The Sun.
London, England, 1807-05-28 00:00:00

DISTRIBUTION OF PRIZE MONEY

To the Officers and Companies of his Majesty's Ships
Hercules. Theseus, La c,que, Blanche, lElius, and Dest-
r6e, for the Capture of La Clorinda, Le Surveillante, La
Virtue, Le Cert., and La Decouvertet on the z:>th Nov.
and ri Dec. 18,3, on the 3d of tune, at No. 3, Salter's- hal
court, Cannon-street ; anti every Monday and Thursday, at
the same place, 'for three years.

the Officers and Company of his Majesty's Ship Sea-
gull, tor the re-capture of the lane, of Sunderland, on the
24th Feb tBo7, the salvage thereof, on board, in the Downs,
and every Wednesday and Thursday, between t t and 3, for
three rears, at No. 9, New broad-street.
To the Officers and Company oil" is Majesty's Sloop Spit.
are, for the Capture of Les Deux Freres, oil the 29th De-
eember, 18,4, on board, in the Downs, and every 'Wednes-
day and Thursday, between eleven and three, at No. 9, New
Broad-street, tir three months.

To the Officers and Companies of His Majesty's Ships
Otter, Kangaroo, anA Cl4le, for the Re-capture of the Farn-
ley, on the loth February, t SO7, on board, in the Downs, and
every kVednesday and Thursday, between eleven and three, at
No. 9, New Broad-street, for three months.

To the Officers and Company of His Majesty's Ship
L'Egyptienne, tor the capture of La Libre, in company with
His Majesty's Ship La Loire, on the z4th of Decemner,
every Wednesday and "Thursday, between eleven and thre,:,
at No. 9, New Woad-street, for three months.

To the Officers and Company of His Majesty's Lugger
Speculator. for the Capture of the French Vessel La Viet°.
rieuse Hont!cur, on the 24th October, 1803, on the first of
j;me, at the Chamber of Commerce, Portsmouth ; and every
Monday and Thursday for three, years, at the saute place.

ROYAL NAVY.—Progrescion of Strength.—lt ap-
pears, from an authentic Memoir, that in the year
1548, under EDWARD VI. the number of vessels
was 53, and the tonnage 11,268. In 1793, the
vessels were 498, and the tonnage 433,226. In
1805, the vessels were 949.
NEW SHIPS OF WAR. --The following Ships of
the Line are now building at Chatham Dock-yard,
and the Merchants' yards :—Howe, 120; Trgfizigar,
98 ; Impregnable, 98 ; IParspite, 74 ; Poiotiers,
74 ; Vengeur, 74 ; Vigo, 74 ; Aboukir, 74, and
Crescy, 74.
By the Isabella, GREnN, an American, whose ar-
rival from Buenos Ayres has beibre been announced,
we learn the following particulars :—She left that
city on the Ist of March, at which time a part of
the British Squadron had come up the Over, and
was then lying opposite to a small town on the
north side of the La Plata, not far from Buenos
Ayres.. A Flag of Truce had been sent on shore,
and some provisions obtained in consequence. The
inhabitants throughout the country were certainly
hostile to the British, and in Buenos Ayres, in par-
ticular, were making great preparations for the ex-
peded attack. No order of discipline, however,
appeared among them ; and the embarkation of the
5000 that were sent out to aid Monte Video, prior
to the storming of the works of that fortress, ex-
hibited a most tumultuous and disorderly speetacle
indeed. The Isabella sold her cargo of British ma-
nufattures to considerable advantage ; none of it
went into Buenos Ayres, but was sent up the coun-
try ; part was destined to Lima. The town of
Buenos Ayres is about the size of Liverpool, and the
adjacent country is well peopled ; but the houses
and mode of living of the inferior orders are slovenly
in the estreme.

The follovAng is a Copy of Letter from the Pre-
sident of the United States of America, to the King
Of HOLLAND, intercepted by one of the ships of the
North Sea Squadron, under the command of Admi-
ral ilusstt.

" Great and Good Friend—Having received your,
letter of September last, which notifies your acces-
sion to the Throne of Holland, I tender you, •in be-
half of the United States, my congratulations on
this event. Connected with that Nation by the
earliest ties of friendship,- and maintaining such un-
interrupted relations of peace and commerce, no
event which interests their welfare can be indiffe-
rent to us. It is, therefore, with the greatest plea-
sure I receive the assurances of your Majesty. that
you will continue to cherish those antient relations :
and we shall, on our part, endeavour to strengthen
your good will by a faithful observance of justice, by
all the good offices which occasion shall permit.—
Distant as we are from the Powers of Europe, and
devoted to pursuits which separate us from their af-
fairs, we still look with brotherly concern on what
affe6ts those nations, and offer constant prayers for
their welfare. With a frividly solicitude for your
Majesty's person, 1.. pray God that he may always
have you, great and good friend, in his holy keep-
ing. Written at the City of Washington, the 26th
day of February, 1807.
" Your good Friend,
`` THOS. JEPFERSON.
" BY Order of the President,
" J. MADDISON, Sec. of State."

