The Sun. — London, England, 1832-08-15 00:00:00

SPIRIT.,OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS, An excellent treatise has just been published by Mr. Mundell, who-has already favoured the work! with several excellent pamphlets on the subject of the state of the country. The title of the present treatise is " A comparative View of the Industrial Situation of Great Britain, from the year 1775 to the present time ; with an ex amination of the causes of her distress:' Mr. Mundell, after showing the increase in our in dustry, our exports and imports, our shipping, proceeds to notice the fall in the declared value of our exports and imports. It so happens (he observes) that the amount of our exports in official value, in 1800, was 22,831,9361., and in declared value 36,929,0071.; so that our amount of exports in 1811 only 1,108,4041. under their amount in official value in 1800, shows a difference of no less than 6,078,3291. below the amount of declared value hi 1811, being a fall of upwards of 20 per cent. What ever the cause of the fall of prices, therefore, may have been, it is certain that it began in this year, and was to this extent. It is not less cer tain, that previous to 1811 declared value con tinued to gain upon official value ; but that since 1811 official value has continued to gain upon declared value; and the differences, while they mark the continuance, also show the amount of the depression." Mr. Mundell attributes the depression to a cause which began to operate in 1811, and has continued to operate ever since. namely, the defalcation in the supply of gold and silver, occasioned by the overwhelming of the South American mines by the revolution in the mining districts in 1810 ; at which time the a4nual supply from these mines was nearly forty-eight millions of dollars, but has not since exceeded twelve millions of dollars. He examines the reasons urged by Mr. Tooke, in answer to Mr. Jacob, and the arguments in an article in Mr. Jacob's Book on the production and consumption of the pre cious metals in the Number of the Edinburgh Review for April, 1832—" It can no more (observes Mr. Mundell) be explained how de pression should increase upon every article every year, than it can be explained how a great and sudden depression should have begun in the yea'r 1811, otherwise than by a defalcation in the supply of gold and silver from the mines; which, in point of fact, we know happened in that year, and still continues tb the extent of three-fourths of the previous annual supply. Other causes may account for the differences, but no other cause can account for the com- mencement or the continuance of the depression, without the intermission even of a - single year. Flow much of the amount of the depression may arise from this cause, and how much from other cluses, it is impossible to ascertain ; but there is one among our articles of export, which may afford reasonable evidence in this respect, namely—tin unwrought. The Cornwall mines are worked now exactly as they were in 1814. Tit, is got no where else in Europe; and at present, from Ito other than the Cornwall and Banca mines. We have, therefore, in some measure, a monopoly of the article, and are enabled to suit the supply to the demand, the increase of which, as it should seem, should be to increase the price. Yet the quantity exported has increased yearly since 1814, until the three last years that it has fallen off. The Finance Accounts do not enable me to state how much de pression fell upon tin in common with other articles of export in 1811 ; but since 1814, the depression amounts to upwards of 50 per cent., which, as it appears to me, can be as cribed only to the defalcation in the supplies of gold and silver from the mines, caused by the consequences attending the return to cash pay ments in 1819, and the putting down of the small notes in 1826." Mr. Mundell endeavours to show that the defalcation must have had a much more powerful influence upon general prices than the alteration in the currency, to which all the distress we have suffered has been generally attributed :—" As the return to a me tallic standard," he observes, " for which pre paration was made in 1819, could not have ae effect beyond the difference between the Mint and the market price of gold, so the withdraw ing of small notes from circulation could not ex ceed the amount of the exchangeable value of the gold required to take the place of the small notes." The Second Division of Mr. Mun dzll's Treatise is on the subject of " Money Restraints," and he exhibits in a distinct and satisfactory, manner the injury which the country sustains from the Bank of England monopoly, :aid the benefit which would result from its abo lition. One of the parts of Mr. Mundell's Treatise which will excite the most attention, is ' that in which he shows that the Corn Laws not only do not benefit the landlords, but are posi tively the cause of the fail in rents. He shows that the trade in corn was virtually free from 1773 to 1815 ; that in consequence the price of corn was always the same at the shipping ports of the Continent as here, with the difference only of the expense of bringing it here—that the home grower of corn enjoyed a protection under the laws which prevailed previous to 1815, of which he has been deprived by the laws which have prevailed since—that under the former laws the price of corn at the shipping ports being al ways the same with the price here, with the dif ference only of the expence of bringing it here, a risk was constantly presented which the dealer in foreign corn was afraid to encounter ; but that now he is encouraged to purchase corn abroad, which he stores in warehouses at home for the purpose of foreign trade, and has thus always a quantity ready to enter for home con sumption, when the price reaches the importable price ; and that thus the trade of the dealer be comes the more certain, and the situation of the home-grower more uncertain and hazardous. The following excellent observations ought to be taken to heart by every farmer : " Every farmer knows that in bad seasons a high price does not compensate for the smaller quantity and the infe rior quality of the grain he can send to market. The attempt made by the corn laws to ensure to him a high price in plentiful seasons has deprived him of a high price on bad seasons. It has, moreover, made every season eperate as a bad season to him : his crops are becoming ivory year more scanty through the operation of r,strain ing corn laws, which, in place of preventing, pro g ressively increase the importati on o f f ore i gn corn. A high price in Great Britain, if it were suffered to arise from natural causes, and to operate abroad as it does at tome, would always ensure to him a preference in the home market; but, produced by artificial means, the higher it is raised by such means, it only enables the more distant foreign grower to come into competition with the nearer foreign grower, and all to come into competition with the British grower in the home market, whereby his growth is pro gressively diminished, while theirs is progressively increas ed ; and all the benefits of an increasing price, arisitif from the increasing demand of an increasing population, is transferred from the British grower to the dealer in foreign corn." Mr. Mundell, in a Chapter entitled " Conse quences of the Restraint to Owners of Land," has the following startling observations : " Mr. Burke said the 'Squires of Norfolk must have dined when they attempted to regulate the price of labour. It Le had lived until 1815, he would have said the Legit lators of the United Kingdom must have supped as well as dined when they attempted to regulate the price of corn. " The result has been, that notwithstanding the high price of corn, the rent of land continues to come down. Rent being the surplus produce which remains after de fraying the cost of production, it necessarily follows, that ' as the price of corn rises, the cost of production is in creased, because the price of food enters into the cost of every thing; and as cultivation declines, produce diminishes, as has been shown in the three preceding chapters ; so that, if the operation of restraining Corn Laws in this re spect be suffered to proceed much longer, there will be no surplus produce in Great Britain ; in other words, there will be no rent, and owners of land must themselves be come the cultivators of the soil. It is by the increase of produce alone that the rents can be raised, and by prevent ing its diminution alone can they be maintained. Now, the necessary operation of the present Corn Laws being to diminish the gross produce, it requires no ghost to tell us, that in proportion as the gross produce diminishes, so must the surplus produce, unless the co.t of production be diminished; but the necessary operation of restraining Corn Laws being also to increase the cost of production, cur Legislators, in passing such laws, to make use of a vulgar, but forcible expression, ' have lit the candle at both ends.'" Mr. Mundell shows next in what manner the Corn Laws have operated on the agricultural labourers, and places chiefly to their account the vicious administration of the poor laws, lead ing necessarily to a redundancy of labourers.— He connects the fires, too, with the system. He ridicules the absurdity of the pretence that high taxes render corn laws necessary, which is merely another version of the immunity from tax ation of the French Noblesse. He proposes that corn should be always importable, on pay ment of an eighth part of its value, according to the highest price of the kind of grain imported in the London market in the week immediately preceding the importation, and providing that grain shall be always importable, and shall enti tle the exporter to a twelfth part of the value calculated in the same way. But we must take our leave of this Treatise for the present. — Morning Chronicle. We regret to perceive, in our yesterday's Report of the Reform Festival of the National Political Union, that " when the Chairman (Mr. Hume) proposed the King,' he was an swered by loud cries of no, no !' from all parts of the room. At least five-sixths of the com pany refused to drink the toast, and the band striking up Rule, Britannia,' instead of the cus tomary air, was greeted with three cheers." We say we regret this ; because, speaking conscien tiously, we do not think his Majesty merits such treatment. We think we can guess the cause of this display of feeling. We have no doubt that the wounds caused by the resignation of Earl Grey's Ministry have been re-opened, when hardly well healed, by the signature of his Ma jesty, as King of Hanover, to the accursed De cree of the Diet of Frankfort. We detest the Decree as much as any Memberof the Political Union can do ; but some allowance ought to be made for the circumstances in which the King is placed with regard to Hanover. In fact, we do not believe that his Majesty knew anything at all of the matter, till his attention was drawn to the sub ject by the sensation produced in this country. The people of England do not go along with the Political Union in this matter. The people of England must know that they owe much to his Majesty for his support of Reform. They know what has taken place under the countenance of his Majesty; but they cannot know what might have taken place, if his Majesty had not made it a condition with the Duke of Wellington to give as large a