acquaint you, that discussions are now depending between this country and the United States of America; and that it is the earnest wish of his Royal Highness that he may find himself enabled to bring these discussions to an amicable termination, consistent with the honour of his Majesty's crown, and the maritime rights and interests of the united kingdom.

Gentlemen of the House of Commons,-We are directed to acquaint you, that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent has given his commands that the estimates for the expenditure of the current year should be laid before you; and his Royal Highness has great satisfaction in acquainting you, that although the difficulties under which the commerce of this kingdom has laboured, have in some degree affected a part of his Majesty's revenue, particularly in Ireland, yet that the revenue of Great Britain in the last year, though unaided by any new taxation, is greater than was ever known in any preceding year. And his Royal Highness trusts to your zeal and liberality to afford his Majesty adequate supplies for the support of the great contest in which he is necessarily engaged.

My Lords and Gentlemen,-We are commanded by his Royal Highness to declare to you, that it is the most anxious wish of his heart, that he may be enabled to restore unimpaired into the hands of his Majesty the government of his kingdom; and that his Royal Highness earnestly prays that the Almighty may be pleased in his mercy to accelerate the termination of a calamity so deeply lamented by the whole nation, and so peculiarly afflicting to his Royal Highness himself.

Prince Regent's Message, March 12.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer

brought up a message from the Prince Regent: it was read from the chair, and was in substance as follows :

The Prince Regent, in the name and in the behalf of the King, thinks proper to inform the House of Com mons, that the maintenance of a body of Portuguese troops in British pay had been attended with the most important effects in the conduct of the war. The Prince Regent hopes the House of Commons will enable him to continue the same for the present year, according as circumstances and the nature of the contest may require.

Prince Regent's Message, April 8.

GEORGE P. R.

The Prince Regent, in the name and on behalf of his majesty, having taken into his serious consideration the ac counts which he has received of the severe distresses to which the inhabitants of a part of the kingdom of Portugal have been exposed in their persons and property, in consequence of the invasion of that country, and espe cially from the wanton and savage barbarity exercised by the French armies, in their recent retreat, which cannot fail to affect the hearts of all persons who have any sense of religion or humanity, desires to be enabled by the House of Commons to afford the suffering subjects of his majesty's good and faithful ally, such speedy and effectual relief as may be suitable to this interesting and afflicting occasion.

CITY ADDRESS.

G. P. R.

The dutiful and loyal Address of the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Commons of the City of London, in Common Council assembled.

May it please your Royal Highness, We, the lord mayor, aldermen, and

commons of the city of London, in common council assembled, most humbly approach your Royal Highness with the warmest assurances of affectionate attachment to your royal person, and unshaken adherence to those sacred principles which seated your family upon the throne of this realm; fully convinced, that those principles afford the best security to the honour and dignity of the sovereign, and the rights and interests of the people.

Whilst we offer to your Royal High ness our sincere condolence upon the severe visitation with which it has pleased Divine Providence to afflict our most gracious sovereign, which has occasioned a suspension of the royal functions, it is with heartfelt consolation, that, in common with all ranks of our fellow subjects, we behold in the person of your Royal Highness a prince highly endowed, and eminently qualified to exercise the regal duties-a prince, who has so greatly endeared himself to the people by his moderation and forbearance on various trying occasions, and the attachment he has so uniformly shown to their rights and liberties.

Had indeed the desire and the expectation of the united kingdom been realized, by vesting in your Royal Highness the full powers of the executive authority, we should have had just cause for congratulation, confident as we feel that those powers would have been wisely and beneficially exereised, to enable us to meet the extraordinary exigencies of so perilous a erisis.

Deeply impressed with a sense of the many and great difficulties, which, with powers so limited, your Royal Highness must have to encounter in the discharge of duties so arduous, and feeling towards your Royal Highness the fullness of that loyal affection, which in deeds as well as in words we

have so long demonstrated towards your royal father and family, we would fain have forborne to cloud the dawn of our intercourse with your Royal Highness by even a glance at our grievances, manifold and weighty as they are; but duty to our sovereign, duty to our country, the example of our forefathers, justice to posterity, the fame and the safety of the kingdom, all, with voice imperious, forbid us to disguise our thoughts, or to smother our feelings.

Far be it from us, insulted as the corporation of this ancient (and at all formertimes respected) city has recently been by the servants of the crown; far be it from us to indulge in complaints of grievances peculiar to ourselves, ready and willing as we are to share in all the necessary burdens and all the dangers of our country. It is of general grievances, grievances sorely felt in all ranks of life; of accumulated and ever accumulating taxation, rendered doubly grievous by the oppressive mode of exaction, and of the increased and increasing distress and misery therefrom arising; of the im provident expenditure of the immense sums thus wrung from industry and labour; of the waste of life, and of treasure, in ill-contrived and ill-conducted expeditions; of the attempts which for many years past, and especially within the last three years, have been made, and with but too much success, to crush public liberty in all its branches, and especially the liberty of freely discussing the conduct of public men, and the nature and tendency of public measures.

Can we refrain from humbly express ing our complaints, when we have seen those ministers who have so long usurped the royal authority, and who, it is now discovered, have, by practising the most criminal deception upon the parliament and the people, carried on the

government during his majesty's former incapacity, exerting their influence to degrade the kingly office? When we have seen measures adopt. ed, evincing the most ungrounded jealousy and mistrust of your Royal Highness-when we have seen the prerogatives of the crown curtailed and withheld-when we have seen a new estate established in the realm, highly dangerous and unconstitutional -when we have seen power, influence, and emolument, thus set apart to control and embarrass the executive go vernment, at a time of such unprecedented difficulty, when all the energies of the state are necessary to enable us to surmount the dangers with which we are threatened, both at home and abroad we confess that, feeling as we do the most unbounded gratitude to your Royal Highness, for undertaking these arduous duties at a moment of such peril, and under such circumstances, we can discover no cause for congratulation on the contrary, we should be filled with dismay and the most alarming apprehensions, were it not for the known patriotism and amia ble qualities which your Royal Highness possesses, and the resource which we trust your Royal Highness will find in the zeal, ardour, affection, and loyalty of a free and united people.

Numerous other grievances we forbear even to mention; but there is one so prominent in the odiousness of its nature, as well as in the magnitude of its mischievous consequences, that we are unable to refrain from marking it out as a particular object of our complaint and of your Royal Highness's virtuous abhorrence-the present representation in the Commons House of parliament, a ready instrument in the hands of the minister for the time being, whether for the purpose of nullifying the just prerogatives of the crown, or of insulting and oppressing the peo ple, and a reform in which representa

VOL. IV. PART II.

tion is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the safety of the crown, the happiness of the people, and the peace and independence of the country.

Reposing the fullest confidence in your Royal Highness's beneficent views and intentions, we can only deplore the present unfortunate state of things, fully relying that, under circumstances so novel and embarrassing, every measure which depends personally upon your Royal Highness will be adopted towards extricating us from our present difficulties, and for promoting the peace, happiness, and security of the country.

Thus to mingle our expressions of confidence and affection with the voice of complaint, is grievous to our hearts; but, placing as we do implicit reliance on the constitutional principles of your Royal Highness, we are cheered with the hope, that such a change of system will take place, as will henceforward, for a long series of happy years, prevent your Royal Highness from being greeted by the faithful and loyal city of London in any voice but that of content and of gratitude.

Signed by order of court, HENRY WOODTHORPE. To which address his Royal Highness was pleased to return the following most gracious answer :

I thank you for the assurances of your attachment, and of your confi. dence in the sincerity of my endeavours to promote the welfare and security of his majesty's dominions, by the faithful administration of those powers with which I am entrusted during the lamented indisposition of the king.

In the arduous situation in which I am placed, I can assure you that it will be the happiest moment of my life when, by the blessing of providence, I shall be called upon to resign the powers delegated to me into the hands of my beloved and revered father and sovereign.

R

My own disposition, no less than the example of my royal father, will make me at all times ready to listen to the complaints of those who may think themselves aggrieved; and will determine me on all occasions to regulate my conduct upon the established principles of that ancient and excellent constitution, under which the people of this country have hitherto enjoyed a state of unrivalled prosperity and happiness.

Report of the Queen's Council on the State of his Majesty's Health.

