cern and last importance. Amongst these are many individuals who have risen to their present eminence through a gradation of office, commencing in the lowest scale of rank, even as low as apprentice to a shipwright. In consequence they are most fully acquainted with every minute circumstance of the dock-yards and their administration, and were thereby the most proper persons to examine into the abuses practised in them, and to prescribe the remedies. The four resident commissioners at the four principal dock-yards are old experienced officers in the navy, and have hitherto been recommended to this distinguished situation from the port list, on account of their knowledge, talents, and services. Now, if instead of creating new officers unacquainted in the smallest degree with the minutia and intricacies, as well as the more important branches of the naval department, and burthening the public with a new charge, at a time when the most rigorous œconomy is, on account of our necessary pressures, become so indispensably requisite, one commissioner was to be detached from the Admiralty Board, another, or even two from the Navy Board, and they were to be associated at each dock-yard , with the resident commissioners, and aided by former enquiries, they would seriously set to work to ascertain the existing abuses, and adopt remedies to them, the whole business would be readily completed, and without a single addition of expense to the country. If they in the course of their investigation found any difficulty in examining witnesses out of the dock-yards, it would be easy enough then to devise some compulsory measure, without having immediate recourse to the present project, so unconstitutional in a legal, and dangerous in a moral point of view. As to the persons employed in the dock-yards, they will be ready enough to take any oath tendered to them, as their refusal would subject them to dismissal, and their perjury to an indictment. The abuses practised in the dock-yards have been a subject of just complaint for many years past; they are carried on to an extent almost incredible, and to a calculated amount of £500,000 annually. But will the present proposed bill remedy them? Will the appointment of men, in consequence of parliamentary interest, or the ipse dixit of the First Lord of the Admiralty, be a likely means of eradicating the evils complained of? If twenty-one commissioners perfectly acquainted with every abuse, and well versed and exercised in the whole management of the dock-yards, are incompetent to the eradicating of the existing frauds, how can a set of men appointed de novo from the predominant interest of the hour be eo instanti sufficiently experienced in affairs of such great and intricate complexity, and combining infinite details to new model, improve and put them on such a basis as shall, for the future, shut out the avenue to peculation, fraud and abuse. Whoever is acquainted with the dock-yards, or their administration, must know that the present measure is a most despicable job, calculated to serve only ministerial and interested purposes, to extend the already overgrown patronage of the First Commissioner of the Admiralty, to feed his numerous and insatiate expectants, and to create an establishment with powers and objects extraordinary and undefined, and nugatory, as to any good effects that can result from it. A too great readiness to depart from established usages seems to be the prevalent desire of the present day. The most wholesome laws, combining the most salutary checks to disho nesty, peculation and abuses, which exist in full force at the present moment, and which require only common attention and industry to be understood and put in practice, are hastily abandoned for new plans, and to serve and extend new interests, and to create new offices, various and complicated, which instead of clearing the way to discovery, punishment and remedy, make it only more crooked and intricate. The dock-yards have severely felt this innovating mania. New order has hastily succeeded new order. To an order to-day, to-morrow a countermand; to-day Mr. Bentham is particularly marked out for exclusion; to-morrow paraded through every storehouse; to-day the labour is done by men and horses; to-morrow the yard is converted into a storehouse of machinery. The reservoir in Portsmouth dockyard is worked by horses to day, to-morrow by a steam engine, the day after by men. The introduction of new plans has introduced new interests, and the dock-yards have presented scenes of faction and intrigue, which have been carried to an unparalleled height, insomuch, that the resident commissioner has frequently found himself a mere cypher, wherein formerly his word was law, and has been subjected to the disgraceful measure of restoring those men to their former situations which they had been discharged from, for mal-practices and misconduct, according to the domineering interest and successful faction of the day. Nay, the Admiralty Board frequently interfere in no farthing of expense, and without, neglecting in the smallest degree the accustomed routine of public business now in this time of peace. Upon comparing which with the war establishment, the manner of its being conducted, and the numbers to conduct it, we may reasonably conclude the Navy and Admiralty Boards to have entire and full leisure to turn their whole thoughts. Time and attention to the investigating abuses, which have, it is to be feared, originated from causes more or less connected with negligence, inattention, and want of constant and regular investigation.