and are enabled to assever that the huge fiery nose is an invention, of which the whole credit belongs to our American genius. His own modesty, indeed, leads him to intimate that he borrowed the idea from Sir J. Falstaffe, who calls Bardolph ‘Admiral' because he carries the lanthorn in the poop;' but we cannot permit him so to undervalue his talents. There is, however, one of Sir John's commentaries on the nose of his friend of which he might have made use. "'Sblood,' says Bardolph, when he could no longer bear the knight's sarcasms- 'I wish my nose were in your belly.'-' God 'a mercy!' replies Sir John, so should I be sure to be heart-burn'd:'-We quote this for the sake of observing, that there occurred a practical joke germain to this matter;' for this fiery-nosed Cockburn, we are assured, got into the very bowels of the land;' in consequence of which, the town of Havre-de-Grace and some others were destroyed, not by a metaphorical, but a real and bona fide conflagration. On this subject our parodist is very indignant; and totally forgetting who first invaded their neighbour's territory, he puts into the mouth of an old woman the following tirade against the outrageous determination of Great Britain to go to war with Ame rica, who had already-gone to war with her. 'As tottering near the smoking heap. Where Where the bed-ridden and the old Who points our hopes to realms of bliss, And thus, as farmer Caleb saith, " ACTS AS THE BULWARK OF OUR FAITH. ~~p. 118, &c. This passage affords a fair specimen of the author's powers: it is the peroration of his poem, written with peculiar care, and for poetry, pleasantry, satire, good sense, and good logic, equals, if it does not surpass, any other that we could select. The old lady, however, might, we think, have been more fairly made to complain, that it was Mr. Madison's invasion of Canada which doomed to destruction her distant cottage, and that a spark from the fire which the Americans lighted on the shores of Ontario, spread the conflagration to the banks of the Chesapeake. Bad reasoning we can equally forgive in an American old woman and an American poet; but when that poet turns statesman in his notes, we think we have a right to expect some distant respect for common sense. To this couplet 'And universal patriots grown, Feast for all victories but their own.' he subjoins the following note. Mr. S is supposed here to allude to the following resolution, which was put by Mr. Quincy, in the senate of Massachusetts, and agreed to. "Resolved, as the sense of the senate of Massachusetts, that in a war like the present, waged without justifiable cause, and prosecuted in a manner that indicates that conquest and ambition are its real motives, it is not becoming a moral and religious people to express their approbation of military or naval exploits, which are not immediately connected with the defence of our sea-coast and soil." It is somewhat remarkable, that the very same individuals, who thus thought it unbecoming "a moral and religious people" to rejoice in the victories of their country, feasted most lustily for the Russian victories.'-p. 218. By this admirable piece of ratiocination the author thinks he proves that those who deemed it unbecoming a moral and religious people to wage unjustifiable war, or to express approbation of exploits prompted by a spirit of conquest and ambition, must therefore think it unbecoming to rejoice for the ill success of unjustifiable war, and for the successful defence of native and national independence. Our We have Our readers are tired of this stuff, and so are we. waded through the text with weariness, and through the notes with contempt for the author's powers, and indignation at his principles: he is the libeller of every thing in America that is not mean and wicked; and we regret that we cannot ascertain distinctly the objects of his abuse, as we should be satisfied by this evidence, that they were worthy men and good citizens. ART.IX. 1. Resolutions of a General Meeting of the Committee of Ship-Owners for the Port of London, held the 9th April, 1812. 2. Various Returns of Thames and Indian-built Shipping, PrizeShips, &c. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed in the Session 1813. WE anticipated the extension of a few months which has been given by parliament to the indulgence of admitting Indianbuilt ships to a registry in Great Britain, in order to allow time for fixing finally, in the present session, the future fate of those ships. Meanwhile the London ship-builders have not been idle. By the circulation of papers among the members of the House of Commons, by tavern resolutions, and by various other means which wealth can command, they have endeavoured to excite alarm, and to prejudice the public against building ships in our Indian territories, or admitting those already built to any share of the commerce of the United Kingdom. We have heard, with very sincere regret, that some of those to whom commerce owes many benefits, are about to become advocates for this exclusion; for we are persuaded that this measure, if carried into effect, will give to one of its most valuable branches, a cruel, perhaps a mortal blow. Be this as it may, we would entreat a moment's attention to a brief and plain statement of the question at issue. It will hardly be denied, we conceive, that all Indian-built ships (but we shall at present confine our observations chiefly to those built at Bombay) are entitled to all the rights and privileges of British-built ships, without further interference of the legislature. The principle of our navigation laws, as set forth in the 12th Charles II. chap. 18, and 7th and 8th William III. chap. 22, extends certain rights and privileges to ships built in Great Britain, or in