ing, clothing only in cases of emergency, and for their maintenance not quite three pence-half-penny per day.

This allowance is cruelly small; for, except when bread is very cheap, it is absolutely insufficient for the due support of life. Small as it is, it is not the smallest allowance made in the jail. The debtors have from ninepence to one shilling and threepence per week; those committed for neglect of orders of bastardy, nothing.

The felons are heavily ironed, and are without any employment. The reader will observe, that the most remarkable feature of the Carlisle jail is the total want of classification. No separation between the men and women debtors; none, during the day, between the debtors and confiners; none between the various descriptions of female offenders; none between the tried and untried felons. It may be added, that since the felons' yard is separated from the great court only by an open palisade, nine feet wide, the freest opportunity of communication with the felons is afforded not only to the debtors and confiners, but to any one, who happens to be walking in the court. This unchecked association amongst the various classes of prisoners, connected as it is with a condition of complete idleness, must assuredly be an easy and a certain method of spreading corruption and producing crime. The introduction of improper articles into the prison is also peculiarly easy; for every stranger, who is admitted into the great court, may convey what he pleases to the debtors, the confiners, and, through the iron palisade, to the felons themselves. The quantity of ale which is said to he introduced into the jail is almost incredible, and is of course frequently productive of great disorder.

The Court-houses, which are very near the Jail, are superior in point of splendor and accommodation to almost any in the kingdom. It is much to be regretted that the erection of a new prison should not have been a prior object of attention: but I amn informed that this also is in contemplation. Certainly, measures cannot be too early taken to do away with an evil which is eating rapidly into the very vitals of the community.

ON THE

CESSION OF THE FLORIDAS

TO THE

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

AND ON THE

NECESSITY OF ACQUIRING THE

ISLAND OF CUBA

BY

GREAT BRITAIN.

SECOND EDITION.

WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS.

[Printed Exclusively in the Pamphleteer.]

BY J. FREEMAN RATTENBURY, Esq.

Chaque nation doit se gouverner selon le besoin de ses affaires et le con

servation du bien publique.

LONDON:

MONTESQUIEU.

REMARKS

ON

THE CESSION OF THE FLORIDAS,

&c. &c.

October 2nd.

THE following "Remarks" were written in the month of July, but owing to some unexpected delays, they did not appear in the columns of the Morning Chronicle until the 21st and 27th of August, and 1st September; since their insertion, the anticipated rejection of the treaty for the cession of the Floridas by the king of Spain, has been realised, and given birth to various political speculations respecting the effect likely to be produced in the relations existing between the Court at Madrid and the United States of America in particular, and generally in the European cabinets.

The ultimate views of the United States upon this question have been prematurely avowed in their diurnal papers, and if disposed to impute the rejection of the treaty to British influence, from a desire on our part to acquire the Floridas, it is possible that they may anticipate us, by attempting their occupation; for this purpose there exists a secret act and resolution of the legislature, so far back as the Congress of 1811, by which "the President is fully empowered to occupy any part, or the whole of the territory lying east of the river Perdido, and south of Georgia, in the event of an attempt to occupy the said territory, or any part thereof, by any foreign government or power;" and by the same act and resolution, "he may employ any part of the Army and Navy of the United States, which he may deem necessary, for the purpose of taking possession of, and occupying the territory aforesaid, in order to maintain therein the authority of the United States." This secret authority was not promulgated until the opening of the Congress of 1818, when the President in his speech declared it as his war

rant for directing the dislodgement of the Insurgent Commodore Aury from Amelia Island, an apology necessary for that apparent stretch of power in the American executive.

1

Prepared with this sanction, and holding in the utmost contempt' the means of retaliation in the power of Spain, we cannot doubt of the disposition of the United States government coercively to possess the territory which has been denied to their entreaty. But this permission to invade the Floridas, ample as it is for its object, may not now the affairs of Europe have assumed a new character, be deemed by the President sufficient to warrant an exposure of the Union to the chances of hostilities, without the reconsideration and renewed authority of Congress. As that body will not meet before the 6th of December, sufficient time will be allowed to the Washington cabinet, to enquire how far they are likely upon this question to be compromised in their political relations with the powers of the European continent; and to ascertain the extent of their financial resources and their adequacy to the purposes of warfare.

The secret act and resolution of Congress alluded to, was passed when the ambitious strides of Buonaparte were rapid and successful; when the sovereigns of the continent held their crowns by his permission. The American legislature did not contemplate that his folly and infatuation would enable the European powers to triumph in their turn, and subdue the gigantic influence of the modern Attila, nor did they imagine that such discordant elements as those presented by his enemies, could be so combined in peace and concord, in the union of measures forming the basis of the treaty denominated' the Holy alliance. Judging from their previous vaccilations, their' jealousies and repeated apostacies, no such expectation could have been formed, and we may hail their amalgamation as a new era in the political world, pregnant however with the germs of selfdestruction.

To this treaty of alliance the king of Spain was subsequently admitted as a party, and it is probable that on his accession, the Allied Sovereigns did not anticipate that circumstances would so soon arise in which they might be involved by its provisions with the transatlantic republic. It is generally understood that they are pledged to maintain the integrity of each others' territory, and that this pledge is not merely confined to the European continent.

The claims of the United States upon Spain, which are urged with such clamorous impatience, are for spoliations committed in her ports upon the commerce of the Union, since the year 1796, amounting to eight millions of dollars, against which the Spanish government have established a set off of three millions, for depredations of a similar character committed by the Americans on the

property of Spanish subjects, thereby reducing the net amount of their demand to five millions. It must be recollected that those violations of American property in Spanish ports were principally committed by the French, while Spain bowed to the dictation of the Emperor Napoleon, while her monarch held merely the shadow of a sceptre and his ports were occupied by the navies of his enter prising neighbour. Instead of making reclamation of France for those injuries on their commerce, instead of resenting the insults they were daily receiving from her despotic sovereign, and with drawing from the mortifying situation in which he placed their minister when he declared the American government "the most despicable under Heaven," the United States permitted their representative to remain near the Court of St. Cloud, and to follow the fortunes of the falling chieftain, even to the walls of Moscow, in which perilous expedition Mr. Joel Barlow sacrificed existence; yet, now they have to contend with a weak and powerless opponent, beggared in finances, and distracted by internal commotions, the American government evinces extraordinary sensibility, and assumes a loftier tone, asserting in a recent correspondence that "the rights of the United States can as little compound with impotence as with perfidy !"

A

It is reported, but the assertion is extremely suspicious, that Mr. Forsyth the special minister from the United States to Madrid, on the subject of the Florida treaty, drew from our Ambassador at that Court, Sir Henry Wellesley, a declaration that he was not directed by the British government to interfere in the Florida negotiation, and that he was not authorised even to express our disapprobation of the cession of those provinces, a question equally inconsistent with diplomatic delicacy to ask, as with diplomatic policy to answer. England is certainly from her maritime character, above all other powers, the most interested in this question, and we cannot suppose our ministers can look upon this momentous negotiation with indifference, or be inclined gratuitously to avow their course of policy, and thus by a premature disclosure, paralise their future measures.

The American Secretary of State, Mr. Adams, appears to have considered the transfer of the Floridas in the petty spirit of a tradesman, rather than with the extensive views and liberal feelings of a negotiator for a principality; in his correspondence with the Spanish Minister, he demanded the abrogation of all grants made in those provinces by the king of Spain, subsequent to the year 1802, and the excuse offered for this infamous proposal to violate the rights of individuals, was, that in that year, the subject of the cession of the Floridas had been agitated by the two governments. This disgraceful stipulation was proposed when the United States