The British Press; or, Morning Literary Advertiser.
London, England, 1803-03-07 00:00:00

pearali:e of an r• 1,1 sorcerer, the better to carry on
his practice, and work upon the Minds of his cis?
tomers: he had a large wrapping-gown, trimmed
with fur ; a cap; and 1 large pair of list-shoei tied
round his legs. He pretended to be insane, and
would not give any consistent answers to the ques-
tions put by the Magistrate, but talked in a most in-
coherent manner of the Angel Gabriel, who, he
had given him the name of Poor Help ; menti-
oned the names of several of the Nobility, and
continued quoting passages of scripture.
The Magistrate thinking he was as much like a
rogue and vagabond as a fortune-teller, committed
him to the House of Corn: Rion, under the vagrant
ast, until the next Quarter Sessions, when the So-
ciety mean to continue the prosecution.

GIBRALTAR, Fran. 8.

It is believed here that Sir Richard Strachan,
who arrived in the Donnegal, of SO guns, on the 4th
instant, from Portsmouth, and sailed on the follow-
ing day for Malta, carries with him orders for our
fleet to bring away the British troops. The island
will not, however, be completely evacuated till
his Majesty's ships Dragon, of 71. guns, and Re-
nown, of 74 guns, now repairing here, and also the
Monmouth, of 6t guns, join the fleet at Malta. You
shall be informed when they sail.
The Quarter Sessions, which commenced _on
the :id inst. ended yesterday. His Royal Highness,
as usual, presided as Chief Judge, and conduced
hiniself with great eloquence and propriety. The
unwearied attention and pains he has uniformly
shewn to the prote,ftion of the inhabitants in all
their civil rights, since he was appointed Governor
of this place, has justly impressed them with the
highest veneration and atie&ion for his person and
charaaer.

The following k his Royal Highness's Address to
the Grand Jury:—

" Guntlemen of the Grand Jury,

"le the official situation in which I have to address you, it
becomes my dote to state those points to which your attention
is to be principally directed, in tinier that you may be able to
fulfil the trust'reposed in you by the public, in the manner best
calculated to produce the effect for which you are now a,sem-
birtl.
" Your duty, Cetitlemen, is two-fold, in as much as you art
called upon, both to present offences, on sour own knowledge,
and to decide upon etch Indictments as may be sent up to you.
In both these cases, your principal attention should be to ad-
hese to the instructions preeeibed by the Charter of this place,
and to follow the execution of the English law as closely as
local circumstances will admit of. To do this effectually, you
shoukt avoid, as much as possible, finding any indictment
founded upon -tatutes lately [meted, and tendered necessary
only by temporary circumstances peculiar to England; AS pro-
secutieg upon these grounds may lead to legal doubts, and the
necessity of a respite on that account, although the Jury has
itself entertained :one upon the fact. Such was the t ace on a
late trial, which took place hire at the last Quarter Sessions,
when two atrocious Criminals, whom the Jury (mind guilty of
the whole of the cicuges exhibited against them, escaped the
punishment which they so justly merited, simply because the
crime of which they were found guilty, was, in fact, of a more
being nature titan that provided fie in the specific statute up-
on which they were tried. It will, therefore, be obvious, that
the best line for you to follow, will be to found your indict-
ments, as much as possible, upon those offences, the intrin-
sic enormity of which has ever rendered them crimes by the
Conituon Law; such as Murder, Burglary, Highway Rob-
bery, and the like, to which, in 'most countries, capital pu-
nishment is annexed. As an additional motive for you to
follow these suggestions, I need only point out the evident
justice that will thereby be dune to foreigners, who may natu-
rally plead igeurance of any peculiar English statute, when
they cannot use such an argument, if they are tried wily for a
crime, the commission of which would have been equally at-
tended with a capital sentence in their own colliery.
" It is true, that, in some instances, offenders may escape
by being tried upon indictments so found, who had they been
brought to trial under late statutes, must have met the sen-
tences they :needed ; but on the other hand, all uncertainty or
doubt after conviction is avoided, and less injury done to the
public, where impunity arises from the lenity, tl•an where it is
oecasiened by the intricacy of the law, in as much as an ac-
quittal, resulting from want of proof, is preferable to the ne-
cessity of li:intuiting, or, perhaps, eventually remitting a sen-
tence in consequence of legal doubts 'arising after conviCtion,
how far the punishment was correctly applicalee to the case.
" !laving concaukel what oecairs to ine mins this subject, I
shall detain you no longer than is neccesaly to express the pe-
culiar anxiety I feel, that you should not only make the im-
provement of the police of this place the object of your SeliPtlS
attentiun ; but also, that you should use your influence and
judgment to obtain a cheerful acquiescence on the part of the
Itti4, well-informed class of the community, in those measures
that have hitherto or may hereafter be judged necessary (or its
improvement, as regulations, however se isey digested, must
become nugatory Whelk they are not duly enforced."

Bills of indiament were found against three of
the prisoners : a Spanish woman for murdering her
bastard child ; another woman for receiving stolen
goods ; and an inhabitant, for wantonly striking a
soldier. The two latter were found Guilty—The
woman for receiving stolen goods was sentenced to
be imprisoned a year, and the inhabitant was fined
301. for the assault, which was ordered by his
Royal Highness to be paid to the soldier, as a
cumpensation for the insult he had received.

By a report upon the Cotton Trade of Great Bri-
tain, submitted to the general meeting.of Merchants,
Manufathtrers, &c. held at Glasgow, and ordered
by them to be printed and circulated, it appears,
that the annual return of the Cotton ManufaCture in
Great Britain, in 1782, did not exceed two millions
sterling—that from that period, it had been in a
regular progressive state of increase—and that, in
Mt', the return was twenty millions sterling, pay-
ing in wages thirteen millions, -and furnishing em-
ployment to nearly a tenth part of the population of
the island.

Orders are given for the removal of the Gun on
the Parade in St. Janies's.Park, which is to be re-
placed by a 52-pounder, captured from the French
Arwy in Egypt. The ground is already measured
out, which is to be covered with twenty square feet
of stone, the piece being sixteen feet long ; and an
iron railing is to be put round it.—lt is not exactly
known in what country the piece wat made : there.
are several hieroglyphic characters marked on it,
which have not hitherto been explained.
A new system of regulations has been adopted by
the Captain-Utheral or Martinique, relative to the
import and export duties of that island. All vessels
belonging to the United States, which shall enter
the Ports of Martinique and depart in ballast,
are bound to pay a duty of nine per cent. on
the value of their imports, and the same duty is to
be paid by them in -proportion as the cargo import-
ed exceeds in value that which is taken away. This
arrangement must prove extremely detrimental to
the American merchants, as it will reduce them to
the necessity of entirely relinquishing their trade
with the island, or of freighting their vessels with
the worst kind of Colonial produce.

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