measure of Reform as that of Earl Grey. We, for our part, should have been sorry to see an attempt made to try what could be done in this country to carry a measure against the determination of the King, and the re sources at his command. The report states that Mr. Detrosier, " after condemning his Majesty's application to LordLyndhurst as a gross insult to a people who prized honour, who valued honour and morality, exclaimed, but what must we think of the Duke of Wellington at this juncture ? The Duke of Wellington was again ready to take office. It, indeed, had been said, that Majesty did endeavour to save itself from the imputation of a breach of faith, by stipulating with the Duke that he should carry, if not the whole, the greater part of the Bill." The Duke of Wel lington is fair game. But why must such a hard measure be dealt out to the King, to whom we are indebted for the proud distinction of obtain ing without bloodshed and domestic confusion one of the greatest revolutions ever obtained by a nation ? Let not Reformers so soon forget what they owe to our Monarch. Allowance ought tc) be made for the very critical circumstances in which he was placed, when he hesitated to give a power to create Peers, while on the other hand justice should be done to the great service we obtained from his name and countenance. It certainly does seem singular that the very best King of the Hanover Family should be the first to whom a slight was ever put at a public meet ing.—Morning Chronicle. We have seen a letter from a respectable British merchant at Lisbon, dated the 4th in stant, which states, that as he was closing his correspondence, he had just received intelligence that the garrison of the fortress of Almeida had declared for Donna Maria, and had hoisted the colours of the young Queen. We cannot vouch for the fact itself, though we can for the respec- tability of our informaiit.—Times. In reading the detailed account of the inter view between the deputation of certain parishes in the neighbourhood of Cork, and the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in which the former pe titioned his Excellency for an inquiry into the circumstances of dispersing a recent popular meeting in that district, we almost regret that the audience was not accompanied with such official etiquette as would have prevented a familiar con versation, or that it was not so confidential, as would have secured the suppression of the dia logue. While we say this, we do not mean to insinuate that every word and observation of his Lordship is not marked with the acknowledged frankness and manliness of his character,—or that, as an individual, his observations on the topics brought under his review do any discredit to his good sense and liberal opinions. But a familiar discussion with public complainants, on matters of state involving his own conduct,—un guarded replies to very guarded and deliberate remarks,—unreserved confidence to men speak ing in the name of all Ireland, and taking notes for a report to all Europe,—little unre strained expressions of impatience and wounded pride, which would have become privacy, addressed to the acting orator of an im passive city,—seem to us to betray in his Excellency a departure from official discretion and conventional dignity. They probably do more. Some of the controversial replies which the frankness of the soldier led him to make, on the necessity of the Union, and the helplessness of Ireland, if cut off from the English markets, may be misconstrued to his prejudice, and in crease the growing unpopularity o f w hi c h h e justly complains. It is always dangerous to dis cuss personal or political matters before a public body, with the openness and sincerity of a man making a soliloquy ; while the antagonist party never forget that they are on the stage, acting before a great audience, and are prepared to take advantage of every'unconscious gesture, or un guarded phrase, which promotes their objects. These remarks on the form in which this singular and interesting conversation appears, will, we are convinced, give no offence to his Lordship or his friends. The matter and substance of his declarations, we are as willing to contend, do honour to his feelings. Ireland owes him a debt of gratitude, which she would willingly have paid, had her better dispositions not been per verted by malevolence and misrepresentation. Never was there a Government in Great Britain, notwithstanding some weak misgivings, more sincerely desirous to do justice to the " sister island," and never was the British Government represented by a Viceroy of a more upright character or of bette r i n t en ti o n s . His ardent zeal and indefatigable exertions for the welfare of Ireland would have procured him universal gratitude and esteem in any country less divided by faction and party violence. But at the same time we must mention, that if his observations are properly reported, we cannot concur in his interpretation of the law respecting public meet ings. In order to justify the interference of the local authorities to prevent or to disperse them, they must either be assembled for an illegal ob ject, or must be of such a character, for numbers and excitement, as not only to create terror for the public peace in the minds of persons " of delicate nerves," but rational apprehension among respectable and sensible citizens. If it could be made out that this assemblage, which was to take place on a Sunday,—and which we allow, from this circumstance as well as others, was of a suspicious aspect,—intended not only to agree to wear Irish manufactures themselves, but to prevent their townsmen from wearing any thing else, r --then we admit that it would have been illegal, and that the authorities only did their duty in dispersing it. The petitioners, however, alleged otherwise, and though we can see no object in collecting 50,000 persons to resolve upon doing an act which each of them might have done for himself, we think that the Lord Lieutenant has acted right in acceding to the inquiry which he at first resisted, and which, as he anticipates, will most likely result in a jus tification of the magistracy.