The enemies of Government assert, that the sense
of the People. will not in general be manifested in
the returns to Parliament ; alledging that Ministers
have exerted themselves too much to secure the re-
turn of their own friends and supporters. But there
can hardly be a stronger proof of the injustice of this
charge than what is to be found in Westminster—
for, is it possible to suppose that if Ministers had
exerted themselves in the manner which they are
accused of doing, the second City in the British Em-
pire would have been left .to the triumph of the very
worst part of it, in the choice of a man whose Prin-
ciples seem to be at war not only with the present
system of Government, but with every species of
political establishment necessary for the support and
existence of Civil Society.
A Critic on the present Exhibition, adverti►rg to
LAWRENCE'S Pi&ure of Sir FRANCIS BARING and his
two Partners, speaks of the difficulty " of eliciting
much pic9uresque matter from any given quantity of
three English Gentlemen."—This passage reminds us
of wl at FIELDING says of Blifil's love, which he
describes as' an attachment to " a .certain delicate
Quantity of white human flesh."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE sur

SIR,

your Thursday's Paper is an Address from
m toy high and respe&able Members of the Roman
Catholic Church, written with a view of convincing
their Protestant Fellow-subjeas of their steady
loyalty and attachment to the Princes of the House

of Brunswick. The names subscribed, Sir, arc fully
sufficient to entitle it to every sort of respect; and
as its ostensible object is to lay before the public the
solemn and con,prehensive oaths they are required
to take, and would consent to take, on entering
into any posts of trust, I Would not be thought, Sir,
fir a moment, to insinuate any thing of suspicion or
doubt, with regard to the integrity, honour, and
sincerity, with which not only those subscribing
Peers and Gentlemen, but many;.eithers of the
Catholic persuasion, would bind themselves by such
asseverations.

But it the Address alluded to, Sir, is meant to
ap-
ply to the whole question before the publiq at pre-
sent, I must freely declare, I do not think it compe-
tent to do so in any degree. The question before
the public, Sir, I conceive, is not whether Lord
Sllazwsauay and Lord PETRE, and the Vicar Apos-
tolical, Dr. Dococas, are likely to be disloyal to our
beloved Sovereign, nor yet whether the oaths to be
administered are likely to secure the obedience and
submission of any commissioned Catholics ; but I
apprehend the question to be this, whether we shall
trust human nature so far as to give up the prefe-
rence, at present constitutionally due to the Pro-
testants, in favour of the Roman Catholics ? For that
it might soon come to this, if the Roman Catholics
were entrusted with Power, I have not the smallest
doubt—indeed I think too well of the. Roman Catho-
lics to fancy it could be otherwise. If they are by
any means. so sincere as they pretend to be, in their
attachment to the principles of the Church of Rome,
I cannot believe it to be possible, but that in any
cases of competition, where matters are equal, they
should not feel a bias towards Catholics. But how
many opportunities would occur, if the Catholics
were in power, of favouring Catholics, without any
egregious invasion of the rights and pretensions of
Protestants ? Such preference, and such bias, in
cases of open and equal competition, would be na-
tural ; and as power generally multiplies friends, but
always multiplies adherents, and the same post and
power cannot be possessed by two individuals at
once, so that for every Catholic in office, some Pro-
testant must be excluded, how long might we rea-
sonably expebt it to be before some essential ascend-
ancy and majority, now in favour of Protestants,
would -be transferred to the Catholics ? Supnose,
Sir, it should be in the Army oi Nacv, or both, how
easily might that in time lead to an ascendancy and
a majority in the Senate ; and what is to become
of the Protestant Succession, -when there is a
majority in that very Senate which constitu-
tionally exc!uded the Catholic House of Stuart ?
This, Sir, is the question before. the public. It is
not, as i said before, whether Lord SdREAVSBUItY,
Lord PETRE, Sir HEsa ENGLEFIELD, Sir JOHN
THROCKMORTON, as individual Peers and Baronets,
are loyal, will be loyal, or would be loyal, serving in
our Fleets and Armies, or acting in a minority, for I
firmly believe they would be so, but whether as
men they could be expeiT.ted, in the nature of things,
having power, to exert that power in behalf of the
present Protestant Ascendancy .? This is the ques-
tion, and a few words on the late Change may help
to explain it. Had the writer of this been a Mem7
ber of either House of Parliament he would have
insisted more upon it than any Member appears to
poke upon the occasion.
have done who s •