Queen's Lodge, Windsor, Apr. 6, 1811. Present, the archbishops of Canterbury and York, Earl of Winchelsea, Earl of Aylesford, Lord Eldon, Lord Ellenborough, Sir W. Grant, (the Duke of Montrose being absent on account of indisposition.) We the members of the council, here present, appointed to assist her majesty in the execution of the trust committed to her majesty by virtue of the statute passed in the 51st year of his majesty's reign, intituled," An Act to provide for the Administration of the Royal Authority, and for the care of his Majesty's Royal Person during the Continuance of his Majesty's Illness, and for the Resumption of the Exercise of the Royal Authority by his Majesty;" having called before us, and examined on oath the physicians and other persons attendant on his majesty, and having ascertained the state of his majesty's health by such ways and means as appear to us to be necessary for that purpose, do hereby declare the state of his majesty's health, at the time of this our meeting, as follows:

That the indisposition with which his majesty was afflicted at the time of the passing of the said act does still so far exist, that his majesty is not yet restored to such a state of health as to

From the Essequebo and Demerara Royal Gazette: Proclamation by his Excellency H. W. Bentinck, Governor, and the Honourable the Court of Policy of the said Colonies. Unto whom these presents shall come greeting. Be it known,

Whereas representations have been made to us, that numerous meetings of slaves are permitted to take place on the east coast of the colony, at late hours in the evening; which, although they are avowedly for religious purposes, yet being at unseasonable and improper hours, have been found productive of disorder, and, if continued to be allowed, may have the most dangerous tendency: We have therefore thought fit to enact, and it is hereby enacted, that from the date of the publication of these presents, no meeting or convocation of slaves shall be lawful, or permitted to take place, after the hour of sun-set, for any purpose whatever, except only for the usual purposes of the estate or plantation to which such slave shall belong. And we do hereby in the strictest manner forbid any proprietor, attorney, or manager of estates, to permit such meeting, under pain of the several penalties of the law, directing the burgher officers of the different districts to use their authority to prevent the same; authorising them, in case of resistance, to commit the person or persons so re

sisting or refusing to comply, strictly conforming themselves to the instructions given them in the 25th article of the militia regulations.

Given at the court-house in Stabrock, the 2d day of May, 1811; and published the 25th of the same month. H. W. BENTINCK.

Report from the Select Committee on the State of Commercial Credit.

The Select Committee, appointed to enquire into the state of commercial credit: and who were directed to report the same, as it should appear to them, together with their observations thereon, from time to time to the House ;-met, and examined a variety of witnesses, and have agreed upon the following report :

Your committee directed its attention to three points;

First-The extent of the difficulties and embarrassments which are at present experienced by the trading part of the community :

Second-The causes to which the same should be ascribed; and,

Third-The expediency, with a view to the present and future interests of the merchants and manufacturers, and of the public, of any assistance being afforded by parliament.

Your committee found, that memorials had been presented to his majesty's treasury, towards the latter end of the last and the beginning of the present year, stating the great embarrasments and distress which were felt amongst the manufacturers in the cotton trade in Glasgow and Paisley, and their vicinity, and praying for public assistance; that the same were confirmed by the representation of a meeting held in the city of London on the 12th of February, which sent a deputation to wait upon the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with a copy of the resolutions adopted at that meeting.

These resolutions your committee have inserted in the appendix to this report.

Your committee found, by the evidence of the witnesses which they examined, that those statements and representations were founded on fact.

It appeared to your committee, that the principal part of the distress which was complained of had arisen out of great and extensive speculations, which commenced upon the opening of the South American markets in the Brazils and elsewhere, to the adventures of British merchants.

Mr Garden, the chairman of the chamber of commerce and manufacture at Glasgow, said " That in Glasgow and the neighbourhood the distress began among the manufacturing body of people, and it has pressed more severely upon them hitherto than on any class. That it began about the month of October or beginning of November last; the cause of it appeared to him to be this-That a set of merchants in London, Liverpool, and Glasgow, conceiving that the markets of South America would consume a vast quantity of our manufactures, entered into a project of very extensive exports to those countries and to the West India islands, chiefly intended for the Spanish colonies; these expeditions not meeting a ready market, those exporters have not been able to pay the manufacturers, when the bills became due; these bills were therefore returned upon the manufacturers, which created a great deal of distress.-Many of those houses that were the original causes of the evil are gone to bankruptcy long ago; but they have created this evil upon the manufacturers of whom they purchased the goods; that the manufacturers have their property locked up in bankrupts' estates; that part of it will be lost, no doubt; but yet, that in the course of nine, twelve, or fifteen months, a considerable part of the capital will return to the manufactu