The Sun.
London, England, 1847-07-22 00:00:00

DANISH CLAIMS.

TO THE HON. THE COMMONS OF THE UNITED 11ING"
DOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND IN PAR Ilk"

3IENT ASSEMBLED.
The petition of the undersigned, 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 Danitib.
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 full 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 Treassity
to certain Commissioners to adjudicate and report upcIII
the individual cases ; and, after a strict investigation of
documentary and other evidence, procured from Den=.
mark, Norway, and various parts of England and Scot.;
land; at great expense and trouble, your petitioners'
claims, 116 in number, to an amount in the whole of
225,0001., were in 1840 reported as established.
That, no steps being taken by the Government of that
day towards the payment of the sums thus awardod, it
was moved on behalf of the claimants on the 9th Jane,
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 1011 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 boen
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 compensation has already
been made to the other classes of sufferers from the same
cause whose claims were liable to precisely the same oh-
jections, legal and technical, as these 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, and
that it is thus in their power fully to compensate the
losses of your petitioners without imposing any burden
on the State; for they feel humbly confident that it. is
not the wish of his Majesty's Government to obtain in.
thisildl uo
damanner
d expenseto mf a a
oourit
anyepecuniaryd gain to the Crown at the indi-
lof itsto
ls ,
2uob Jo. e,
oc
ot s 0.1" , The funds here
alluded
whichwere
ac-
tually paid over to the public service,inoss statedotead re- ,
maining droits of the Crown, because, as was Mr. Perceval in a speech delivered before your Hon.
Hoauost,
es,o,n the 30th May, 1810, " there were certain mer-
chants,"
of meaning
ityofuorr
thepetitioners,lossesthey
" had
osudstaailmnecied
compensation
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
andfara
u
beenmore from
than the first
sufficientin thetom
handseet
other claims for compensation ; but by retain-
ing° ft
the thepresent Government
possession of those funds and withholding
payment of compensation,
its own the Government has
deprived, and
property,
to is
the still
enjoy-
ment odI:
m
while far mose than doubled to own advantage the amount
of these funds according to the ordinary rate of interest,
rie still entitled in
it
has
of their
ethen and are
a and protection in the enjoyment of
rehinvilite nog a
i t
ayourtv the i
c which
petitionerst
equity,sameh e
y time
were
fairness
which constitutes the chief claim of Government to the
That, to several of those allegiance of its subjects.
claimants I,A Jun your peti-
sanaily, the property
peti-
tioners represent,
and to some of your pctitioners per-
deprived formed the of which they have thus been
only or prinupal mean: of sub.'
sistence which they possessed, and un vi h;ch they Lid
their families depended for support.
That not only therefore have all )• irixtit!t:ioners
,
ni
un-
dergone privations, loss, and continualau
fering from the course pursued by GovcrlicnY and
t. in with-
holdinga 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 liquidatien of your peti-
tioners' claims by the payment of that compensation
which your Honourable House has cn repeated occasions
by solemn vote declared to be justly due.
And your petitioners will ever pray, &e.

[ADVERTISEMENT.]--GENUINE EAU DE COLOONE,
imported direct, and kept two years in the docks before
sold. Ross and Sons beg to say, that in consequence of
the spurious trash offered, they are induced to make,
known the system adopted by them for the last thirty,.')
years of selling only the genuine, and that two years
old. In consequence of their enormous consumption,
they are enabled to sell the best at little more than is
charged for the spurious, the latter being as inferior as
British brandy is to foreign. Prices—a single bottle,
3s. ; a case of six, 16s. ; six cases at once, 15s. per case,
for cash only. Address Ross and Sons, 119 and 120,
Bishopsgate-street, London.—N.B. They have still a few
dozen left of some that has been seven years in boa