The Sun.
London, England, 1828-05-05 00:00:00

THE WOOL-TAX.

(From the Leeds Patriot.)
THE PETITIONS.-These documents now lie for signa-
ture at the committee. room of the Coloured Cloth Hall, and
at the Court House ; and it behoves all who are interested
in the prosperity of this town and neighbourhood, to attach
their names as soon as possible, so that the petitions may
be despatched at the time appointed with an irresistible
testimony how warmly all concerned feel on this most im-
portant subject. In the different manufacturing village,
the utmost activity prevails to unite their voice in depreca-
tion of a wool-tax ; and we are happy to learn that one of
the city members would present a petition from the mer-
chants of London, lastevening, in condemnation of the pro-
posed measure. The local committee in this town are
busily engaged in amassing the most indisputable evidence
on the subject of its ruinous tendency to our staple manu-
facture, which, as soon as completed, will be forwarded to
the proper quarter.
A correspondent who writes to us on the subject, and
who is an experienced and extensive manufacturer, says,
that during the existence of the tax of fid. per pound on
foreign wool, the woollen cloth trade was in a very low
state, many of the manufactories working three or four
days per week only. A dearth of employment among the
working classes diminished, as a matter of course, the
consumption of food, and the prices of butchers' meat (the
best of mutton) during the declension, was 3d. or 4d. pet
pound, and beef in the same ratio. Flour and potatoes
then formed the kind of half- subsistence of the workmen
and their families; and if they are again to be reduced to
this situation (the inevitable consequence of a duty on
foreign wool), the depreciation of value now complained
of in the fleece will be extended to the carcass—the result
will be great suffering, but not a jot of benefit to any class
whatever. If the wool-growers should, by the passing of
Mr. Burrell's Bill, despise the community in our manufac-
turing towns as customers for theiv live stock, by depriving
them of the means to purchase it at a good price, their in-
sane experiment may, perhaps, teach them a useful lesson
of forbearance for the future ; but how can they or any
else retrieve the evils that will first have been inflicted on
the enterprising capitalist and the laborious worknaau?

THE SruFF AI:I24I:FACTSI4YRS. nap MUiCHANTs.-
The projected wool-tai materially concerns all engaged in
thu stuff manufacture, for, if the Bill should pass, and it
answers for an interval, however limited, the expectations
formed respecting it—namely, an enhancement of the va-
lue of the home-grown fleece, what become., a the stuff.
trade, now tolerably brisk from one single circumstance
alone,—the low price of British wool ? The towns of
Halifax, Bradford, and their vicinities, will be wanting in
justice to themselves, if they do not immediately prepare
petitions for presentation to the Houses of Parliament.

1.,,H.
„:„.7.0:4:42)0 lA,
--,4 --, kr*, -4-,,,, • .
Alb; .IA 2'4
, P 7
4i,.. - --'1- IN ,t, I
:- ' - rtx
NAVAL INTELLTuNCE.
1t

(From the Hampshire Telegraph.)
MAY 3.—On Thursday, the Esk,
Purchas, arrived from the coast of
20 guns, PORTSMOUTH,
Captain
Africa, having been on that station three years.—
She left Sierra Leone' on the sth of January, in
company with the Sybille, 48, Captain Collier, and
the Black Joke tender, Lieut. W. Turner. In
running down the coast, they captured a Spanisis
slave vessel, with 175 negroes on board, which ves-
sel is since arrived at Sierra Leone. They•touched
at Accra and Cape Coast, and proceeded to the
Island of Fernando Po, where the Eden, 20, Capt.
Owen, was lying. Colonel Lumley, the Lieutenant-
Governor of the. Coast, was at Accra, and was to
return to his head-quarters at Sierra Leone, in the
Clinker gun-brig, having satisfactorily ascertained
that all the Indian Chieftains, the Ashantees in par-
ticular, were now well disposed towards our settle-
ments, and that the trade with the interior was un-
interruptedly carried on as vigorously as ever. The
Esk remained. some days at Fernando Po, providing
wood and water, and rendering assistance towards
completing the establishment. An hospital had
been erected on the extremity of a point of laud,
which the industry of our people had completely
cleared of wood; notwithstanding, however, all that
has been said of its superior situation, ;t is nut free
from the fever incidental to the Coast, ten persons
having died within the three months since the Eden
had anchored there. The natives were very tractable,
and had admitted our seamen to visit their huts in
the interior, without the slightest violence being
attempted; they had learned to trade and barter,
giving in exchange venison, sheep, goats, poultry,
and golden-breasted pheasants; but the only vege-
table they cultivated was the yam, which was very
fine. There are two anchoring places on each side
of the promontory on which the settlement (Clarence
Town) is situated, but quite open to the sea breeze ;
a block-house or barrack had been finished, beside
various huts, and in June it was anticipated the
building for the Mixed Commission would be ready
for use. Frames for these buildings were taken
from England, and the native cedar and mahogany
had been found effectual for completing them. These
woods indeed are considered so good, that speci-
mans have been sent to the Admiralty to prove their
uses in ship building, and the dye woods and cam
Wood are of particularly good quality. One mer-
chant had established himself among the natives,
and had collected a considerable quantity of palm
oil. In this infant colony an extraordinary conta-
gious ulcer, of a very virulent nature, was preya-
lent, produced by the bite of an insect Ok shore, tin-
der the effects of which forty persons were la-
bouring. The men of war on the station were
however very healthy. The merchant seamen
at Sierra Leone had suffered much from sick-
ness, arising principally from the indiscretion of the
Masters actively employing their crew, without the
precaution of providing awnings to the boats in the
heat of the day. The Surrey, of London, had sent
sixteen men to the Hospital, then under the charge
of Mr. Alexander Neill, Assistant Surgeon of the
Sybille, and on investigating the cause of their ill-
ness, Mr. Neill learnt that they had in a short ,:pace
of time discharged a large cargo; that they had
proceeded up the River to take in timber, many ex-
posed in the upper part of their bodies to the sunn,.
while the lower parts were immersed in water,whilst
others were in the hold stowing away the timber,
exposed to the damp and miasma arising from ve..
getable matter, brought into the ship by the green
timber. Mr. Niell was successful in his mode of
treatment, and had been generally so, having on a
former occasion restored to heakh seven out of eight
of another vessel's crew. The North Star,
Captain Arabin, and the Primrose 18, Captain
Griffenhoofe, were cruising in the Bight of Benin.
The Esk, on leaving the coast, proceeded to Sr.
Helena, for a supply of stock for the Island of
cension, which she took on board on the 15th
March, and landed at the latter island on the 22tL
It consisted of three horses, several draught bul-
locks and cows, with some sheep. There is little
fodder on the island for these animals, and their
principal subsistence will be hay and corn sent foe
the purpose from England. All ,vas well at Ascen-
sion. The Esk brought home about five tons of
ivory, and several thousand ounces of gald dust.—
The Esk will proceed to Chatham to be paid off, 35
soon as the wind permits.
Captain Foster, in the Chanticleer, proceeds, in
the first instance, to Rio de Janeiro, and from thence
along the East Coast of America to' the Straits of
Nlagellan ; she will then go through this channel,
and ascertain the bearings of different points, xt ith
the rise and fall and set of the tides and currents,
and the variation of the compass. Inc November,
and the early part of 1829, she will push to the.
Southward, and endeavour to get round the Island
of New Shetland. Particular attention is to be di,
rected to the geology of the Southern extremity of
America, it being presumed that coal and merallic
ores are easily to be obtained there. The Hecla
• will explore the Western Coast of Africa, from the
I mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar to the line—a pact
I of the world little known, and in which many dandier
,
exist.

Captain W. F. Martin appointed to the Sawa-
rang, 28, at Woolwich.
Rear-Admiral the honourable Sir Charles Paget
will proceed on Wednesday, in the Meteor team-
vessel, to Cork, to hoist his flag as Commander-in
Chief on that station.

The Woodford convict ship sailed yesterday for
Van Dieman's Land, with 184 male convicts ; and
the Amity transport with a company of the Staff
Corps for Quebec, and a detachment of the s•?ti
regiment for Halifax.
The plan for enclosing the Common Hard in this
Dock-yard, an idea of which was entertained, is ll-
nally abandoned. The Lord High Admiral has de-
termined, that in the re-building the mast houses,
they shall be extended into the harbour.

JACOPI PART!, conversing on the injury
Rome had sustained from an inundation of the Tiber, II e -
clued they ought to pray for that river to be seriously in,
disposed, " because he does nothing but mischief when nit
confined to his bed."

individual under.
The Spring Circuit Courts are
ti:aotsvfefiwnis:ll.edthi
"There have been no trials in which any public principle, or
any nice point of criminal jurisprudence, has been involved.
is, therefore, this
The cases were all of the most common and least interest-
sienigaelnicued.of There is isinatsctl.otistiadnady,oanly one
crimes were of a heinous or aggravated nature. At the
01 Persons indicted,.
Glasgow Assizes, which terminated on Wednesday last,
there were indicted 115 persons, in 84 different eases or
indictments. At last Spring Circuit there were 77 rases.
year,comprising
a d inlu3t3i
nionfd individuals.
the
n'uTilitiebreer

f°oNr r°R RAPE.—Saturday havin.-
the dreadful
been
appointedEc sentence of the law
—Scotsman.
1-..:
being;
execution on OWEN
carried into RYAN, convicted at the,
late Assizes of having violated the person of ELIZA Pita t
t:,
an immense assemblage, consisting of several thousands..
occupied the grounds near the City Gaol and adjacent hit!,
to witness this awful termination of human existence--this
having been the first execution within the City Gaol, and
XuTI
the elm,mstances attendant on the melancholy fate of
RYAN caused the number of spectators to exceed by thou-
sands any similar concourse of late occurrence. From at:
early hour notice of the execution was given by a large
black flag
having been hoisted on the summit to
the Gaol. At one o'clock the bell of the Prison
tolled and gave awful warning that the last mo-
ments of the culprit were at hand, and at ten minutes past
One he was launched into eternity. It were to be wished
that the sufferings of the unfortunate man had been speedily
terminated, but whether from the unfitness of the drop.
or the inexperience of the executioner, the convulsions
of dissolution did not terminate for nearly fifteen minutes
after the suspension of the body. We understand that pre-
vious to RYAN'S being led from the cell to the Execution
Roers, he dropped on his knees, and ofter imploring in the
most earnest supplications, forgiveness from the Almighty
for his manifold crimes ; he said, that he felt it due to
himself, in his dying moments, to declare, that although
morally guilty of the offence he was in a few minute,
to suffer for, yet that he was not so in a legal view,
not having compelled or forced his prosecute ix against tirr
w ill,— C'orA Constitution.