The Sun.
London, England, 1814-08-09 00:00:00

JOANNA

-We-have hitherto abstained from noticing this
insane Impostor, because we could not, the
first instance, believe that so much besotted igno-
rance prevailed as to, sanction thu absurd rumours
in circulation ; and, latterly,. because -we were
really ashamed to record a fact, which proves that
the dayS of darkness are not passed, -and that
Englismin most blush for their own country,
while imputing superstition, fanaticism. delusion;
and isdirmity of .intellect to. other 'nations, ‘vhiclt
are very apt to do, as,may he 'seen by the tin.
Mitigated terms" in which we all speak of the re-
storation of the lutjuisition -in Spain, the renewal
of the Order of Jesuits in Italy, or the refusal of
an instant Abolition of the Slave Trade in France.
It would be well to pluck the beani out of our
own eyes, before we so lavishly descant upon the
motes in the eyes, of our neighbours. •We goes.;
tion that France, Italy, or Spain. would furnish
us with a parallel case of gross folly, with that
which is now a disgrace to London, to the coun-
try, and to the age in which we live.
• We will not consent to stain our pages with the
horrible blaspiemies. of thismad woman and her
crazy followers. Brislewell and wholesome disci-
pline, may correct them ; and our chief reasons fur
noticing the subject at all, is to ask, how the Po-
lice is•employed, that the public should so long
have been insulted with the existence of anim-
posture, More injurious.to the morals of the lower
orders of the people than •a thousand drunken
fairs, against which so much has been .Written.—
It is enough to statelliatthis Beldam, being about
65
,years of age, pretends to a miraculous con6ep-
tion of at Messiah, utters • rhapsodies' of inexpli-
cable nonsense under the denomination •of pro-
phecies, and is guilty of the most prophane and
infamous impositions, not only through the me-
dium of low-priced publications, but of discourses
by fanatics from the pulpit. &joie maudlin idik
.has, given further notoriety to this 'scandalous'
trminmery, by ordering a superb cradle, &c. for the
expeCted birth; an engraver has scraped a print
of Mrs. SOUTH COTE-; and idle persons are Wool-
ed of their money for- a sight of the PropheteSs,
while more confirmed lunatics pay a higher price
for Sear, with which she marks theta fit for
Bedlam.

It has been suggested that a Committee of
Gentlemen might be formed to detect this impos-
ture, and consign the perpetrators to pinkish-
t ent; but this, we think, would be to treat the
matter with too graire a consideration. Thci Po-
lice interferes to put down swindlers and ,vaga-
bonds of other descriptions, and the antliorijv of
Dow-street would be best employed in under-
taking the escort of these worthlesb wretches to the
House of Correction.

. ..
BREAn for ,the ensuing week to remain wkbout
alteration in. price., . .
We uuderstand the harvest has commenced in
France,
,with every prospect of luxuriance; tht
bearded wheat is generally a great crop.

THE SUN *REVIEW:

'(No: XIX.)

Me. Right and Practice of Iniiiregs.nient, as concern-
ing Great Brit and nerica, 6onsiderecl:

TIURIIAT, Albeffiade!-.StiTa-, pp. S.

(C'ontinueed-frovn our Parcy of yvsterciay.)

On t •
he Impressments. from ,;ItHerican
Ships in. port', or of Americans, on shore, the co:q-
plair,t amounts to nothing, and we come to con-
sider the-great practical 'question, " Whether the
TersonS iMpressed by British Officers, notwith-.
standing their claiming to he American citizens,
are in fact Americans, or not ?" After pointing-
out, that- no British Officer would y'e.x-
pose himself to :the trouble and inconverdencies
arising fromthe impressment of n neutral con-
tra! r to !.is orders, the author proceeds to exa-
mine the American certificates, &c. by %villa the
Government of that country not only.protected.its
oe:n subjects, but screened and encouraged Bri—
tish desertei's, These protections, thus' worthless
in principle, were •rerniered still More ivortbleSs
by 'the barefaced corruption common, to their ma,
netarturt!. Truly, says the pamphlet 'before us,
",The character of citizenship-was publicly pro-._
stituted ; certificates of that quality were saleable-
in every town 'in, America ; and not in America
alone, but the title and documents of American
citizenship %vete to be purchased in Live'rpOol, ita
Bristol; and in London."
It then enters into a detail of the nature and
value of these boasted documents, Which are of
four kinds':—
-Ist. Certificates from the Collector of the Cus-
toms, according to the form prescribed by law:

Certified List of the crew.
3d. Certificates by some American Consul.