lands, islands, colonies, plantations or territories belonging to his Majesty, or in his possession; and grants to foreign nations the right of importing the produce of their respective territories into Great Britain in their own ships: a subsequent act (26th Geo. III, chap. 69,) specifies the terms on which such ships may be registered. In the 12th Charles II, our eastern possessions were confined to Bantam, Amboyna, and a few factories on the continent of India; those in America were in their infancy, and peopled chiefly with men not well affected to the restoration of the monarchy; yet still it was deemed but just to secure to them, in this act, the rights of fellow-subjects. In the reign of William III, when the navigation act was amended, we had acquired from the crown of Portugal the island of Bombay, which was then, as it still is, held by the East India Company immediately of the crown, as part of the manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent, on the payment of £10 per annum, in gold, which sum continues to be regularly so paid. Ships built at Bombay, therefore, are indisputably entitled by law to all the rights and privileges which attach to ships launched from the banks of the Thames, whether at East Greenwich in the county of Kent, or Blackwall in the county of Middlesex. But these rights are not confined to Bombay; as all the provinces and islands since obtained in India, whether by cession or conquest, are included in the description of territories belonging to or in his Majesty's possession.' These were in fact expressly declared to be so, in the act of last session, which granted them to the East India Company for a limited time, (a twenty years lease,) to be held without prejudice to the undoubted sovereignty of the crown of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and we think it will hardly be contended that the British born subjects resident in those territories were meant to be included in that lease, and turned over like the serfs on a Russian estate, or the live-stock on one of our farms. On the contrary, with these facts before us, we shall be borne out in asserting that the native inhabitants of those territories have thus become our fellow-subjects, acknowledging the same sovereign, protected and governed by the same parliament, and submitting to the same laws, except in those cases where parliament has thought it wise and just to leave them subject to their own actions, laws and customs. Those laws are administered in the principal settlements by British courts of justice, under judges appointed by the King; the revenues of the country are applied to defray the charges of those courts, and the defence of the country, under the management of the East India Company and the controul of parliament for a limited time, when the surplus revenue, if any, will be accounted for with the British government. It is not indeed denied that, under the navigation acts of Charles and William, India-built ships have the right of importing into this country the produce and manufactures of the country in which they were actually built; but by an omission in the act of 26th Geo. III, chap. chap. 69, which regulates the registry of ships, or rather we should say by a quibble in the interpretation of this act, they are debarred from the enjoyment of those privileges which were unquestionably intended to them in common with those granted to other foreign possessions of his Majesty. By this act it is provided that the governors and principal officers of his Majesty's revenues or customs, in places abroad, should register and grant the certificates of registry; but as the governors and principal officers of customs in India are under the East India Company and not officers of the crown, and therefore not described in the register act, such certificates have been withheld. To us, at least, this appears to be somewhat absurd. These governors must be approved by the king, and may be recalled by him; and the officers of the customs are remotely officers of the British revenue, the surplus revenues being applicable to the state after certain expenses have been discharged. These opinions are not merely ours, they are those of our ablest statesmen :-of the late Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville and Lord Dartmouth; the Marquis of Wellesley and Lord Grenville. Let us examine the grounds then on which the ship-builders or, which is nearly the same thing, the ship-owners, of the port of London, petition parliament, that in future East India-built ships may be prohibited by statute from being admitted to registry, and to the privileges of British-built ships.' We shall find them all set forth in the Resolutions of their committee of the 9th April, 1812. In the first of these Resolutions it is stated, that while they contemplate the advantages which they expect to reap by a free intercourse with India, they look with the utmost alarm to the dangerous and destructive consequences from the great influx of East India-built ships.' From this dreadful shock it might be supposed that whole fleets of these black-ships' had been introduced into the general trade of the nation. Among the Returns laid before the House of Commons the last session, is one of all the ships built in India and admitted to registry from 1st January, 1794, to 5th April, 1813; from which it appears that the total number is 76, and the measurement 48,438 tons. Of these ships 16 are now employed by the East India Company, trading with the country in which they were built,--their measurement 34 have been taken, burnt, lost, or worn out 11 are now in India 1 in his Majesty's service 14 unaccounted for, being small ships, and supposed to have been sold in England 76 Ships. Tons. 12,928 20,438 8,234 886 5,952 48,438 |