The Sun.
London, England, 1841-02-18 00:00:00

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF TIIIS DAY.
(From the Meriting Herald.)
The question of the " claims of British subjects for
losses sustained by reason of confiscations of their property
under the direction of the Government of Denmark,"
came on again for discussion on Tuesday night. Two or
three Sessions ago, the whole history of the transactions out
of which these 'claims arose was very tersely and accu-
rately given by Mr. Warburton ; and in the following
year still further illustrated by the lucid address of Mr.
Cresswell, who brought forward the motion. As
it seems to us that her Majesty's Government are
acting, in reference to this question (the fate of which
will be found recorded in our summary of the proceed-
ings of the Commons)—a very eqnivocal part; and not
the less so as they are treading in the footsteps of Mr.
Spring Rice's track over this debatable ground :—we are
anxious to direct public attention to a brief outline of the
merits of the case. For this purpose we have referred to
the Parliamentary debates of 1807, of 1837, 1839, and 1840.
It appears that in 1807 Mr. Canning being at that time
Foreign Secretary, a state paper was issued on the part of the
King of Great Britain, in which were set forth the
grounds of the very abrupt-but signal hostilities commenced
by this country against Denmark, in the bombardment of
her capital and the seizure of her fleet. It has been the
fate of few aggressive operations undertaken by our Go-
vet nment within the last century to be the subject of more
crimination and question than that expedition against Co-
penhagen. But on high authority, from that time to the
present, it has been sometimes defended and justified • at
others more apologetically excused, by an admitted ?act,
which has long since become matter of history—viz., that
the Imperial Government of France had formed a well-
laid scheme for the-geizure of the fine feet of the King of
Denmark, with a view to employing ii against our own
naval power which the victory of Trafalgar had rendered
sn formidable to the enemy, whose maritime strength
it had, for a season, completely demolished. Under
Lord Gambier and Earl Cathcart the objects of
our conjoint expedition were accomplished with entire
success, and the Danish men-of-war were partly in-
corporated into our navy, partly broken up. It is
also certain that the important intelligence which we
had so opportunely received, and so promptly acted
upon, turned out to be absolutely correct. " Acting,
however," (as Sir Charles Grey observed, in the debate of
Tuesday night), " under these very natural, however they
might be hasty, feelings caused by this seizure, and not
aware that the intelligence the English Government had
received with respect to the intention of her enemy was
thus correct, Denmark declared war against this country;
and these circumstances might have justified the Crown in
appropriating to the uses of the revenue the money de-
rived from the seizure of the fleet." Such, at least, were
the causes in which the seizures and confiscations of Bri-
tish property, on shore and afloat, and of book-debts due
to British subjects, were made by the Danish Govern-
meat. It is not requisite, in this place, to go into the
grounds upon which it was afterwards ruled that
the Danish Government were not justified in the pro-
ceedings thus adopted by them. The fact that this
was the final determination in the matter by the com-
petent tribunals, is the sole fact to be noticed, as found-
ing the entire case set up by each class of the " Bri-
tish claimants" whose various demands have from time to
time been debated in the Legislature. For on three se-
veral occasions, at least, they have formed the subject of
earnest discussion in the House of Commons. Now,
there were three classes of claimants—first, those for debts
due from Danish to British subjects appearing on the
books of the former and confiscated by the Government of
Denmark ; the second, British subjects who had property
on shore, in various parts of the Danish dominions at the
time, which was also confiscated; and the third, British
subjects who had property afloat, consisting of vessels and
of merchandise on beard of them, which were seized
and confiscated by the same Government in the like
manner. As Mr. Cresswell stated to the House on
opening the case, the first of these classes of claims
had been speedily, and with little difficulty, settled.
The second had been likewise settled, after a longer
delay, and much more trouble. The thifd bad been
repudiated by every Chancellor of the Exchequer
who had held office since the date of these transactions.
We would ask—why ? Certainly no one, on Tuesday, at-
tempted to assign any sort of legal principle, or any con-
siderations of political expediency, for this very capricious
as well as very cruel distinction. Merchant ships afloat,
and the cargoes they carry, are of all other descriptions of
property those which have the strongest claims upon the
protection of the State, in cases of confiscation by a foreign
power not having a valid right so to confiscate. The
severest injury which that confiscation could inflict on a
flag, violated by its acts, would necessarily be accomplished
through the seizure of that species of property which has
the capacity of concentrating all other descriptions, either
in a positive or a representative state. Book debts are a
class of property less tangible, and it might be thought
more difficult to make the seleleet of rielm -and compensee
don. If, however, they have been successfully propounded
as such, and if the British Parliament has voted compen-
sation on account of them, what possible ground can be as-
signed for refusing to grant compensation for vessels
and goods afloat ? The argument of Lord John Russell
And the Chancellor of the Exchequer was puerile as well
as dishonest ; for a more dishonest defence to a just
claim never was offered by a shuffling Government.
