Essequebo and Demerary Royal Gazette 1813 April 13

 
The ESSEQUEBO & DEMERARY ROYAL GAZETTE.

Vol. VIII.]

[No. 571.
 

TUESDAY, APRIL 13, 1813.

                  COMMISSARIAT OFFICE,
                  Demerary, April 12, 1813.
IT is requested that all persons having accounts against this Department, will render them on the 24th day of each month, otherwise payment will be altogether withheld.
HENRY HENDY,
Deputy Assistant-Commissary-General.

ABSENTED HERSELF [centered]
On Thursday last, [centered]
The Mulatto-Woman Sally-Betsy. [centered]
A reward of TWO JOES will be given for her apprehension, and lodging her in the Colony Barracks: and all persons are hereby cautioned against harbouring her; and Captains of vessels in particular, against taking her from the colony.
April 13. E. J. HENERY.
[Transcriber's note: compare with a similar ad in 18130410EDRG.]

ABSENTED himself from the Subscriber, on Monday the 5th inst. a yellow-skin Boy, named James, Barbadian born, speaks good English, and has not been the Colony more than three months. - He is from 12 to 15 years of age, stands five feet. Any person delivering him to the undersigned, or lodging him in the Barracks, shall be rewarded. