The Sun.
London, England, 1838-02-20 00:00:00

THE DANISH CLAIMS.

Mr. Cresswell is this evening to bring forward " the prayer of
the petitioners for relief against losses sustained by the seizure
of their ships and cargoes by the Danes in 1807." The claim
is a,;.ist and proper claim, and it is our hope and trust that
their advocate will succeed in persuading the House of Com-
mons to agree to their demands. In 1807, at a time of pro-
found peace, and when an Ambassador from Denmark was re-
siding in London, the British attacked Copenhagen, and
simultaneously they seized upon nearly 300 vessels belonging
to that nation, which were lying in the Thames. They were
all sold, as well as every other species of Danish property
thus captured, for thy avowed purpose of indemnifying British
subjects for losses which they might sustain in Denmark. The
amount thus realized, and paid into the British Treasury, was
about one million and a-half sterling. From this sum the
different claimants hare, during a period of thirty years,
only been enabled to procure the paltry sum of 200,0001.,
the principal and interest having been improperly made away
with by former Lords of the Treasury.—Advertiser.
The ease of the third class of British claimants on Den-
mark is to be brought on in thel House of Commons this
evening. This class comprehends the claims of the own-
ers of ships with their cargoes, which were confiscated in the
ports and close seas of Denmark, simultaneously with British
moveable property. The claims for book debts, and for goods
and cargoes seized on shore, have been already liquidated,
but opposition is made to this class of claims on some
imagined difference between the confiscation of property on
shore and of property afloat. This is a sophistry which has
been so often exposed that it seems useless to go over the
same ground again, since the true cause of refusal must be
the unwillingness or inability to pay the money, against which
of course argument is useless. It is impossible to plead,
however, the actual want of funds, as a sum of 1,200,0001.
was reserved so long back as 1810 to meet these Danish
claims, and separated entirely from the " Droits of the Ad-
miralty." The claims of this class now in dispute amount to
about 150,000/. Times.

Mr. Gillon paired off with Lord Jerinyn, in favour
of the Parliamentary Election Bill.
THE MEETING AT THE FREEMASON'S TAVERN.
---A writer of a letter to the Morning Chronicle, says a Mr.
Vincent, a working man, at this meeting, exposed the conduct
of the concoctors of the meeting, whom he designated as the
pretended friends of the working classes • and (alluding to Mr.
Walter, of the Times newspaper, who after considerable op-
position, was allowed for a short time to address the meeting)
he stated that in the morning he wrote down the working
classes, and in the evening came to a public meeting to
s mpathise with them. This statement was responded to by
loYud cheers ; and such was its effect, that on Mr. Walter's at-
tempting towards the close of the meeting to address it, he was
assailed on all sides with " Renegade Whig," " Proprietor of
the base and b—y Times, &c., and was compelled evidently
to his great mortification, to sit down and hold his tongue; but
I am afraid poor Mr. Vincent and the working classes will
suffer for their temerity.
SIR JAMES GRAHAM.--It is rumoured that Sir
James Graham is to be brought iato Parliament for the
borough of Pembroke; for which purpose Mr. Owen Owen,
the late Member, has accepted the Chiltern Hundreds. If
this should be so, it will afford a singular instance of a man
pursuing the very conduct which he denounced in another.
in 1831, at Cockermouth, Sir James Graham inquired who
represented that borough, and was answered from the crowd,
Scarlett ;" and then proceeded to say—" Ay, and sorry I am
to hear him named in that way, for he was once a valued
friend. Yes, the ex- A ttorney-General--a recreant Whig—a
follower of Fox—a nominee of Earl Fitzwilliam—a man
honoured and respected until he began to wage war with
the Press—he, I say, has been obliged to fiy from the
indignation of the people, and seek refuge in Cocker-
mouth, under the wing of my Lord Lonsdale—he has crept
into the House of Commons through the postern gate of
which a Reverend Vicar, now on these hustings, keeps the
key ; he has skulked from all expression of the public voice,
and is to be found the representative of those burgage tenures
for which the late Mr. Satterthwaite showed so much fond-
ness." Change Cockermouth for Pembroke, and substitute
Taffy Owen for Lord Lonsdale, and here we have Sir James's
own portrait complete, drawn by his own band 1 What a pity
Lord Lonsdale has not now a rotten borough in his gift, for
then, as the penny-a-line men say, the coincidence would have
been complete as curious. We should like to know who keeps
the key to the Pembroke " postern gate," that we might have
the event duly recorded in song, to be sung at the next Con-
servative gathering.,.. Carlisle Journal.