1823 more consistent with the character of a great nation to throw The consequence has been such as might have been expected. No conditions having been made with the French, through a mistaken notion of honour, the Duc d'Angoulême has no right to interfere. The Spaniards, having chosen to trust implicitly to the King, have voluntarily deprived themselves of the support which they would undoubtedly have received from any engagement contracted with the French authorities. By this act of folly Cadiz has been given up without even the security of an amnesty for those who defended it. As soon as the King arrived at Port St. Mary, his first act was to order the admission of the French troops into Cadiz. This took place on the 4th inst., from which period we may date the final termination of the foreign war. I have, &c. &c. WILLIAM A'COURT. CORRESPONDENCE WITH PRIVATE INDIVIDUALS. THOMAS HIDEN. [These are letters asking for pecuniary assistance or an appointment under Government as a reward for service he had rendered to the Cabinet, in warning them of the Cato Street conspiracy. His letters being badly spelt and badly written, they were at first treated as coming from an ordinary begging-letter writer, but Mr. Canning endorses the first 'It is the name of the [man] who stopped Lord 'Harrowby to warn him of the plot in Cato Street.' On the second letter instructions are given to recommend his case to the Home Office for a small pension.] 1823 feb 7, 1823. Sir i hope you will parden the liberty which i ham about to take but as I feel my self in Duty Bound for the sake of my family Sir to which i have sent my Duty to ask that if you owld be so good as to see me Sir as i ham the man that has given my services to save your life & family Sir not only yours but the Cabinat & Goverment all my services was for All sir to which I hope you will think me worthy of seeingSir I Remain Your most obednt. & Humbl servent THOMAS HIDEN Sir your servents knows me not By that name Cromwell Rode Bromton. feb 27, 1823. The Right Honabe Sir George Canning Sir i have recived your letter Date feb 20 Sir i hope you will parden the Liberty which i have taken as I have but you & my frend the Earl of Harrow by to aply to Sir, as i ham afraid his Lordship will think me ungratful to ask his Lordship again as his Lordship gave me my present place & has been good to me and my family Sir as you know i have many ennemies on account of my given my Lord the Letter to save so many Lives and i have hurt my self and family and am Deprived of Dowing any thing in business to help soport my family as my present sallery will not soport them Sir you knows 85 pounds a yare is for my services i hope you will make me a messenger in your office that will suport my family-Sir i hope you will be so good as to write freind the Earl of Liverpool was so good as to give my-Sir i Remain Your most obednt. servent as my Cromwell Road Bromton. THOMAS HIDEN. 6 [The text' of these communications, though not directly referred to in them, must have been a petition, described in the 'Annual 'Register' of 1823, page 121, presented to Parliament by numerous persons interested in the East India trade, praying a just classification of East Indian sugars, and an equalisation of the duties on those sugars with the duties imposed on West Indian sugars. It appears, from statements made in Mr. Whitmore's speech in the House of Commons on May 22 following (see p. 124 of ' A. R.'), that the protecting duties had come into being only of recent date: previously to 1803 the duties on East Indian sugar were ad valorem duties, and though generally higher, became, when the price of sugar was considerably depressed, really lower than the duties on West Indian sugar. That only since that date had the protective extra duties of 10s. and 15s. been imposed on East Indian sugars. That when the West Indian trade was excluded from the great markets of the world, it might have been proper to afford it the advantage in the British market of a protective duty; but now that, by the Acts 3 Geo. IV., caps. 44 and 45, their commerce had been opened by law for the markets of the United States, and of the Spanish American colonies, no reason existed for continuing the especial favour with which the West Indian growers had hitherto been treated. In fact, generally the protective duties in favour of the West Indian sugar operated to the disadvantage of the consumer in Britain, and of the rival producer in the East Indies, and ought to be abolished. After the facts and arguments set out in this petition had been launched on Parliament and the public, to the infinite terror of the West Indian planters, for whom the loss of the partial monopoly in sugar meant ruin, Mr. James Stephen conceived the idea of utilising the sugar duties and their protective operation as a means to encourage the planters in working out a gradual abolition of slavery in the West Indian colonies. He