The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-23 00:00:00

DANISH CLAIMS.

TO THE HON. THE COMMONS OF THE UNITED KING-
DOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND IN PARLIA-
MENT ASSEMBLED.
The petition of the undersigne-1, being sufferers from
the long-protracted delay in the payment of the com •
pensation often adjudged by your Honourable House
to be due to them fOr the seizure of their ships and
cargoes in reprisal by the Danes in the year 1807,
Humbly showeth,
That the claims of your petitioners arise out of the
seizure and confiscation of British property by the Danish
Government in 1807. The claims thus arising were
originally divided into three classes, the first being for
loss of debts owing by Danish to British subjects, se-
questered and confiscated; the second, for the loss of
goods seized on shore; and the third for that of ships
and cargoes taken within the Baltic.
That fhli compensation has been allowed and paid by
the Government to the two first of these classes, but has
hitherto been withheld from the third.
That your Honourable House in several successive
sessions of Parliament adjudged by large majorities that
the claimants of the third class were equally entitled to
compensation with the other two classes.
That it was consequently referred by the Treasury
to certain Commissioners to adjudicate and report upon
the individual cases ; and, after a strict inveqigation of
documentary and other evidence, procured from D -n-
-mark, Norway, and various parts of England and Soot-
land; at great expense and trouble, your petitiiin.,rs'
claims, 116 in number, to an amount in the whole of
225,0001., wore in 1840 reported as establi,bc,i.
That, no steps being taken by the Government of that
day towards the payment of the sums thus awarded, it
was moved on behalf of the claimants on the 9th June,
1841, that the House should resolve itself into a Com-
mittee of the whole House to consider of an addres to
her Majesty ; which motion, though opposed by the
Government, was eventually carried without a division.
That on the following day (the 10th June), after a
debate and upon a division, the whole House in Com-
mittee agreed to an address, praying " that her Majesty
'would be graciously pleased to advance to the claimants
the amount as ascertained by the Commissioners to be
due, and assuring her Majesty that the House would
make good the same."
That this address was duly presented, and on the 21st
June her Majesty was pleased to return the following
answer:—

" It must at all times be my most earnest desire to
attend to the wishes of the House of Commons, and I
shall be ready to give effect to them in this instance
whenever the means shall have been provided by Par-
liament."

That, notwithstanding this gracious intimation of her
Majesty's pleasure, nothing was then nor has yet been
done to give effect to the assent of her Majesty thus ex-
plicitly declared, nor to the repeated affirmation of the
justice of your petitioners' claims by your Honourable
House.

That the extreme hardship of this is felt the more by
your petitioners, inasmuch as compt•nsation has already
been made to the other classes of sufferers from the same
cause whose claims were liable to precisely the same ob
jections, legal and technical, as those of your petitioners,
and were like them in the first instance, and on pre-
cisely the same grounds, sought to be evaded and avoided
by the Government.

That each of the classes in question was entitled to
compensation only on the same grounds of national
honour, good faith, and commercial protection, as are
your petitioners, and their claims were only admitted
and paid after long resistance, and in obedience to pre-
cisely the same adjudication, and under the same sanc-
tion, which have been repeatedly and solemnly pro-
nounced upon the justice of the claims of your peti-
tioners.

That in a petition presented by certain of your peti-
tioners, together with others, to the Lords Commis-
sioners of the Treasury in the year 1808, the following
passage occurs:—" That, while your petitioners indivi-
dually have suffered great loss, they are happy to learn
that very extensive funds have from the same cause be
come at the disposal of his 'Majesty's Government, an_
that it is thus in their power fully to compensate the
losses of your petitioners without imposing any burden
on the State; for they fed humbly confident that it is
not the wish of his Majesty's Government to obtain in
this manner a pecuniary gain to the Crown at the indi-
vidual expense of any of its subjects." The funds here
alluded to amounted to 1,200,0001., which were ac-
tually paid over to the public service, instead of re-
maining droits of the Crown, because, as was stated by
Mr. Perceval in a speech delivered before your Hon.
House on the 30th May, 1810, " there were certain mer-
chants," meaning your petitioners, " who claime
compensation out of it for the losses they had sustained
arising from the manner in which the war broke out."
That what was guardedly expressed as a hardship
many years ago has necessarily become infinitely more
so at the present time, inasmuch as not only have funds
been from the first in the hanas of the Government far
more than sufficient to meet the present and all
other claims for compeneation ; but by retain
ing possession of those funds and w thheldieg
payment of compensation, the' Government has
far mose than doubled to its own advantage the amount
of these funds according to the ordinary rate of interest,
' while at the same time it has deprived, and is still de
priving, your petitioners of their property, to the enjoy-
ment of which they were then and are still entitled in
fairness and equity, and protection in the enjoyment of
which constitutes the chief claim of Government to the
allegiance of its subjects.
That to several of those claimants whom your peti-
tioners represent, and to some of your petitioners per-
sonally, the property of which they have thus been
deprived formed the only or principal means of sub-
sistence which they possessed, and on which they and
their families depended for support.
That not only therefore have all your petitioners un-
dergone privations, loss, and continual anxiety and suf-
fering from the course pursued by Government, in with-
holding fulfilment of the repeated solemn adjudications
of the tribunal to which Government had itself ap
pealed; but many of those original claimants and some
of your petitioners have been thereby reduced from
affluence and comfort to poverty and ruin.
That your Honourable House is nevertheless the only
tribunal to which your petitioners can appeal for a re-
quital of their just claims, which become more urgent
every year they are postponed.
Your petitioners therefore humbly pray that your
Honourable House will take the above facts into your
earnest consideration, and be pleased to adopt such mea-
sures as will, without further delay, procure at the same
time the vindication of the authority of your Honourable
,House and the settlement and liquidation of your peti-
tioners' claims by the payment of that compensation
which your Honourable House has on repeated occasions
by solemn vote declared to be justly due.
And your petitioners will ever pray, 6,:c.

- - -
FOREIGN CORN HARVEST.
From the 10th to the 15th of July ,there entered this
port 18 vessels in whole or in part with different sub-
stances. The importations made amounted to
Wheat
Rye
Barley
Flour 12,000 „
Rice

Total 4.382 600 „
Since yesterday evening ~the 17th) there have entered
our port 17 vesels la len rye, three witli wheat,
and one with flour and barley. There is no truth in
the report that the potato disease has affected the crops
in this neighbourhood. There never was a more pro-
mising aspect than at this moment.
AUGSBURGH, JULY 17.—During the last eight days
we have had a store of 480 sheffl:s of wheat warehoused,
and the prices had gone down considerably, and in con-
sequence of the continued fineness of the weather,
which go favourable to the ripening of the corn, and
the prospects of the harvest, which hag already com-
menced in several places, a yet greater fall was expected
this day (July 16), contrary to all probability.
This expectation was not fulfilled. It is time there was
a fall in the price of every kind of grain, but it was so
inconsiderable that it was scarcely worth mentioning.
The medium prices are:—Wheat fl. 33 48 ; fl.
34 1 ; Rye 25 13 ; Barley 23 17 ; Oats 95. It
impossible-to speak of the dearth being over while B.A
prices are maintained. This will net be the ease till they
have sunk to about one half of their presen-, irmuinal
price.

FROM THE MAINE, JULY 6.—lt appears de,,irable that
the following fact should be made public:—Notwith-
s andiluz; the prohibirory enactments passed by the
Gland Duchy and the Et-,•corai principality of Hesse
against the purchasing of standit,g corn, very consider-
able purchases have been made of corn in that state,
with Rye, at 10 il. per matter; and Wheat, at 15 H. per
matter. If these transactions are suffered to go on un-
checked at their present rate, there is every prospect
that speculators will endeavour to command even the
succeeding harvest, and.keep up the present high prices
--in.—Brussels • )ers,

of gram.- pap
SUICIDE IN JERSEY.—On Friday morning, about
ten o'clock, Captain Thomas Calder, of the Royal Navy,
who resided in the parish of St. Lawrence, blew out his
brains with a pistol. An inquest was held on his body
in the evenin,, and a verdict returned, " Thud by his
own hand, whilst in a state of temporary derangement."

—Guernsey Star.
EARTHQUAKE AT HAVRE.—On Saturday, the 10th
inst., a little before eleven at night, the shock of an e Irth.•
quake was sensibly felt in the immediate neighbourhood
of Havre, accompanied by a low rumbling noise. Seve-
ral persons were much shaken in their beds in Ingouville
and Graville, two adjacent villages. There was a second
shock on the same night, and alter tin interval of two
days it was reptOd.