4th. Certificates,by Notaries Public.
The first species of these .flimsy frauds were
readily obtained by citizens of any country, often
ssithont the trouble of a .single perjury; and of
this fact several, specific instances are given, as
'well as of others where such certificates were
forged. Another mode of procuring such protee-
tions is rather whimsically illustrated at page 34.-
" It is also perfectly well ascertained that
,the
American seamen were in the 'constant habit of
selling their certificates to British seamen; placing
their own reliance for protection on their names
being in the certified list of the crew ;' another .
species Of .docimsent -which I shall mention here-
after. Tliedescription of the Collector's certificate
.being very loose, the man for whom it was -in-
.:tended being therein stated to be about so ,many
feet and inches high, and about so many years of.
age, it was not difficult to find one among a whole
American ship's company that might about snit
the British seaman- applying to male the purchase.
Theinstanceaof certificates thus purchased
being coaxed, by erasures and adtlitions and alter-
ing the figures, to'fit the description of the pur-
chaser, 'were very numerous ;- but it not unfre-;
Auently happe.ned that the transfer was not so
carefullymade,.and that a man with a fair cams
plexion had a certificate describing a half-cast. A.
'Vest-1 ndian irsintatto sometimes vesniticto -ez:cir;
tificate, describing himself as having blue eyes and
long sandy hair ; and a.ne Owen Williams,n as , his
certificate called him, a pretended native of Ma-
ryland, had the ill luck to he an Alsican Black,
and unable to speak one word of English, or even
-American.", .
Were British authority; however, doubtful ,on
this p(%int, we have " as, conclusive on, the sub-
ject, the authority of a Committee of the 'florist:
of Representatives of the State of Massachusetts.
" It appeared also, that great frauds hadl)een
practised 'with regard to seamen's Protections,
and which Could not easily_ be 'guarded against
by the Officers of the 'Government. Many of
these protections, it appears, have been forged ;
and hundreds of forged'ones, it was testified, had
been destroyed by the CiSstom-house Officers.
Specimens of these forgeries were exhibited. to
your Committee, and are herewith stibmitted."
" It appeared also that genuine American pro- ,
tections were bought' and sold, in many cases, for.
two dollars apiece ; and, that by means of the
keepers of boarding-houses in the sea-pm ts„who
were in the practice of collecting them, these
genuine protections were put into the hands of
foreigners ,whose persons agreed with the de-
scription in. the protection; and that then the
foreigner assumed. the name of the American who
was named in. the paper and it sometimes hap-
pened that illiterate- toreigners„who had procured
ouch protections, forgot the name they were to
take.--Rep. 26th Feb. 1813;"
The second species were still less to he relied
on, being merely " as far as• the master of the
vessel had been able to ascertain ;" and it may
readily be believed his enquiries were not very
. ; •
,minute. Of the drs, several-gross instances
of
snisnonduct are given. to show:,. that City are
eqUally invalid ; and the fourth, arc proved to be
of no, value whatever, as they did not even af-
fect to be legal or official. In conclusion of this
r part of his discussion, the author states,
" It is not easy to ascertain the total number
of protections of these various hinds issued in'
America. In the ports of Philadelphia and New
York alone, the numbers of the year 1810 amount-
ed to upwards of '30,000 of collector? certifi-
cates." All the other ports collectively may have
issued 20,000 ; those of the Consuls, and the
Notaries, were, perhaps, 10,000 more ; in all,
- above 60,000 : and though it is' difficult to form
any precise 'judgment 'of how many of these Cer-.
tificates were granted-to Britkh seamen, the per-
sons best informed on the subject are inelined to
compute them at 20,000 at least ;. but, should-
the number be much smaller,. should it not have
exceeded 10,000,_ (which, howes:er, is lower than
any calculation, oi-
-1 any data I have ever' seen,
. would .give,) it is still incomparably greater than
that of the Americans alleged pi have be-en de-
tained in the British service. It is a- .number
greater that; the whole American naVal force 'in
the fist year of the war ; and it must he reineen-'
tered, that the injury to the two countries WaS
Ito[ even in the psorortion of the number of men
detained from their soviet, because the British
were protected agtiinst the military servieeiA' their
country, and. the Amesicans only detained from
the coottnercial service of their's ; besides, Bri-

