clined to think that the final perseverance in the Siege was not a little indebted to several valuable bets of his own, he well knowing at the time, and from information which himself alone possessed, that he should certainly lose them. Yet this artifice had a considerable effect in suspending the impatience of the Officers, and in supplying topics for dispute and conversation. At length, however, the two French Frigates, the sailing of which had been the subject of these Wagers, left the great Harbour on the 24th of August, 1800, with a part of the Garrison, and one of them soon became a prize to the English. Sir Alexander Ball related to me the circumstances which occasioned the escape of the other; but I do not recollect them with sufficient accuracy to dare repeat them in this place. On the 15th of September following, the Capitulation was signed, and after a blockade of two years the English obtained possession of Vallette, and remained masters of the whole Island and its' Dependencies. Anxious not to give offence, but more anxious to communicate the truth, it is not without pain that I proceed to give my sentiments on this capitulation, by which Malta was delivered up to his Britannic Majesty and his Allies, without the least mention made of the Maltese. With a warmth honourable both to his head and his heart, Sir Alexander Ball pleaded, as not less a point of sound policy than of plain justice, that the Maltese, by some Representative, should be made a Party in the capitulation, and a joint Subscriber in the signature. They had never been the Slaves or the Property of the Knights of St. John, but Freemen and the true landed Proprietors of the Country, the civil and military government of which, under certain restrictions, had been vested in that Order; yet checked by the rights and influences of the Clergy and the native Nobility, and by the Customs and ancient Laws of the Island. This trust the Knights had with the blackest treason and the most profligate perjury, betrayed and abandoned. The right of Government of course reverted to the landed Proprietors and the Clergy. Animated by a just sense of this right, the Maltese had risen of their own accord, had contended for it in defiance of death and danger, had fought bravely, and endured patiently. Without undervaluing the military assistance afterwards furnished by Great Britain (though how scanty this was before the arrival of General Pigot is well known) it re mained undeniable, that the Maltese had taken the greatest share both in the fatigues and in the privations consequent on the Siege; and that had not the greatest virtues and the most exemplary fidelity been uniformly displayed by them, the English Troops, (they not being more numerous than they had been for the greater part of the two years) could not possibly have remained before the Fortifications of Vallette, defended as that City was by a French Garrison, that greatly outnumbered the British Besiegers. Still less could there have been the least hope of ultimate suc cess; as if any part of the Maltese Peasantry had been friendly to the French or even indifferent, if they had not all indeed been most zealous and persevering in their hos tility towards them; it would have been in practicable so to blockade that Island as to have precluded the arrival of supplies. If the Siege had proved unsuccessful, the Maltese were well aware that they should be exposed to all the horrors which revenge and wounded pride could dictate to an unprincipled, rapacious, and sanguinary Soldiery; and now that success has crowned their efforts, is this to be their reward, that their own Allies are to bargain for them with the French as for a herd of Slaves, whom the French had before purchased from a former Proprietor? If it be arged, that there is no established Government in Malta, is it not equally true, that through the whole popu lation of the Island there is not a single Dissentient? and thus that the chief inconvenience, which an established authority is to obviate, is virtually removed by the admitted fact of their unanimity? And have they not a Bishop, and a dignified Clergy, their Judges and municipal Magistrates, who were at all times sharers in the power of the Government, and now, supported by the unanimous suffrage of the Inhabitants, have a rightful claim to be considered as it's Representatives? Will it not be oftener said that answered, that the main difference between French and English injustice rests in this point alone, that the French siezed on the Maltese without any previous pretences of Friendship, while the English procured possession of the Island by means of their friendly promises, and by the cooperation of the Natives afforded in confident reliance on these promises? The impolicy of refusing the signature on the part of the Maltese was equally evident: since such refusal could anwer no one purpose but that of alienating their affections by a wanton insult to their feelings. For the Maltese were not only ready but désirous and eager to place themselves at the same time under British protection, to take the baths of loyalty as Subjects of the British Crown, and to acknowledge their Island to belong to it. These representations, however, were over-ruled: and I dare affirm, from my own experience in the Mediterra nean, that our conduct in this instance, added to the impression which had been made at Corsica, Minorca, and elsewhere, and was often referred to by Men of reflection in Sicily, who have more than once said to me: "A connection with Great Britain, with the consequent extension