-At all events, it is the indispensible duty of the House of Commons, as stewards of the public purse, to guard with unceasing vigi minating to the very lowest situations, in opposition to the personal recommendation of the resident commissioner, who is frequently constrained to enter persons, whom he has great cause to distrust, in the point of honesty, sobriety, and proper principles. Moreover, may not the Ordnance, the Victualling, and other departments (in which, undoubtedly, many abuses prevail) after the present example, so eminent in idleness and disinclination to business, may not they come forward and propose similar measures in their boards? If the First Commissioner of the Admiralty shall successfully procure such a great extension of his interest and patronage, will it not be a precedent for a master-general of the Ordnance or the ruling party of the day, to follow the present ex-lance any attempt, however specious, or ample, at once so gratifying to ministerial influence and desirable to needy followers. When the very few hours of attendance, by the commissioners at the publick boards to ordinary business, is considered, we may, and we have a right to insist on a longer attendance to correct, and a more intelligent industry to remedy any abuses which have arisen or crept into any department of the state, perhaps originating, at least in part, from that very sluggish and slender attendance and application. The Commissioners of the Navy, till this war, managed the Transport Service also, for which, on their own representation, they obtained an increase of salary to the amount of £200 per This branch of service has been transferred to a separate board, but the increase of salary has not been transferred with it; on the contrary, the combined salary of £800 per annum has been still further increased to £1000 in lieu of some fees which they lost, in consequence of the removal of this very branch of business. From all which premises the following deductions may be made. That the Commissioners of the Admiralty and Navy are fully competent to enquire into, ascertain, and remedy all the existing evils and abuses in the dockyards, over which they have a full, complete and entire jurisdiction. That the laws at present in force, are fully adequate to the punishment and correction of every fraud, peculation, and mal-practice in the naval departments.-That those laws only require attention to discover, industry to prosecute, and the exertion of the powers they confer, to enable the Admiralty and Navy Boards of themselves to reform all existing abuses, and to punish their perpetrators. That this can and ought to be speedily done, without charging the public with one additional annum. from whatever quarter originating, that December 17, 1802. This was written some days ago as will appear by the date, and long before the bill was passed; but finding you have taken up the subject in Saturday's Register, has induced me to make some additional observations.-It requires no very extraordinary powers to discover abuses in the dock-yards, they are pretty plain and visible. That the public has been most grossly imposed on in the article of hemp cannot be doubted, as the ample fortunes of more than one individual testify. But while a pompous display of acute investigation is shown in the overcharge of the article of casks used in the rope houses, to the amount of a few hundred pounds, and to which every clerk in the rope-yard must have been privy, frauds to an amount almost incredible are suffered to go unpunished, and the guilty plunderer lives in a state of splendour, which at once proclaims his dishonour, and the shameful negligence of those men in office, by which he escapes with impunity. Much has been said about the purity and disinterestedness of the present Admiralty. Does the following circumstance evince it The porter of the dock-yard at Portsmouth was allowed £30 per annum, a house to live in, and also a chaise or coach-house for his carriage and stable for his horses. At first sight it must appear singular, that a porter, whose business there is literally to attend at the gates, and most minutely to inspect every ingress and regress, should have a coach-house and stable to keep his carriage and horses, and that too upon £30 a year; but he had the profits of the yard tap, where beer is sold to the workmen. These profits have been estimated to amount to from £600 to 700 per annum. This place had generally been given to some messenger or very inferior person in the Admiralty service. In consequence, however, of some great interest made for this situation on the last vacancy, the First Lord of the Admiralty inquired into these circumstances, and very wisely conceiving that two creatures are better than one, he appointed two porters to divide the profits, who will have two houses, two chaise houses, and two stables, where there was one only before: This is one proof amongst many others of their great attention to economy and laudable zeal in eradicating abuses. So much for the porter. As he is the lowest in the scale we will go up to the highest, viz. the resident commissioner. It had been for many years a part of his duty to pay ships, for which he was allowed 40s. per day when employed, which formed a part of his income, but the Admiralty have taken away this branch of his employ, and employed a second port admiral on constant pay at a very great increase of expense to pay the ships, and, in consideration of the commissioner's losing these emoluments, his salary has been increased very considerably. The present camptroller of the navy was offered a pen sion equal to his emoluments if he would resign his situation in favour of a present Lord of the Admiralty, so likewise was a résident congnissioner if he would do the same in favour of another lord of the same bbard. This-is-that Admirahy which is above all ideas of favouritism, and which in its outrageously virtuotis endeavours to MR. ADDINGTON'S MODEST ASSURANCES SIR, The MODESTY of your conscientious, well-meaning man, is strikingly exemplified in Mr. Addington's.speeches on the address. It were to be wished for the nation that the ministers were men of abilities: it were desirable for their supporters that they had even the reputation of talents: let them be discreet if they cannot be wise: at least it does not become them to make a display of their deficiencies or to seize on every opportunity for demonstrating their incapacity. This reflection suggests itself upon reading the reports of Mr. Addington's speeches on the address as they appear in the public papers.