tain was then at' war, and America was at' -peace
with all the world,—a circumstance by no means
nnimportant, when the !!u(stion respects tile in-
jury suffered by the respective pactiei.:4
It has upon good 'grounds been calculated; that
Of the 60,000 wen protected in the American Navy;
one third, or 20,000 men, are 'British subjects.--.
This is. on; injury !!..!,—What injury dyes even
r. Madison pretend to have received from ()fir
system of Impressment, which.is our only guard •
ag:‘inst the enormous .encrease of th;s fatal at-
tack upon wir vital interests Mr. Madison, 13th
January,. 1812, lays before Congress a list of tufo
hundred Antedeans-, minim:he asserts to .have been
pressed, though proved Amdican citizens. . Were
one of these saes true, the American wrong
is ,not to be compartsd xvitli the British : bat' to.
shew. of; what nature.even th'ose !-elected instances
are, the well:-informed Virriter of this work takes
the first five names on ithodison's provad list ,of
2qo, upon 'which, any British document can be
'consulted, and demonstrates .that eery one of:
them, viz. Joseph Butcisi Peter Browne, Reuben
Bishop, Jan Card, and Oliver Cromwell, were
either British subjecCi; or protected by such .61)-
vionsly false doctimea,ts, that Mr. Madison's list
Can be.. considered as aiothing but a grOss and
shaMeless fabrication of impostures.—Our autho-
rity.then takes the year 18-11„as immediately pre-
ceding the Deektention of War, -to' shew"..the in- '
jury sustained by A uterica,an d this injuryamounts
to the detention of
.one.man, of the name of
Berry, whoseicase of citizenship was very dubi.-
ous.—A -Owl and sufficient pansefor the war ! ! !

(To be cciurinded in our next Ites•icn.)

MITCHEL, THE MURDERER.

At a late hoUr last night wexould not learn that
James Mitchel., alias Smith, who is charged with
the murder, of \iiss WELCHMAN, in Mount-street,
on Thursday night, was taken. It-has been as-
certained, that he is a very. eccentric character,
and is supposed • to have four wives now living,
two of them in Bath, where he has a hrother re-'
siding, whom he wrote to some time since, say-
ing hi should come and see him ; but .his'brotlmer
advised him not, saying . he was afraid he would
he taken into-custody it he came there, on a charge
He is'a baker by trade,. and worked
as a jotirneyman in, London foartecn years ago.;
since that time he has
,been employed as a.gentle,
man's servant, piidei'pallit-out of livvrY. lived
with Mr. CARPENTER SMITH., in .the Ro•rough,
aint a relation-of lk ; and after he left that ser-•
vice,"he assumed the name of Smith, but to'an-
swer ivlrar'purpose we have not yet ascertained.'
He wears cry large black whiskers, and a deal
of hlimck hair under iris ehin,,supposed for the pur-
pose ofdisguise'. lle was at a public-house on
Friday evening, in _company with a friend, and,in-
quired of himif the murderer of-Miss WELCH mAN
had been 'discovered; this was before time murder
had. been made 'public; it 119[ appearing in the
papers till Saturday triorhing. He was servant to
an, Ofilcer in the Army in Spain, we understand
Captain Cli9Froti, and often talkS,abOut his
,ad-
ventures'there. •