— Times. An evening paper has described, in some ge neral gossip respecting the Bank Committee, the objects to which its inquiries have been chiefly directed. As this Committee was professedly a Committee of secrecy, and as the report, which will leave its proceedings a secret no longer, is not yet printed or distributed, we are unable to say how far our contemporary is correct in his outrne. " The points" (he says) " to the elucidation of which the attention of the Committee has been most particularly directed are these : ' " Whether the control of the circulation of the country, the issue of that part of the paper circulation which prac tically forms the substratum of the whole currency of the country, should be intrusted to any one particular body, of whatever character. " Whether, if it be determined that the management of the circulation should be vested in one body, that body should be in the form of a Board regularly appointed to superintend the circulation, or should be a commercial body, constituted as the B ink of England now is. Con nected with this is the question of the degree and nature of the privileges which should be granted to such a body, and the regulation to which they ought to be subjected. " Another question to which the attention of the Com mittee has been directed, is the preent siate of the country circulation—whether any measures are required, and if any, .what measur e s, to improve or give security to the est t iny system." _ No - w, all these are very proper, and even very necessary, points of discussion in the report which must result from the evidence taken by the Committee, or in the legislation to be founded upon the facts which it has elicited ; but we very much question whether the Com mittee can have taken the opinion of their wit nesses, on such topics, as authority ; or whe ther that opinion, if taken in the loose inconFe • cutive manner of a Parliamentary, perhaps of a par►y, examination, can be of much value. At any rate, when the report appears, we shall rely more upon the tendency of the facts which the witnesses produce, than upon any opinions which they may give. The course of the in quiry was naturally, from the beginning, sketched out in the reflections of every man whose turn of mind inclines him, or whose studies accus- torn him, to the consideration of such subjects. The Bank of England, by its exclusive posses sion of the privileges of a joint stock banking as sociation, in this great country, and by its pecu liar advantages i❑ transacting the business and engrossing the patronage of Government, as well as by its immense capital, had nearly got the abso lute command of the currency of the kingdom. It had, indeed, a little relaxed that monopoly in 1826, by permitting banking companies of more than six partners to be established beyond a circle of sixty miles round Londo❑ ; but it had conteracted the effect of the grant, by establish ing—as rivals to the new establishments— branches of its own, and had nearly rendered it nugatory by the difficulties which its reserved right threw in the way of communication with the centre of all business—the metropolis of the empire. Next year this monopoly, at present guarded by the charter, expires ; and the Go vernment, by the growing intelligence of the country and of the age, has not been permitted, as formerly, to renew it, without a full inquiry into the whole circumstances of the circulation, which the Bank has hitherto increased or limited, altered or controlled, at its pleasure. Being now, therefore, as free to have a Bank of Eng land, or not, as in the time of King William, when the first charter was granted,—and having gained nearly a century and a half's experience of one great and despotic establishment, three questions naturally occur to be resolved by the evidence taken before the Committee. 1. Shall banking establishments, with the power to issue promissory notes under certain or no restrictions, be permitted, without any limit as to their num ber, or inequality as to their rights ? Would such a system be safe and advisable for a country like this, by requiring a deposit of funds in the Government securities to the amount of the issues of each bank—or by allowing them to enjoy theircredit without such a deposit 2. Should it not be thought advisable to assimilate the whole paper circulation of England to that of other parts of the empire where there is no single privileged bank—is the Bank of England on its present footing, and without any national participation ir. its gains, to be allowed to sup ply the circulation as formerly, without affording any additional control over its issues to the Go vernment or to the public ? And 3dly, if neither of the two former plans presented sufficient mo tives for adoption, would it be advisable for the State to take the paper as well as the metallic circulation into its own hands ; to appoint a Board of Commissioners to issue notes on the credit of Government, as they are now issued on the credit of the Bank of England ; and thus not only to give their holders the security of the whole national resources, but to derive a revenue from the operation to the public itself? In favour of such a scheme it might be stated, that every man would be as safe in holding these notes as in holding Exchequer-bills, or money in the funds ; that as the Bank capi tal is all lent to Government, the present bank -note has no other foundation than the credit of these state notes, which might be afterwards issued more directly from Government ; that supposing the issue to be the same as the Bank of England, the present dividends paid to the Bank proprietors, or at least a million sterling, might be brought as a saving into the national Treasury ; that the Board, being made Parlia mentary, might be released entirely from the im portunities of a needy existing Administration ; and that being compelled to limit their issues to a sum much within the public demand (allowing the deficiency to be supplied with coin), and ob serving regularly the state of the exchanges, a stop would be put to those fluctuations in the value of money, and to those frequently-recur ring panics, which have hitherto marked the ope rations of the Bank of England. We ourselves say nothing about the advantages, disadvantages, or eligibility of any of these schemes at pre sent. We merely state them, as the chief possible combinations to which the inquiries of the Committee must have been directed ; and we wait for the evidence to see how far any of them is countenanced by facts. In favour of the two former plans we have some experience, though that experience is not always favourable to their policy. The latter, guarded as we have pointed out, depends more upon theory. No notes hitherto issued by Governments have maintained their value; but we must add, that none but arbitrary Governments have hitherto attempted the operation, and that IVlonarchs who rob their subjects by clipping their coin, or debasing their standard, are not likely to respect paper credit. We wait with impatience for the report of the Committee, From which we expect some curious disclosures on the history of the Bank of England, as well as some curious opi nions on banking in general. Even when laving the foundation of the restriction act in 1797, the great mysterious establishment in Thread needle-street refused to give the full statement of its accounts ; and the amount of its bullion was only learned by the discovery of the key to its secret cipher. We need only add, that in our present unacquaint a nc e w ith th e evidence, and the necessity of studying it maturely, preparatory to the adoption of any practical ineasure,—in the present stage, like wise, of the session, and state of the representa tion,—it would, indeed, have been monstrous to have acted on the advice of the Tories for even a limited renewal of the charter, when a reformed Parliament is so near at hand, and when so much light may be expected to be thrown on the sub ject in the interval by public discussion. By the way, we mention a n a bsurd report in circulation, that at the Bank meeting on Thursday it is to be proposed to elect Mr. H. Palmer Governor for life. We call this report absurd, because it must be known to the proprietors that such a transaction would be as direct a breach of their charter as the creation of 24 new Directors. As for the honourable gentleman himself, our ap prehension of any formidable results from his ex ertions would not be increased, though they made his high office hereditary in his family, in stead of decreeing him the Bank crown for life.— Times. The Government—the " liberal" Govern ment—in their prosecutions against the Press in Ireland, seem to have taken a leaf out of the book of Casimir Perier's policy, whose chief acts of government were to persecute the Press and truckle to the Holy Alliance. In the lat ter of these accomplishments of English states manship, in the 19th century, our Government has rivalled his, and, as evidence of their sub serviency to the wishes of the " Great Powers," who are now openly engaged in the work of establishing a military despotism over the whole of the Continent, we have the Palmerston pro tocols, which inverted the order of stage proceedings by placing the " farce" before the " tragedy." We have the job whereby England was made tributary to Russia, and the gold of the over. taxed people of this country transferred to the coffers of the merciless Autocrat, just in time to enable him to make his last successful efforts for the destruction of unhappy Poland. We have also the cancelled treaty of Vieona—a treaty to which England and France were par ties—a treaty that as solemnly bound those Powers to protect the independence of Poland, as, at least, another treaty did to guarantee the Russian- m Dut r c e h m L ai o n a e n d , a t s mi l t o e i d i to revoke, by his own authority, wthout a y Ps e a t Ylim th eon i l s ita t n r od e l at t y ahmei d d id the insolent Autocrat dare i consulting the other Powers, and dash this insult in the teeth of England, at the very moment when, thanks to the pusillanimity of her councils, he was pocketing her gold. We have also the adhesion of the King of Hanover to the tyrannic decrees of th e H o l y Al l i ance, of which the Diet of the Germanic Confederation is but the tool ; and, although Lord Palmerston tells us that the Ministers of Great Britain are not accountable for this, and that his Majesty has acted upon the responsibility of his constitutional advisers of Hanover, yet we cannot free our own Ministers from all blame in this matter. They know that, if the consequence of such conduct on the part of his Majesty were the invasion, hereafter, of Hanover by a French or any other foreign force, England would be called upon to enter into a war for the defence of that territory. Therefore it behoved them to have done all in their power to have prevented the adoption of a course of policy in Hanover which may have the effect of leading England into a war, and that, too, a war against all English