-One would imagine that any sensible minister, however desirous to uphold the peace of Amiens, would at least use cautious and moderate language under the circumstances in which the nation is at present placed, so evidently critical, so confessedly embarrassing. But such is the frame of Mr. Addington's mind and intellect that he views it with delight and triumph, and when reminded of the calamities it has produced, he cannot refrain from exultation." If, says he, I am a de"linquent, I confess I am a hardened one: "for I do declare that I never reflect on "the share I had in restoring peace to my country, but with the most heartfelt sa"tisfaction."-Yet in the midst of this triumphant boast he immediately reverses the scene, and declares that all Europe is in a situation which no man laments so much as himself-and then forgetting every idea of peace, he boasts of our state of preparation for war, and takes the utmost credit to his administration for having kept up a navy and army double, both in force and exe pense, to which was maintained after the peace of 1783-Some persons may doubt as to the common honesty of this harangue, but I think no man can doubt as to the common sense of it-How this triumph mixed with lamentation, this peace accom panied with a preparation for war, this continued system of war expense and dou bled establishment can give the most heartfelt satisfaction, vulgar men may find dif ficult to reconcile, and we must leave to Mr. Addington himself to explain.-Let us then hear him again: thus the great man proscedi.s-u. Nay I do not scruple to add, LF ALF ALE several periods during the war, and for keeping up an establishment double in amount both for land and sea, to what was maintained after the disastrous peace of 1783-Another source of consola tion and satisfaction to him is, that having made the peace of Amiens we can never again singly contend against France, and that we must wait to assist a confederacy of continental powers with arms and subsidies.-Who, then, upon hearing this line of policy adopted by the minister would not conceive that in his arrangement of peace, he had not only secured our old allies, but made an augmentation to their number? On the contrary, he has the heartfelt satis "that even if encroachments or insults of "fered to the country should again lead to "hostilities that still that calamity will not "destroy that satisfaction, for I should "know I had done my duty, and that I "had no cause to reproach myself with "subsequent events."-Such is Mr. Addington's explanation and defence of the perfect heartfelt satisfaction which he feels at the peace: and whatever I may think of it in other respects, I must confess it to be truly astonishing Happy, happy man !—If a new war follow upon the heels of his peace, if ruin and destruction flow from it-it is nothing to him, he has done his duty-he is not responsible for future events: no calamity, no misery can ever shake his firm-faction to reflect that of those powers who set happiness, or impair for a moment that are able, none are willing, of those who are perpetual and heartfelt satisfaction which willing, none are left able, to confederate with he must ever feel from having directed the and to assist us. Yet to these alone are we to signature of the treaty of Amiens!-The trust; for he says, Gt. Britain cannot venabove passage I have quoted is certainly the ture to go to war by herself. To give the climax and acme of Mr. Addington's elo- last stroke and entire finishing to all this quence; no other orator ever ventured a display of political and diplomatic talent, flight in any degree so daring, nor can he and to exalt his triumph in the peace to the himself boast any other passage equally utmost, he boldly, and I will add here at transcendent.-Yet I cannot help adverting least truly, asserts that the peace was in no to some few other parts of his oration, degree a peace of necessity, and that we which, though not extraordinary for him, are now able to continue a war for seven would highly surprize from any other years without exhausting our resources. speaker. Mr. Addington pleads in favour Such is the argument of the prime minister of his peace "that not being able to aof the British Empire, the great mover and "bridge the power of France on the Con- director of all our affairs, on whose fore"tinent, it was wise to economise our sight, abilities, sagacity, and firmness, "meaus and husband our resources, in order the nation is to depend at this awful psthat if again we should be unhappily riad. He states that we were not under "called upon, we might be either able to the least necessity to make peace:-That "co-operate with effect with the continental we have full resources for a continuance of powers, or furnish the means by which war for seven years.-In other places he they might be called into vigorous ac- states our numerous and unexampled trition:Who would not think from this umphs and our naval superiority in every part passage that we were now in a state of of the globe :-Yet in this proud situation profound peace and complete security? he makes a degrading peace with France; That we and our enemy were entirely dis- and, because he could not abridge her conarmed? That Europe was in a state of in-tinental empire, he transfers to her our dependence and tranquillity, and that we were reducing our establishments to the situation they were in before the war, and introducing the most vigorous systems of retrenchment into every part of our ser-During the negotiation, he suffers the vice. Yet our real state is the diametrical reverse. And whilst Mr. Addington is 'framing this curious argument, the fands are sinking under a loan of £25,000,000 