suggested that the 'scale of import duties 'on colonial produce might be made inversely proportionate to the 'advances made by the colonial Legislatures, respectively, in the miti'gation of slavery.' His anxiety for a concealment of his share in the suggestion arose from the fact that the promoters of equalised duties for East India sugar and the promoters of the abolition of slavery were working together, their aims being different; the one party acting in the interests of East Indian planters, the other party in the interests of an emancipation of the West Indian slaves. But the means to these several ends were closely bound up to gether. The abolition of protective duties promised to reduce the profits of sugar in the West Indies to an extent which would take from slavery all its especial profitableness. On the other hand, the abolition of slavery appeared likely to destroy the sugar-producing powers of the West Indian colonies altogether, and make the question of protective duties no longer one of any importance, leaving the field of all markets open to the East Indian producer. Mr. Stephen's suggestion of continuing duties protective of West Indian produce based on a scale, graduated according to the progress each colony might make in the direction of emancipation, while favourable to the cause of emancipation, surrendered the principle of equalised duties, in behalf of which his East Indian allies were struggling. However, it does not appear that the Government accepted the ingenious suggestion; for when the debate on Mr. Whitmore's motion on the sugar duties came off in the House of Commons, on May 22, 1823, Mr. Huskisson simply denied in general terms the remarkable benefits prophesied for the East Indies if the duties were equalised, and only conceded a reduction of duty to the extent of five shillings on a particular sugar from the East Indies, to which for mere fiscal purposes it had been found difficult to assign its proper quality.] Kensington Gore: Feb. 18, 1823. Dear Sir, I wish to obtain from you what I fear it may be thought presuming in me to ask, as well as difficult for you at the present busy time to grant-a private conference with you long enough to enable a prosing old man to submit to your consideration some new and extensive views of a very important subject. When you look at the signature below, you will scarcely need to be told that this subject is colonial slavery. It is an old one, but a subject to which the attention of the public and of Parliament will be soon and earnestly and perseveringly recalled. You will have a part to take in relation to it, your choice of which is of the highest importance, and I am anxious to put you in possession of my view if possible before any Parliamentary discussion takes place on the subject, or the closely connected one of duties on E. India sugar.-I have the honour to be, dear sir, very respectfully, Your most obedient servant, JAMES STEPHEN, 1823 1823 Foreign Office: February 20, 1823. Dear Sir, I shall be very glad to hear all your 'prose' when I have a little more time at my own disposal. Just now I really am so overwhelmed with un-put-offable occupations that I must beg a short respite. You shall hear from me again. Very sincerely yours, GEO. CANNING. Kensington Gore, Sunday morning: March 16, 1823. Dear Sir, I heard yesterday only from Mr. Wilberforce what you said to him about my application to you, and learned at the same time that he supposes you are likely to say something on the subject of the petition of the Quakers respecting slavery, which is, it seems, to be presented to the House of Commons to-morrow. My application to you being my own act alone, he did not know its particular object, nor my own sense of its urgency; otherwise I dare say he would sooner have communicated to me your message, for such I suppose it was meant to be. Though I have to go into the country at Easter, I will return at any time for the sake of a conference with you, if apprised of the appointment you may make soon enough to do so; but I feel it a present duty to say that the suggestions I wish to make to you will probably be useless if you should previously have committed yourself in Parliament on the subject. of slavery or that of East India sugar in the way which you are perhaps likely to do under what I believe to be your present impressions. There are most important relations between those two subjects, which perhaps have not yet presented themselves to your mind. It was my wish to direct your attention to them, not with much hope that they would lead you to act on my principles, but to prevent your throwing away what consistently I believe, with your own, might be an opportunity of effecting great and inestimable good. The views I wish to open to you are, as far as I know, exclusively my own, and for certain reasons I cannot be more explicit, except under the previous assurance of the strictest and most |