The Chancellor dwelt on the fact, that the whole pro-
ceeds ref the seizure of the Danish fleet had been
exhauste.l, and that there remained no fund to pay this
class of cl.tims." Then why was any fund at all appro-
priated to satisfy the two other classes? What is it to the
claimants " for vessels and goods afloat," to be told that
you—the Government—bad proceeds in your hands, of
priz, s, which you have devoted to the liquidation of classes
A and B of " Danish claims ;" that therefore you have no-
thing to say to class C ? Why, what law, or logic, or
equity, or honesty is this? Either these claims now
urged are valid or invalid. If you hold them invalid,
prove them to be so. If they be invalid, so, also, must
have been the claims for " book debts," and " property
on shore." If they be valid, treat them as you treated
those other two classes of claims, and satisfy them in part
or in full. But to talk, as Mr. Baring talked, was it
wretched plagiarism from Shakspeare's Brutus—defi-
cient, only, in the stern virtue and inflexible honesty and
truth of the original. " Not that I loved class C less,"
quoth the Right Hon. Member, "but that I loved" classes
A and B " more." We must again draw on the plain
good sense of Sir Charles Grey's argument If those
claims had been made before the money in question
had been spent, he apprehended there could be no pos-
sible objection to allow them." No doubt of it. But
here is the rub. An Administration which took power for
the sake of its influence and patronage, and their solid,
though sordid benefits, never condescended to inquire be-
fore hand what might be the legitimate outstanding de-
mands on the "concern" to which they were so willing to
take. But if they had—what chance, with them, would
the mere " equity " of the case of British claimants for
losses by Danish confiscations have had ? The whole of
the special plea of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is a
disgraceful curiosity in the polemics of British legislation.
Lord John Russell's speech in support of it, and his flip-
pant notions about the views which English merchants are
bound to form on the nice contingencies that determine
what elements shall constitute a " cassis belle or a
"status pacis" (on which some heads, harder and better
than his own, have condescended to busy themselves very
earnestly, during the last two centuries)—were absur-
dities, wo must protest, unworthy of a civilian's clerk.
But, Mr. Baring, who must have been bred in a better,
because a more practical school, where neither patrician
petting, nor hereditary humours, nor "luck at legislation,"
can have had much chance of turning his brains by family
fondling, or the freaks of fortune, should have felt that
somet king was due to the mercantile reputation of his
house, and especially of his noble relative, in the
necessity for preserving a tone of consistency and good
sense in any arguments he might undertake to submit to
Parliament on a mercantile question. He ventured to say,
however, that this motion of Mr. Cresswell's (excellently
supported as it really was by Mr. Hawes, Sir Charles
Grey, Sir W. James, Mr. Alderman Thompson, Mr.
Ingham, and let us add—by Mr. O'Connell)—was brought
before the House as a question (ad captandurn) " between
British merchants and a Minister of the Crown." Ho
knew better. Mr. Baring may be very vain of his posi-
lion ; in which it truly is surprising to see him • but we,
who care much more for the immutable principles of jus-
tice than for Chancellors of the Exchequer or Danish
merchants either, beg to toll him that it is a question be-
tween private rights and Government necessities. And
what is the objection which the principal Finance Minister
of Great Britain put in the van of his plea—we cannot,
again, call it by courtesy, argument—against this class of
Danish claims. That, if satisfaction were made for them
by the British Government (admitted on all hands to
be the sole responsible or liable party), b 5,000/. of the
amount would go to " the share of insurance offices
and underwriters, who had already been amply in-
demnified by the premiums which they had exacted
in the shape of war risks on the property destroyed or
seized." Hear this, gentlemen of Lloyd's and Liverpool 1
If there be Whigs and Whig-Radicals among you, we give
you joy of your Whig Chancellor of the Exchequer 1 We
will not insult the common sense of our readers by one
word to show that " risks," in the maritime insurance,
command (from thC inevitable process of underwriting coin-
petition) no greater premiums than they are really veerth.
But, to regret that a certain share of a just debt should
fall to private institutions, to which, perhaps, above all
others, this country is indebted for its gigantic advances
in commercial enterprise and prosperity—to talk of these
fair profits in legitimate trade as " exactions," and to forget
how much the noblest naval marine that any country ever
possessed, and how much more still the most vast and sue-
ecsful mercantile marine the world ever saw, and, by conse-
quence, how much the welfare and the grandeur of the
empire at large have been indebted to the more than
princely spirit and munificence of these " insurance offi-
cers and underwriters " in times of imminent peril, as well
as in seasons of prosperity—pending the protracted hor-
rors of war, as well as in the continued calms of peace—is
a height of obliviousness and ingratitude inexplicable in
one of a race of British merchants, unpardonable in a
Member of a House of British statesmen, and, in a Bri-
tish Chancellor of the Exchequer, even beyond " bearing. '
[The Chancellor stated that the proceeds of the Danish
fleet had been exhausted, &c.
The money did not arise from the sale of the fleet which
was captured at Copenhagen, but from the merchant-ships
and goods embargoed in the Thames and other ports
in
England, and sold. There was no captor to be paid, the
seizures having been made by the simple fiat of the Govern.