principles—against all English feelings—a war in support of the atrocious despotism of Russia, and her military allies, against the rights and liberties of Europe --against all freedom of opinion, and even against civilization itself. But, as to the other great act of statesmanship displayed by Casimir Perier, and to which we before alluded—we mean the persecution of the Press, we have it imitated in Ireland, simultaneously with the crusade now making against that great organ of opinion in Germany. That there has been strong feelings expressed in the Irish Papers upon questions relating to the Government of that distracted and unhappy country cannot be denied—that there has been much wild declamation and intempe rate expression indulged in by the writers in those Journals from time to time, is equally cer tain. But it would be difficult to point out any passages in them, even on the tithe question, which surpassed in violence, and a tendency to popular excitement, a great deal of what was said by some Members of the present Administration during the debates on the Reform Bill, especially in reference to the House of Lords, or a great deal of what was published at the same time by the portion of the Press which is notoriously under t heir influence, or, at least, affects an intimate connection with them. Besides, the Whigs had always professed, when out of office, to be against all prosecutions of the Press for matters of poli tical opinion --they often joined in the toast of " The Liberty of the Press ; it is like the air we breath—if we have it not we die !" But perhaps they only intend, like Sir James Scar lett, to make the Press respectable by process of Crown Law. We will only add that, if the Irish Press be made silent or servile, the English Press may, probably, be taken into the same re spectable protection.—Morning Herald. In our preceding columns will be found a very interesting account, copied from a Cork paper, of an interview granted by the Lord Lieutenant to a deputation from two parishes of that city. Instead of endeavouring to render agreeable to his Excellency his visit to that part of the kingdom, the radicals came prepared with a lengthy memorial, casting personal reflec tions upon him for alleged inconsistency on the subject of Irish manufactures, complaining of the conduct of the magistracy and military in dispersing a menacing assemblage of 50,000 malcontents on the 15th ult., and demanding an inquiry into that transaction. Upon this memorial the Noble Marquis animadverted in a manner highly creditable to his spieit as a Chief Governor and his feelings as a man, ai:d maintained the argument throughout with firm ness, dignity, and success ; also preserving at the same time perfect good humour, with the exception of one or two momentary ebullitions of indignant feeling. He fully vindicated the conduct of the Magistrates on the occasion com plained of, and announced the resolution of Government to pursue vigorous measures in suppressing that system of agitation which is the great bane of Ireland. We are happy to find that his Excellency has at length learned by expe rience the true character of the Popish faction. In the course of the interview he observed that he had been " the immediate cause of Catholic Emancipation ;" but that his efforts in that cause, by which - he lost the confidence of his party and the friendship of his King, had met with " a most ungrateful return." However popular at that time, he declared he had since, in consequence of the machinations of agitators, become the most unpopular man in Ireland. Such is the character of papist gratitude and moderation given by one who sacrificed so much for them. Let but the Government abide by its present determination, as announced by his Excellency ; let it abandon its temporizing po licy, and assume a bold and firm attitude, and nothing more is wanting to restore to Ireland that tranquillity of which the wiles of the priest hood, and the vile machinations of self-interested demagogues, have till now deprived her.— /I tooting Post. SUMMER ASSIZES. MIDLAND CIRCUIT, WARWICK, AUG. 13. John Dodsworth and William Hunter wire in dicted under the 37th of George 111.,f0r having. on the 7th inst., made, forged, and counterfeited a quantity of base coin, intended to resemble certain gold coin, current in the kingdom of the Nether lands, with intent to utter the same as genuine. A witness of the name of cutler, a button-maker at Birmingham, stated that about six months ago, the prisoner Dodsworth came to him, and asked him to make some counterfeit coin to resemble Dutch ten guilder pieces, one of which he produced to him at the same time as a pattern. Witness asked them what quantity they would want. They said they would require altogether from 80,000 to 100,000 pieces ; but they wanted 600 pieces immediately. Witness asked them how they meant to dispose of it'? They said that they meant to go over to Am sterdam or Rotterdam, and ene of them would go up the country for 400 or .5(10 miles, and purchase a quantity of eggs, butter, cheese, oil, hemp, D esden china, and such other articles of traffic as the country produced, which they would order to be forwarded to Rotterdam, leaving as a deposit ten or a dozen genuine gold pieces ; and then, when the goods were shipped on board in the canal, they would pay for them in counterfeit coin, and consign them to a friend in this country to dispose of. Besides the counterfeit 10 guilder gold pieces, they said they would also want a quantity of counterfeit 25 cent silver pieces. They had two or three inter views with witness, in the course of which they gave him 241. in cash, and their joint promissory note for 251. more, to enable him to procure tools, metal, and gold