Dreadful has been the outcry about the pledge
required of the late Ministry ; but, Sir, what was
it ? was it. a pledge that the then Ministers would
never again, as individuals, speak to His Majesty
upon the subjeal of the Catholics ? Was it a pledge
even that they should not, in their private capaci-
ties, counsel the King to grant further indulgencies
to his , Catholic SubjeCts ? Far from it. Our good
and gracious King knows full well that my Lord
CRENVILLE is, as a Peer, one of his hereditary
counsellors ; and he knows full well that my Lord
HowicK, and many others, were at the time Mem-
bers of Parliament ; to none of whom has he ever
been ac customs to refuse a private audience; they

may all be admitted to his presence when they please.
The pledge, therefore, required of Lord GRENVILLE
was this : will you forbear, DCA as Lord GRENVILLE,
for as such you have a full right to counsel me as
you please, but will you fi)rbear, as Prime Minister,
to press this measure upon the Parliament? Here
was the difference—Lord GRENVILLE knows he
may have his privilege of a private audience to this
hour, and Lord HowicK too, by His Majesty's
condescension but His Majesty may know, per-
haps, what I knoNi, that the private influence of a
GRENVILLE is far different from his public influence•
ilk Majesty may know,. what I know, that Lord
GRENVILLE, out of power, though his talents: are
splendid, and his chara6ter stands liigli„.Cannot yie

. .
with His Majesty on the score of generc.li.optilatity,
Surely, then, nis Mnj.:sty had a right to say, do not
go down to ParliaMent with this measure, clothe i
in my popularity, but your own ; go there and pro-
pose it, if you please, as Lord GRENVILLg, but not
as my Prime Minister.

Ido not know, indeed, that His Majesty ever
exealy thought or said this, but I am sure I have
thought and said it for him, during the discussion of
the business., and I am sure he has a&ed exactly as I
wished him to ad, so thinking and saying to myself,
One word more in regard to the pledge said to b
exacted of the present Ministry. Why are they
supposed to have given any pledge ? Has not his
Majesty long known well enough,ehat in genera
they have thought with him upon this Catholic
Question ? Therefore, when he dismissed those
who thought differently, whom could he chuse but
those whom he knew to think with her ? Where
was any pledge required, or where
.was the necessity
for any ? lam sick, Sir, of reading such charges.
The case seems to lie in a small compass—Lord
HOWICK and the Ft./KITES, while in opposition, avid
active Members of the Whig Club, voluntarily, nay
ostentatiously, pledged themselves to the Catholics,
Revolutionists, Reformers, Dissenters, &c. to do so
many things that they wished to have done, that when
they came intoadministretion I have no doubt but they
were really worried almost to death by the numerous
claims that were brought forward. Mr. Fox, am
told, said very wittily, that his expeaants lay three
in a bed ; and I have also heard another very witty
application of his, when he gave his first Ministerial
dinner; when being asked who were his company,
turn, says he, to the twenty-second chapter of the
first book of Samuel, verse 2, and there you will
find an 'exaa list of theM. I firmly believe they
were overwhelmed with these expo Cants and claim-
ants, andehe Catholics were of course among then:.
That they tried to keep back the Catholic claims, is
acknowledged by themselves ; not being however
suAred to do so, they proposed an extension of the
Bill of 1793. In the first communication of the
Bill proposed, there was somewhere oi• other an
equivocal expression, which the Catholics interpret-
ed in their own favour ; and the Ministry being
questioned about it, did not venture to refuse what
the Catholics had thus been induced to exped.
Then were introduced so:ne new terms which might
convey this boon ; but His Majesty was not ex-
pressly apprized of the sl!eratiee. It was sent to
him, but the alteration, I appreheed, ws.; so ti-ifling,
in point of expression, that any body besides His
to might have overlooked it ; and had His
.14,,jesty none so, I much doubt (tboueh I
grieve to say it) whether Lord G. or Lord H. ear—
or— or— would have ever let him into the secret.
The matter however was luckily discovere.d in time,
and His Majesty very properly said, if you :neon to
go these lengths, return to your own private situa.;
lions, and let the public judge between
.us ; and
here the nh at present rests.
Election advertisements, and speeches from the
hustings, have tended so to perplex the subjeCt,
that I have been inclined to avail myself of the op-
portunity of the Catholic Address in your Riper of
Thursday, to endeavour to simplify the whole busi-
ness, at least as it appears to me. The cry of
" No Popery," as 1 cry of faaion, I abominate ;
but as the cry of prudence, wisdom, and foresight,.
I think it. extremely reasonable, extremely just.

I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
N.