The Sun.
London, England, 1822-04-29 00:00:00

THE BRITISH COLONIES,

&c. &c. &c.
—...

FOR THE SUN.

EDITOR,--I have read with serious attention the Bill
inserted in your excellent paper of this evening, to regulate the
trade of the King's Colonies, and I never in my life saw so
complete a delusion as is now attempted to be imposed on fhe
public. It is impossible that the whole of His Majesty's Mini-
sters can have perused this and the other Bills recommended by
the Board of Trade, and which have been brought in under'
the particular auspices, of llr. ROBINSON and Mr. WALLACE.
I refer the trading public to the Schedule inserted in your
Paper, as a proof of the accuracy of my observation ; for with
the exception of the benefit the British Colonists may derive
from purchasing FOREIGN LINENS AND SALT, Fruits and
Wines, the whole of the other enumerated European or African
articles, which they may import, will not employ more than
two ships per annum for the whole of the Sugar Colonies, and
the British Colonies in America—except in the articles of
FOREIGN CORN, Grain, Beans, and Peai—which Might be
imported from Europo or Africa to the former Colonies; for it
is quite clear none of these latter articles will be imported into
British North America. With what views this precious
scheme has been recommended, I cannot imagine;—its effect
will be to encourage FOREIGN Produce and FOREIGN' Manu-
facture, and to add to the depression of our lIGNE Ex-
PORTS, and annihilate altogether our trading connexion with
the Colonies. To afford a proper opportunity to the
Proprietors of the Cheshire and other Salt Works—to the
Manufacturers of British, Irish, and Scotch Linens, and to
the Exporters of all other British Manufactures—to con-
sider of the effect of these Bills—they should be postponed
until the next Sessions. For AT THIS MOMENT we do not
know in the City what articles are to be enumerated in the
schedules to Mr. ROBINSON'S West India Intercourse Bill.
Now, ;lady, it is not respectful to treat the Trading Com-
munity in this manner, and to hurry measures of this important
nature, through Parliament without allowing the great bodies
of the people interested time to reflect upon them. Such con-
duct was not pursued by Mr. PlTT—With a deference and
correct feeling which always marked his character and conduct ;
HE never took the trading world by surprise. They always
had timely notice of His intentions, and l& invariably beard
their objections, and acted upon them as HE thought most con-
sistent with the general good. IN Hut the Country had a
powerful and disinterested friend—HE never suffered himself to
be biassed or cajolled by the particular views ofparticular men—
but invariably heard ALL parties—and boldly took UPON HIM-
SELF the responsibility of the measures he proposed, without the
intervention of Parliamentary Conimittees, which has recently
become the fashion and order of the day. I feel reluctant to
occupy a greater space of your columns, and therefore shall be
brief; but if His Majesty's Ministers knew the characters of
many of the persons, and especially a certain Broker, whom
they have consulted on these revolutionary Bills, as well as I
do, and the individuals who are now sitting round me in this
Coffee-house, they would, as Mr. PITT always did, apply for
information to MERCHANTS of the FIRST EMINENCE, and
not to such persons, as they are now relying on, by whom they
are apparently influenced in the measures they are now hurry-
ing through Parliament, and which, when passed, instead of
making Great Britain the warehouse for all Europe and the
World,:will throw the trade into the hands (four opposite Neigh-
bours, who formerly possessed it, and render useless all the
docks and warehouses which have been built in London and at
the great outports, and take from our Ship-owners the LONG
voyages, and convert our Mercantile Marine into a miserable'
class of craft for bringing goods from the Dutch and neigh-
bouring ports, and make us in the end altogether dependent on
them. The permission to import into the British Colonies
FOREIGN Corn and other grain from, Europe and Africa ap-
pears to be most objectionable, and will operate most inju-
riously to the Agricultural Interest of British North America,
and even the Mother Country. AN ENGLISHMAN.
Batson's Coffee-house, Saturday Night.

THE COLONIES.

NEW BRUNSWICK.-(ILLICIT TRADE.)

To the Right Honoulmble Earl BATHURST, one of his Ma-
jesty's Principal Secretaries of State, &c. &c. &c.
The Petition of the Chamber of Commerce of Saint John, in
New Brunswick, in behalf of the Merchants of that place,—
HUMBLY SHEIVETII,_

That his Majesty havinibeen pleased by an Order in Coun-
cil to allow the Port of Saint Andrews in this Province a par-
ticipation in the privileges enjoyed by this Port, and Halifax,
Nova-Scotia, under the provisions of the Act of Parliament ;
upon the said Order bemgcarried into effect, your Petitioners
learned with surprise and regret the extended Construction
which the Collector and comptroller of his Majesty's Customs
thought proper to attach to the same; including in the said
Port the Islands of Passamaquoddy Bay, theptintipal of which
are Campo Bello, Deer Island, and Indian ISland, thereby em-
bracing an extent of Coast of at least twenty leagues, and con-
taining various Harbours, Anchorages, and. Inlets, used for the
discharge and loading of vessels, which from peculiar circum-
stances are highly favourable to the illicit trade that has long
been pursued upon the borders of this Province, and the United
States.

That your Petitioners, believing• such construction contrary
to the meaning of the Act and the intention of his Majesty's
Government, immediately waited upon the Collector and Comp-
troller, and stated their conviction that the most pernicious con-
sequences would flow from it, and were assured, in rely, that
the Collector and Comptroller had suspended the operation of
their first Orders, and had directed their Deputies to confine
the Free Port Trade to the Harbour of Saint Andrews, until in-
structions should be received on the subject from the Commis-
sioners of his Majesty's Customs; but your Petitioners being
informed that the Trade still carried on at Passamaquoddy does
not coincide with this assurance, have thought it indispensably
necessary to state the case to bis Majesty's Government, as the
only source from which they can expect redress of the evil.
That such latitude of construction is inconsistent with the
practice of the Officers of his Majesty's Customs at Halifax and
this Port, the operation of the Free Port Act being confined
solely to these two Harbours.
Your Petitioners beg leave further to call the attention of
your Lordship to an evil which has been gradually extending
itself, and is now became truly alarming: they allude to the
practices of citizens of the United States resident on the Lines,
who build vessels on the British side and employ them in the
Colonial Fisheries and West India Trade. By this means they
carry on a traffic in which the British Merchant cannot enter
into competition. The equipments for such vessels, and the
cargoes and supplies for their voyages, as well as the whole ca-
pital employed, are from the United States. This trade is at
once injurious to good morals, and destructive of the Commer-
cial interests of the Colony, finding a ready support hi the
agency of needy individuals, who at once set at nought their
oaths, and abuse their privileges as British subjects.
Equally injurious to the interests of British trade is the prac-
tice always prevalent on these borders, sanctioned by all the Of-
ficers of his Majesty's Customs here, of suffering American and
British vessels to interchange cargoes lying along-side each
other in a space deemed to be on or between the Lines, and
essentially without the jurisdiction of either the British or Ame-
rican Custom-House.

Thus are some of the most important resources of the com-
merce of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and among the rest,
a vast trade ln Gypsum, rendered subservient to the purposes
of an illicit traffic, originating with, and now chiefly supported
by, citizens of the United States. _

Your Petitioners cannot avoid, on this occasion, to state their
conviction, that if the plan some years past adopted in Great
Britain, of abolishing Fees and substituting Salaries, were ex-
tended to this Colony, it would be of great advantage to its
Trade, and honourable to the Officers of the Customs, by re-
moving every inducement to the encouragement of those irre-
gularities on the American Lines, where all Trade, at the same
time that it afFords great emolument to the Custom-House, im-
mediately connects itself with a contraband intercourse with the