for gilding. The priso ners themselves furnished dies, and the witness was to find a press. They also agreed to ►work the press themselves; and the 7th of August was fixed on as the day for commencing the execution of their pro ject. In the mean time the witness consulted Mr. Parkes, the attorney, who communicated with Go vernment on the subject. This gentleman, together with some of the Birmingham officers, assisted in procuring a press 'for witness, together with pre mises to work it in; and formed other arrangements with witness for the detection of the prisoners. On the 7th of August, every thing being prepared, the prisoners met witness on the premises, and all three went to work. As soon as they had struck about two dozen pieces, the witness gave a signal, on which Mr. Parkes and the officers entered, and took the prisoners, who had their coats off, into custody. When asked what they were doing, they answered, " Making medals." A witness of the name of Moses Van Nunez Da Costa, a native of Amsterdam, and attached to the Dutch Embassy in this country, stated that the counterfeit pieces were sufficiently like the genuine to impose on many of his countrymen, if nothing occurred to create suspicion. The Jury found both prisoners Guilty. Mr. Baron VAUGHAN said the judgment of the Court was, that the prisoners be severally transported for the term of seven years. George Harris, aged 30, Joseph Morgan, aged ' 25, and John Mitford, a well-looking, intelligent , powerfully-made young man, aged 23, who was put to the bar in irons, were indicted for breaking and entering the dwelling-house of William Ashbrook, at Birmingham, on the 16th of May last, and steal ing therein a coffee-mill, some glass, a quantity of flour, confectionery, and other property. The Jury found Harris and Mitford Guilty, and acquitted Morgan. Mr. Baron VAUGUAN—Gentlemen, now that you have returned your verdict, I may tell you that this Morgan has been before transported for felony. Harris has also been transported ; and to complete the history of these three worthies, Mitford is at this moment under sentence of death for another felony committed in Berkshire, but succeeded in breaking out of Reading gaol some time ago. He has since then very nearly succeeded in breaking out of Warwick gaol. The prisoner Mitford here besought the Judge, in a mild tone, to have mercy on him. The Learned JUDGE ordered sentence of death to be recorded against both prisoners, and advised Mitford to take care how he attempted to break out from prison again. On retiring from the bar, Mitford threw an ex pressive smile to some friend in the gallery. HOME CIRCUIT, GUILDFORD, AuG . 11.. John Hannon, George Walker, labourers, all young men, and Elizabeth Parker, a girl of the town, aged 1 7, were indicted for feloni ously assaulting George Clark, and stealing from his person a watch, two half-sovereigns, and other monies, his property, on the Bth day of July last, in the parish of Lambeth. Th e prosecutor Clark is a perfect country bump kin. On the evening of the day mentioned in the indictment, he had arrived in London, and was With dering about the neighbourhood of the New-cut, near the Muth gate. In the course of his rambles he explored Oakley-street and tha adjacent places in one of them he met the female prisoner, Parker, and being struck with her personal appearance, re solved to form a closer intimacy with her. He pro posed treating her with cherries, to which she con sented, and they came into the New-cut for the purpose of buying some. They there met Pimm, who was a seller of cherries, and purchased a pound of him. They then retired, and the lady consented to yield to the persuasions of her admirer, and ad mit him to her lodgings, on consideration of his ad vancing 3s. 6d. for hrr immediate necessities. This he agreed to do, and having paid the money, accom panied her to the dormitory she occupied, and which was in a court near Oakley-street. They had not been long in the lodgings of the lady when both complained of drought, and it was proposed to sally forth into the street and procure some gin, ale, or rum. This second expedition led to the unfor tunate events which brought the prisoners to their present dangerous situation. It was now nearly midnight, and in their search fur a public-house, they met Pimm, Hannon, and Walker, and of er purchas ing of the farmer some more cherries, they com tnence(l, in company with another man who has not yet been apprehended, a complete circuit of the public houses and gin-shops in the neighbourhood. In the course of their perambulation the prosecutor changed& sovereign, although he had silver in his pocket, and paid for the gin, &c., which was consumed. About 3 o'clock in the morning, the prosecutor wished ag iin to retire with his female acquaintance, and it wa: agreed that the whole party should lead him to her lodgings. Instead of doing so, he was conducted down a narrow passage, leading to a place called Granby-gardens, on one side of which was a paling about five feet high, covered at the top with tenter hooks. The male prisoners and the man who has absconded seized upon the prosecutor, and forced his arms over the top of the paling; he being a short man, was by this means in a state of suspen sion, his roes being off the ground. They then pro- ceeded to strip him of his property, and according to his own evidence, he was threatened with fearfull oaths by Pima), to be murdered, if he moved or cried out. Pimm then with a knife cut his fob from his trousers, and secured his watch. The others got his money, and the girl, after a violent effort, dispos' sessed him of his neckcloth. The whole party then fled, and left the prosecutor hanging on the tenter hooks, from which unpleasant situation he was almost immediately rescued by two police conste bles, Redfern and Gelding, who had met the pri• • soners coming from the place. A pursuit was made and the prisoners were secured. The Jury returned a verdict of Guilty against all the prisoners, and sentence of death was recorded against them, the Judge observing he should d e fer declaring what would be the commutation of punish ment. George Greenfield, labourer, aged 28, was in• dieted for an attempt to commit a rape upon Julia Maria Jerry, a child under 12 years of age, on the 4th of June last, at Mickleham. He was found Guilty, and sentenced to two years' imprisonment aed hard labour. CHESTER. Samuel Poole, aged 42 , was indicted for baying married Ann Cooper, at Whitchurch, his wife, Mari Poole (formerly Mary Almond) being then alive. Mr. DUNN, for the prisoner, cross-examined the witnesses, in order to show that before Mary Al' mond married the prisoner, she was the wife of man who had been transported and has since re turned to this country, and that she left the prisoner to cohabit with this man; but none of the witnesse' could say more than that she had cohabited with the transport; whether married or not they could not say , The registries of the two marriages were then put in evidence. Mr. DUNN objected that there was a variance be tween the proof and the charge in the indictment: the indictment charged the prisoner with having in. termarried with Mary Almond, spinster, and the registry proved that he married Mary Almond' widow. As the w o rd " s pi ns t er " was a matter o' , description, the averment should be proved as laid. His LORDSHIP held the objection to be fatal , and the prisoner was acquitted. This case terminated the assizes here. DIVING. (From the Norwich Mercury.) There is a small cutter now lying in our (Yar' mouth) roadstead, belonging to a man named Bell• Her crew consists of six men, several of whom are singularly expert in diving. She sails about Irons place to place, to offer assistance to recover loss treasure, &c. She has arrived for the purpose (bi permission of the Admiralty) of endeavouring tO obtain a portion of the treasure lost in the GuernseY Lily transport, which got on the Cross Sandi floared off, and afterwards foundered in the c e ntre of Yarmouth-roads, in 43 feet water, coming with stores, &c. from Holland, after the D u k e o f Y or k 'o expedition in 1799. The transport was laden with horses, ammunition (in which were 25 brass field' pieces), a stock of wine, &c. The method these divers use is curious :—The cutter is first placed immediately over the wreck, the diver then, h a bitel in an India-rubber air-tight dress, having a tube 8" tached at the back of the neck to receive the ai r (which is constantly kept pumping in), descend s from a rope ladder, and gives signals for ce real!' things to be sent down by a small line, which is at‘ tended to by those on the deck of the cutter; hY this line baskets and other utensils are sent dovvil for the use of the diver, and sent up again wit h wine, &c., taken from the wreck. The diver'. head-dress is curious ; it is composed of copper, an d is a complete covering, made much after the m anner of the ancient helmet, only that it is made large than the head, and has in its upper part three glos s windows; it weighs 50Ibs. He has two othe r dresses on besides that above mentioned. He car' ries down with him 1201 b. of lead in two bags' With all this weight he declares that when in the Water he appears perfectly free from weight or ill' cumbrance of any sort. There has been already bron A ht up a large quantity of wine (the bottles co' riously tattooed with large and small oysters, which have been tasted, and are excellent), some copper! iron handles of chests, pieces of gun-carriages, B .:e' They valuablehope soon plate, to and thedollars, ei n possess o n of whichtl t b 0 0 guns, Wa known the transport had on board for the purpos e 01 , paying the troops employed in the above-mentioned expedition. The Admiralty, v..e understand, 10 handsomely given permission to Captain 13,11 to make what use be pleases of the articles found, only conditioning that the brass guns (if recovered) s hall he given up, for which they will return their va lue. Great numbers of persons from different parts of th e country have been off to view this novel and singular undertaking. Boatmen are in constant attendanc e to take off, at moderate charge, those persons who wish to witness this effort of human ingenuity and enterprise. The diver, when under water, finds his strength so incre ase d , that lie can bend the end s together of the large iron crow-bar (of 3-? 2 - f ee t long and 2f inch in s i ze ) wh i ch he takes down with O n to part the wreck. These divers go down alter' nately about twice a-day, but are compelled to tak e advantage of the tid,s when it is slack water. Th e l first de scent was on Seutirday, and has been repeate" every day since, which h a s proved a great treat to numbers of all ranks, who have attended to observ e this surprising —perhaps unequalled exhibition. BIRTHS. 1 On the 12th inst. the lady of Samuel Fisher, Esq., of Stockwe l Common, of a daughter, still-born. On the 13th inst. in Queen-square, Bloomsbury, the lady' ° f William Loftus Lowndes, Esq., of a son. MARRIED. On the 13th inst. at liollesby, John Baker Esq., of Great X. Gir mou ti t i l e ), ,to t n o ej EEmsiz M.D. a Grace, only daughter of the late Thonia DIED. sir o i n to t i te ,t l'i! l h ,e i tt n i s e t h . i. in Portland-place, John Di g by, seconded son of On the 11th inst. at We s t Cl an d on, near Guilford, rr Gulston, Esq., aged 57. PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY MUItDO YOUNG, AT TH E SUN OFFICE, 112, STRAND, LONDON.