made to secure the first year of his blessed peace. The people are called upon to submit to fresh burthens for the second year, and he himself takes credit for not having disbanded a single soldier he could avoid; for having at present a greater force than at marine dominion, and concedes the greatest naval and colonial stations on the globe, -Martinique, St. Lucie, St. Domingo, Cochin, the Cape, and the Mediterranean. Italian Republic to be added to France, and admits her obtaining Elba, Louisiana, and Parma by fraud; and after the peace be acquiesces in the annexation of Piedmont, the revolution of Germany, and the invasion of Switzerland, and thus sauctions and confirms the most complicated and insulting mass of treachery, fraud, oppression, insult, aggression, and encroachment, that ever was displayed upon the globe. This miserable state to which he has reduced Europe and ourselves is so glaring, that with all his insensibility he is forced to lament it most deeply; it is on the other hand so dangerous, that he cannot discharge a soldier, that he is proud to double all our establishments, to call for additional burthens on the people, while he has rendered us so weak, that we cannot go to war without allies, and his peace has destroyed all our alliances.--Thus in this wretched and deserted, state, when we have no friends on the continent, and cannot fight singly, when France is encroaching daily, and we dare not interfere in her career-what are his thoughts?-He looks back with complacency to the cause of all he has done his duty-he cannot reproach himself with subsequent events he glories in being a hardened delinquent -and shall even reflect on the share he had in restoring peace to his country with the most heartfelt satisfaction.-Toa character capable of conceiving and advancing such a tissue of inconsistency, absurdity, and weakness, are the fate and fortune of the empire committed in the most tremendous crisis the world ever experienced. What, in the name of God, are we to expect from a man who cannot utter common sense with ordinary reasoning and consistency for the space of a few minutes? and who crowds into a short harangue more real folly and contradiction than ever disgraced the exercise of a school-boy.-I will acknowledge, however, there is one man in this kingdom, à new friend and supporter of Mr. Addington's administration, who could have held such sentiments without the same inconsistency and absurdity-I speak of Mr. Fox. He rejoiced like Mr. Addington, that the peace of Amiens was glorious; but that it was glorious, not to England but to France. Mr. Fox is a man of superior abilities and sagacity, he knew the nature of the peace, he clearly saw its tendency to depress his country and to aggrandise our enemy, and he rejoiced in it. Would to God Mr. Addington were, for a moment, gifted with similar abilities to those of Mr. Fox, while he retained his love for his country: he would then see the true tenIdency of his measures as clearly as Mr. Fox; and, seeking the glory of England, not the glory of France, he would lament, in sackcloth and ashes, the fatal moment, when he ordered the preliminaries to be signed; he would retire from a situation to which he is confessedly inadequate; he would be cautious in adopting the measures of those who palliate the fraud, the treachery, the aggressions of France, rejoicing in an infamous peace, because it gives triumph to the enemy; and he would advise his sovereign to take those men to his counsels who are as distinguished in true zeal for their country as they are beyond all comparison the fittest from their experience and talents to conduct her affairs. But whilst we suffer ourselves to be directed by such abilities as those of Mr. Addington, and by such principles as those of Mr. Fox; while guided by the heart of the one and the head of the other, the man who gloried in the success of France, the man who is blind to the degradation of England; as there can be no hope, there can be no consolation: ulterior and increasing distress is all we can expect a perpetual foreboding of fresh humiliation-a fearful looking on of coming destruction. DETECTOR. NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 1. The Substance of the Speech of the Rt. Hon. Henry Addington, in the Committee of Ways and Means, on Friday, Dec. 10, 1802. Hatchard.-We think it proper to apprize our readers that the pamphlet, bearing the above title, which has been, advertised with so much ostentation, is nothing more than the very accurate report of the minister's budget-speech, which will be found in page 778 of our second volume. For what purpose this speech, which occupies two pages and a quarter of our Register, should be swelled into a twelvepenny pamphlet of thirty-eight octavo pages, we are at a loss to conjecture. In the speech of a minister of state, ushered into the world with such pomp and solemnity, one is naturally prepared to find a mass of of political, commercial, and financial information.But no!-Parturiunt montes, nascitur ridiculus mus. PUBLIC PAPERS. Convention concluded between Prussia and the Batavian Republic, in November, 1802. Be it known to all whom it may concern, That his Prussian Majesty being firmly resolved to observe and scrupulously to fulfil the stipulations agreed upon, in favour of the Batavian Repub. in the Convention signed at Paris the 23d May, be tween his Prussian Majesty and the French Repub. respecting the cession of the territorial property hereafter pointed out; and, being desirous cution of the first treaty which is the basis of it, to proceed to the preliminary and complete exethe two powers have agreed previously to regulate by an arrangement the mode and the conditions of that cession; and in that view they have authorized, viz. his Majesty of Prussia, Mr. C. H. C. Count Haugwitz, his Minister of State, &c. &c.; and the Batavian Repub. Citizen C. G. Hultman, her Envoy Extraordinary, at the Court of Berlin, |