made of its particular culture from coffee to sugar, and the high price of sugar, there are reasonable hopes that, under due and proper management, the whole debt due from this. plantation or its proprietor (who has no other property) may be paid; yet, if it were now brought to sale, under sequestration by the laws of the colony, it would probably not sell for so much as the amount of the mortgage due to the Dutch merchant, with the arrears of interest on the same: whereby, in the event of such a sale, the Dutch mortgagee, being the first incumbrancer, would be paid, and the whole sum of eighty-five thousand pounds sterling due to the British creditors, and the value of the reversion of the plantation to its present English proprietor, would be both utterly and for ever lost to them and to this country, to the entire ruin of the greater part of them and of their families.

Their case is by no means singular, and your lordship, while you feel for them, sees that an individual national loss of eighty-five thousand pounds sterling, operated upon by a very small multiplier, becomes a consideration of high national importance to prevent, as to the mode of doing which, according to equity, justice, and good conscience, I presume not to give an opinion, but respectfully lay the following short case before your lordship :

The legal estate of and in the plantation in question has been, and now is, as your lordship knows, in the person of the first mortgagee, who is the Dutch subject. Permit me to suppose, my lord, that the plantation itself had been absolutely his, as well as the estate at law therein. Permit me further to suppose, my lord, that, at the conquest of the colony, this plantation, as being the property of persons resident under the dominion of France, had been taken into possession of administrators appointed by his Majesty's Government, to preserve the same during the war, in order to be restored to the proprietor at the end of the same. In that case, my lord, this plantation, like many others, must have become, as many have,

part of the primitive wilderness again (which, in cases of abandonment under a tropical sun, is not a tedious change), unless the administrators had been suffered to expend "public money" in its support, its own revenues having been utterly and entirely, for a number of years, inadequate to that support.

If such an expenditure of public money had been permitted, from a compassionate regard to the fallen and unfortunate condition of the Batavian enemy, permit me now to carry your lordship's attention to whither the country is now happily so nearly arrived, viz., to the period of peace, and very respectfully to ask whether, in justice, equity, or good conscience, or even in common modesty, our late enemy, having been accessory to modes of hostility unprecedented and unwarranted by the laws of nature and of nations, whereby had been so well nigh ruined his own estate in our public custody, whether such our late enemy could reasonably come forward and demand his estate back again, without repayment of the sums of public money so expended to preserve it during such unnatural hostility of the Government which that enemy himself obeyed.

But if such a proposition require no comment, surely, if it was further demanded by such late enemy not only to have his estate back without such repayment, but also that the British nation or Government should pay him interest for the whole period of such war, for the capital he had invested in that estate previous to the war, all mankind would be shocked at the unreasonableness and absurdity of such a requisition.

The English creditors, whose money has been invested in the supply and preservation of the plantation in question, leaving out all consideration of the proprietor reversionist, surely have a right to be in justice considered as the public whereof they constitute individuals in the foregoing case, which is precisely and literally THEIR case. They entreat

your lordship's consideration of the same, and that, in their behalf and that of others similarly circumstanced, some temporary measure of his Majesty's Government may be adopted, or kept in force, to prevent their interest from being lost, and themselves being ruined, by their property being suddenly swallowed up by summary proceedings in the colony by the first mortgagee, so lately their and the public enemy, until some final determination is taken concerning that colony and the British interest therein; for it is nineteen-twentieths British, both in capital and population, at a general pacification.

If anything further were wanting than the bare statement of the foregoing case to warrant, or rather to claim, the interference of his Majesty's Government, in the protection of the interests of his loyal subjects, it would be found in this important circumstance, namely, that though, for the sake of simplicity, it has been stated that the first mortgage is the property of a Dutch merchant, resident in Amsterdam, and although the fact be that the mortgage deed runs in his name, yet he is only trustee for others, or what is called in Holland, "director of the loan," which constitutes the consideration for this mortgage, and which is, in fact, the property of twenty, or perhaps one hundred persons, who have subscribed one hundred or one thousand florins each, more or less, to furnish the money for the loan thus secured, and which so loses, in a great measure, the character of private contract or individual claim its entire loss could occasion the ruin of no one, for it has long been lost to the use of its proprietors; and therefore, in competition with such important individual British claims. as I have herein had the honour of submitting to your lordship (the loss of which would entirely ruin many), it is entitled to the lesser consideration. But, even if, as between British and Dutch, their claims were less unequal, I submit to your lordship that there is no case to which the maxim "ut res major caleat" is more strictly applicable than to the present.

I entreat your lordship's excuse for the length of this letter, which I conclude, saying that, by me and those concerned with and like me in this matter, it would be received as an especial kindness, if your lordship would permit me to have the honour of a very short conversation, wherein I might state and explain what further is interesting in the premises. I remain very respectfully, &c.,

ALEXANDER GIBBON.

Lord Keith to Lord Castlereagh.

Basque Roads, April 17, 1814.

My dear Lord-I have been here for some days, where generally every thing seems to have been as well received as is possible. I sailed in company with two large convoys: one of them, with the troops on board, was in sight of this anchorage yesterday, with a contrary wind. Had it been within reach of signal, I should have called the commander to anchor, as, under existing circumstances, there appears little occasion to incur expense and delay, by disembarking troops and landing stores in the Garonne or at Passages. I cannot precisely learn where Lord Wellington is at present; but I have written to his lordship and to Admiral Penrose, now in the river of Bordeaux, my opinion on the above subject, as it is natural to expect that orders will be sent from England in a short space for our guidance; but sea-voyages being at all times uncertain, obliges me to give your lordship the trouble of this letter, to request instructions. Perhaps by way of Paris is the shortest and most certain way to communicate with Britain.

A very pleasant part of duty remains, which is to congratulate your lordship on all the fortunate and great events which have of late taken place, under your more immediate eye and management, and to assure your lordship of the sincere esteem and high respect with which I have the honour to be your lordship's most obedient, most obliged, faithful servant,

KEITH.

Lord Keith to Lord Castlereagh.'

The General Officer commanding at Rochelle is very civil, but only receives us under a flag of truce, and expects our officers to show a passport before the Mayor. To this I object, as I only permit officers of rank to land at all. Nor can our Commissaries land to make purchases of meat and vegetables for the men, but through the medium of a French agent—not perhaps the cheapest mode. If your lordship would be so good as mention these circumstances in the proper quarter, I have no doubt orders would be sent to leave the management of the intercourse to the French general and my discretion, although the nations are not actually at peace.

I have the honour to be very sincerely, &c.,

Mr. Hamilton to Lord Castlereagh.

KEITH.

Foreign Office, April 18, 1814.

My dear Lord-As it is possible that you may still be detained at Paris for some time, I feel a great inclination to remind you of the different missions which ought to be filled up at an early period, but which will remain as they are, unless you express to Lord Liverpool your wishes on the subject. 1. Envoy and Secretary to Denmark.

2. Secretary to Sardinia.

3. Minister to Portugal.

4. Ditto to Hambro'.

5. Ditto to Wirtemberg.

6. Plenipotentiaries to treat with the Americans.

Gallatin and Boyard are now in England, one having come on his way to America, the other on his way to Gottenburg, to which place they are now both appointed. They both profess very amicable dispositions, and seem anxious to have un

1 Without date. Indorsed-"State of the Intercourse with the French Coast.-Mr. Gordon has acted upon this."-EDITOR.