and security of our Commerce, are indeed great blessings : but who can rely on their permanence? or that we shall not be made to pay bitterly for our zeal as Partizans of England, whenever it shall suit it's plans to deliver us back to our old Oppressors. (To be continued.) TO CORRESPONDENTS. "that THE A valued Correspondent objects to the latter part of No. 24. "It might seem," he observes, FRIEND was afraid of his Opinion, by the attempt to disguise it in an Allegory; at least the application should have been openly avowed." The following considerations will, I trust, remove this objection. It was once said to me, when the Copenhagen affair was in dispute, "You do not see the enormity, because it is an affair between State and State: conceive a similar case between Man and Man, and you would both see and abhor it." Now, I was neither defending or attacking the measure itself, for my arguments were confined to the grounds, which had been taken both in the arraigning of that measure, and in its' defence, because I thought both equally untenable. I was not enough master of facts to form a decisive opinion on the enterprize, even for my own mind; but I had no hesitation in affirming, that the principles, on which it was defended in the legislature, appeared to me fitter objects of indignant reprobation, than the act itself. This having been premised, I answer to the assertion above stated, by asserting the direct contrary : namely, that were a similar case conceived between Man and Man, the severest arraigners of the measure, would, on their grounds find nothing to blame in it. How was I to prove this assertion? Clearly, by imagining some case between individuals living in the same relations toward each other, in which the several states of Europe exist, or existed. My Allegory, therefore, so far from being a disguise, was a necessary part of the main argument, a case in point, to prove the identity of the Law of Nations with the Law of Conscience. We have only to conceive Individuals in the same relations as States, in order to learn that the rules emanating from international Law, differ from those of private honesty, solely through the difference of the circumstances. But why did not THE FRIEND avow the application of the principle to the seizure of the Danish Fleet? Because I did not possess sufficient evidence to prove to others, or even to decide for myself, that my Principle was applicable to this particular act. In the case of Pamphilus and Lathrodacnus, the prudence and necessity of the measure was certain; and, this taken for granted, I shewed it's perfect rightfulness. In the affair of Copenhagen I had no doubt of our right to do as we did, supposing the necessity, or at least the extreme prudence, of the measure; taking for granted, that there existed a motive adequate to the action, and that the action was an adequate means of realizing the motive. But this I was not authorized to take for granted in the real, as I had been in the imaginary, Case. I see many reasons for the affirmative, and many for the negative. For the former, the certainty of an hostile design on the part of the Danes, the alarming state of Ireland, that vulnerable heel of the British Achilles! and the immense difference between military and naval superiority. Our naval power collectively may ride in defiance of the whole world; but it is widely scattered, and a combined operation from the Baltic, Holland, Brest, and Lisbon, might easily bring together a Fleet double to that which we could bring against it at the instant, or for the short time that might be necessary to convey 30 or 40,000 Men to Ireland. On the other hand, it is equally clear that Buonaparte needs Sailors rather than Ships; and that we took the Ships and left him the Danish Sailors. It appears from the papers lately published, that the French Fleet at Antwerp is in fact manned, in part, by those very Sailors. But I repeat, that THE FRIEND had no concern with the Expedition itself; but only with the grounds or principles on which it had been attacked or defended. Those who attacked it denied the right altogether, however imperious the motive might be and I appear to myself to have shewn, in opposition to such Reasoners, that no such right existed, or is deducible either from international Law or the Law of private morality. Those again, who defended it, conceded that it was a violation of right; but affirmed, that such violation was justified by the urgency of the motive. It was asserted (as I have before noticed, in the introduction to the subject p. 366) that national policy cannot in all cases be subordinated to the Laws of Morality; in other words, that a Government may act with injustice, and yet remain blameless. To prove this assertion as groundless and unnecessary as it is tremendous, formed the chief object of the whole disquisition. I trust then, that my Correspondent will rest satisfied, that it is not only the profession and pretext of THE FRIEND, but his constant plan and actual intention, to establish PRINCIPLES; that he refers to particular facts for no other purpose, than that of giving illustration and interest to those Principles; and that to invent Principles with a view to particular cases, whether with the motive of attacking or arraigning a transitory Cabinet, is a baseness which will scarcely be attributed to THE FRIEND by any one who understands the Work, even though the suspicion should not have been precluded by a knowledge of the Author. S. T. C. PEPAITH: PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY J. BROWN; AND SOLD BY |