). My more immediate business however is with that colonial trade, which subsists by our indulgence alone; and which fraud and perjury could not rescue from our cruizers, if we did not forbear to exercise our clear belligerent rights.

The commerce which thus eludes the grasp of our naval hostilities, is not only rich and various, but of a truly alarming magnitude.

The mercantile registers at Lloyd's alone, might

*Case of the Juliana, Carsten, at the Cockpit, 1805. ! 2 (E) See Appendix.

sufficiently manifest its great extent; for they announce every week, and almost every day, numerous arrivals of ships from America, in the ports of Holland and France; and it is notorious that they are freighted, for the most part, with sugar, coffee, and the other rich productions of the French and Spanish West Indies. Indeed, when the harvests of Europe have not failed so much as to occasion a large demand for the flour and grain of North America, that country has scarcely any native commodities, tobacco excepted, that can be the subjects of such a commerce. These vessels return chiefly in ballast; but the portion of goods which they obtain as return cargoes, are stores and manufactures, destined for the supply of the hostile colonies, though previously to pass through the neutralizing process in America.

Enormous is the amount of the produce of the new world, thus poured into the south, as well as the north of Europe, under cover of the neutral flag! At Cadiz, at Barcelona, and the other Spanish ports, whether within or without the Mediterranean, neutral vessels are perpetually importing, unless when interrupted by our blockades, the sugar of the Havannah, the cocoa, indigo, and hides of South America, the dollars and ingots of Mexico and Peru; and returning with

own.

European manufactures, chiefly the rivals of our East India goods, are also imported by these commercial auxiliaries into Spain; but still more copiously into Holland and France.

Nor is it only in their own ports, that our: enemies receive the exports of America, and of Asia, in contempt of our maritime efforts.Hamburgh, Altona, Embden, Gottenburgh, Copenhagen, Lisbon, and various other neutral markets, are supplied, and even glutted with the produce of the West Indies, and the fabrics of the East, brought from the prosperous colonies of powers hostile to this country. By the rivers and canals of Germany and Flanders, they are floated into the warehouses of our enemies, or circulated for the supply of their customers in neutral countries. They supplant, or rival the British planter. and merchant, throughout the continent of Europe, and in all the ports of the Mediterranean. They supplant even the manufacturers of Manchester, Birmingham, and Yorkshire; for the looms and forges of Germany are put in action by the colonial produce of our enemies, and are rivalling us, by the ample supplies they send under the neutral flag, to every part of the New World.

Antwerp, a happy station for the exchange of such merchandize, is now rapidly thriving under the fostering care of Buonaparte. His efforts for

L

the restoration of its commerce, during the short interval of peace, produced no very splendid effects; but the neutral flags have proved far more auspicious to the rising hopes of the Scheldt, than the colours of Holland and France. Its port has become a favourite haunt of the American West Indiamen, and profits in various ways, by the sale of their valuable cargoes (F).

If we look beyond the Atlantic, and into the Eastern Ocean, we shall find the sources of this commerce, under the same benign auspices of the neutral flag, in the most thriving and productive state. Buonaparte has recently boasted, that Martinique and Guadaloupe are flourishing, in despite of our hostilities, so much beyond all former experience, that, since 1789, they have actually doubled their population*. Had he said the same also of their produce, the boast perhaps would have been far less unfounded than his assertions usually are: but he ought to have added, that since the first notice of the war, the French flag has not brought them a barrel of flour, nor exported a hogshead of their sugar. Even the ships in their harbours, that had been laden before the new hostilities were announced, were

(F) See Appendix.

*Extract from the Moniteur in the London Papers of September 2d.

ostensibly transferred with their cargoes to neutral merchants, and sailed under neutral colours.

He has vaunted also, and with truth, the prosperous state of Cayenne, and of the Isles of France and Reunion, once called Bourbon, whose pros perity is owing to the same efficacious cause; aided by their becoming warehouses for the commerce of Batavia.

The Spanish government is not so ostentatious; but its colonies are quietly reaping the fruit of that fortunate revolution, the suspension of their prohibitory laws. The neutral flag gives to them not only protection, but advantages before unknown. The gigantic infancy of agricul ture in Cuba, far from being checked, is greatly aided in its portentous growth during the war, by the boundless liberty of trade, and the perfect security of carriage (G). Even slaves from Africa are copiously imported there, and doubtless also into the French islands, under American colours. -America indeed has prohibited this commerce, and wishes to suppress it; but our enemies can find agents as little scrupulous of violating the law of their own country, as the law of war; and so wide has been our complaisance to depredators on our belligerent rights, that even the

(G) See Appendix.