The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-11 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN,

- - -
SIR, —As a constant reader and subscriber to
your valuable Paper I take the liberty of making
known to you a monopoly that exists in Leicester
in the spirit trade.. As the law now stands no
person not having a retail licence can sell a lev;
quantity than two gallons, which amounts (particu-
larly in brandy) to a sum that few persons can
afford (and others do not choose) to lay out at one
time ; even the Magistrates and Clergymen of the
county refuse to have so- great a quantity. The
Borough "rlagistrates•refuse to grant retail licences,
upon the plea if they did to one they must to
others, and it would promote the drinking of spirits
which they wished to see checked rather than en-
couraged ; and when told that the object of having
a retail license is not to sell it out in glasses, but
merely to enable the dealer to sell quantities less
than two gallons, and not to be consumed on the
premises, they reply the privilege is absurd and
therefore refuse to grant any more.
In the town of Leicester, containing nearly forty
thousand inhabitants, with a populous neighbour-
hood, there are only four regular retailers, he rest
being publicans, therefore, unless the dealer will run
the risk, and sell his customers less than two gallons,
he loses their custom, and they are compelled to go
to one of those four retailers to purchase an inferior
article at a high price.
There was a house sold a few months since for
more than Five Thousand Pounds, the value of
which for any other purpose would not have fetched
more than Two Thousand. If the extension of the
sale of spirits is dreaded, why not allow a dealer to
sell any quantity, with a penalty if consumed on the
prernises, in-that case it could not promote -any im-
proper'use of the article., and yet would throw the
trade open to a fair competition ?
Trusting you will not consider the above remarks
intrusive. lAN INHABITANTfuIIy
OF LEICESTER.

- TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
Stn,—You may probably think the subject of this letter
renders it worthy of insertion in your independent Journal.
On Thursday, the 11th ult., Mr. F. Baring, in the
House of Commons, called the attention of Sir G. Clerk
(a Lord of the Admiralty) to the case of a smuggler,
named Millar, who had lately been tried by a Court Mar-
tial. This man had been sentenced to serve five years in
the Navy for smuggling—his term of servitude having ex-
pired, he demanded his discharge. The Admiralty refused
to give his discharge till the ship to which he belonged
was paid off. Millar conceiving that he was illegally de-
tained, disobeyed some order given by an officer, for which
disobedience he was tried. Sir G. Clerk, is represented
in the Newspapers to have denied that the period was ne.
cessarily limited to five years, and also tb have said that
the Admiralty was of opinion, that the man was not en-
titled to his discharge till the rest of the crew were paid
off, the ship being to be paid off in the course of a few days.
That such an assertion should have been made by a Lord
of the Admiralty is astonishing, and it is still more won-
derful that no one Member of the House of Commons con-
tradicted it. Is the liberty of the subject become an ob-
ject of so little consequence with our Representatives ? By
referring to the 6th Geo. IV. cap. 108, see. SO, it will
be seen, that any seafaring man fit and able to serve in the
Navy, shall on being convicted of smuggling, be conveyed
on board one of his Majesty's ships to serve in the Navy
for the term of five years. Various penal statutes (such
as when an unqualified man is convicted of killing game,
and does not pay the penalty of al.) specify a particular
term of imprisonn3ent. Would any keeper of a prison-
dare to detain such prisoner one single day after the expi-
ration of that term. By what law or right then did•
the Board of Admiralty dare to detain Millar after the
term for which he had been sentenced to serve in the
Navy had expired ? Never was there a greater inroad on
the rights and liberty of the subject than was made by the
Admiralty in the instance of Millar. If a man may be
detained one week he may equally be detained a month or
a year, so that if Government has any expectation of a war
orders may be given not to discharge smugglers, whose
terms of service have expired, till press-gangs are ready to
take them as soon as they leave the ships. It is not in the
case of Millar only that the punishment inflicted on the
smuggler, sentenced to serve in the Navy, has been made to
exceed the punishment allotted by the law, every smug-
gler, on being conveyed on board a King's ship, is imme-
diately pet in irons, and so kept as long as the ship re-
mains in port. By whose authority this is done I know
not, but undoubtedly it is not authorized by the Act under
which the smuggler is sentenced.—l am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
A SUSSEX MAGISTRATE.

The number of persons charged at the differ-
ent police offices during the past month, for uttering coun•
terfeit coin, is estimated at i 250, making an average o
about twenty at each office.