exist in our Islands, we shall be guilty of a partiality that may induce the complaints of the latter.

These menacing evils the people of Cuba have anticipated, for the possibility of such a cession, from the weakness of Spain, and her decreasing influence on the American Continent, has been contemplated by them. The people of the United States, dreading the proximity of our arms, are actively nourishing this appre hension of evil, and are ready to aid the first manifestations of a desire to throw off the sovereignty of Spain. But for the intolerable egotism of the people of the Union, and for the contempt they have excited by their vanity and ambition, Cuba would have long suce unfettered her dependence upon the Spanish Monarch, and have thrown herself into the federal embrace of the North American Union.

During the presidency of Mr. Jefferson, while Spain bowed beneath the yoke of France, from which there was then no prospect of relief, the people of Cuba, feeling themselves incompetent in force to maintain their independence, sent a deputation to Washington, proposing the annexation of the Island to the federative system of North America. The President, however, devoted to French influence, vainly calculating upon the triumphs of that nation on the ruins of the British power, until the important victory of Trafalgar dissipated the delusion, declined the proffered acquisition. While I hazard the opinion that the people of Cuba will be adverse to the sovereignty of Great Britain, coupled with the restrictions of our colonial policy, I am far from believing that they would feel disinclined to the transfer of their allegiance, provided our possession of the Island should leave them, in their present situation, free to the commerce of the world. Advancing in the scale of consequence by becoming tributary to the first commercial and maritime nation of Europe,-secure in property and liberty, under our protection, the Island of Cuba would increase in population and in wealth, with a rapidity unequalled, and would amply repay the British Government for its fostering care and protection, while its rich mountains and fertile plains would present to the redundancy of our population a delightful refuge from the nisery of poverty and despair,

It is our bounden duty, it is our imperative policy to anticipate the rivalship of the United States, and by erecting a power capable of contending with them, in their own hemisphere, prevent the destruction of our commerce, which will otherwise inevitably follow our neglect of those precautionary measures, for, in spite of the infatuated indifference which marks our policy towards the republic-in spite of the apathy with which we view their rapid progress in wealth and power, hereafter the contest for the empire

of the sea will be between England and the North American Union, a warfare suited to the prejudices of their people, and the character of their country.

Our North American Colonies will also derive security from the accession of Cuba by Great Britain. Exposed to our hostility on the southern frontier, and the consequent distraction of their attention to the various assailable points of their extensive territory, the American Union will not be able for many years to come, to detach a sufficient force to subjugate the Canadas; in the meantime the latter will grow in consequence and population equal to their own

rotection.

Spain will doubtless reluctantly consent to the alienation of the Island of Cuba from her sovereignty, but I trust that the Ministers of Great Britain will not permit that nation to withhold from us a possession rendered necessary to the protection of our commerce, by the weakness which has induced her to cede to the demands and menaces of the United States, the important position of the Floridas. If ever there existed a necessity for departing from the ordinary courtesy and delicacy of nations-if ever self-defence justifies coercion, surely the present is the moment; and the apologists for the seizure of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen, cannot want an excuse for this equally necessary violence.

If any example was wanting to prove the degraded power of Spain, the imbecillity of her councils, and the truckling policy of her adoption towards the United States, it would be amply furnished by the recollection, that her Minister was directed to negociate the cession of the Floridas, while the troops of the Union were in hostile possession of Fort St. Marks and the Island of Amelia, while their hands were yet reeking with the rapine of her polluted territory, and red with the blood of our murdered countrymen!!!

But Spain, in the cession of the Island of Cuba to the British Government, will not merely consult the interest and advantage of this country, she will minister to the security of her yet unalienated territories on the American Continent, by placing the key of the western world in the possession of a power capable of restraining the rapid progress of that ambition with which the United States are fired, a passion far more formidable to Spain than to England. But should her obstinacy refuse, or our mistaken delicacy withhold us from demanding the cession of Cuba, a short time, with the Floridas in possession of the United States, will suffice to place that island out of the power of Spain to cede and ours to acquire. It is now said that the ratification of the treaty of cession of the Floridas will not receive the Royal signature. The six months appointed for the exchange expired on the 22nd of August; whether

Arbuthnot and Ambriester.

Spain will have the courage to withhold it, remains in the bosom of time; but judging from the example of her conduct towards the United States, when the latter demanded the liberation of Mr. Meade, one of their citizens, confined by the civil authority of Spain for a collusive compromise with one of their officers, we .may doubt of her resolution to refuse it.

Coupled however with the suspension of the signature, the return of Don Onis, the negociator, to Spain, at this critical moment, furnishes some pretext for the opinion that it will not be completed; that Ministers, foreseeing the fatal consequences with which the cession was pregnant, had tried every thing that finesse and protraction could effect, hoping that England would rouse from her seeming torpor, and interdict the alienation of the Floridas to the Union.

If, however, Spain shall, at this period of the negociation, assume the language of independence, and hazard the experiment of a refusal, we cannot doubt but that she is animated by the promised support of a formidable alliance. In the mean time the re-opening of Congress in the United States will call for the explanation of the President upon this extraordinary and unexpected delay, the speculators in Florida lands (and they are numerous) will be clamorous for possession.

Influenced as the American Executive are by the tide of popular feeling, it is extremely doubtful whether they will be able to withstand the demands for the subjugation of a territory so highly important to their security and consequence. Nothing less than the fear of being involved with the powers of the European Continent will restrain them from seizing on the Floridas by force of arms. It is true that their financial and commercial difficulties are great and paralysing. Imitating the vices of our system, they have created a factitious capital through the agency of paper circulation. Obliged to return to a more wholesome currency, without the gradual operation of legislative restrictions, and unpossessed, like ourselves, of a proportionate metallic medium, they have felt the influence of the transition more severely than the people of England.

(WITH EXPLANATIONS,).

ILLUSTRATIVE OF THE SPEECHES

OF THE

RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL,

AND THE RIGHT HON. THE

CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER;

SHOWING THE

RATES OF EXCHANGE

ON

hamburgh,

COMPARED WITH

THE AMOUNT OF BANK NOTES,

AND

THE PRICE OF GOLD,

AND WITH

THE FOREIGN EXPENDITURE,

AND THE VALUE OF GRAIN IMPORTED

FROM THE YEAR 1793 TO 1819.

ORIGINAL.

LONDON:

of Gold, in January and July, in each Year, from 1792 to 1819, together with the Rates of Exchange on Hamburgh for the same period.

NOTE. The amount of Bank Notes is taken, for the first Sixteen Years, from an Appendix to the Speeches of the Right Hon. Nich. Vansittart, upon the Bullion Question, in 1811. That for the subsequent Years is extracted from the various Documents laid before Parliament. The Rates of Exchange and Prices of Gold from an Account returned to the House of Commons by the Mint, in 1811, and subsequently from the Annual Returns.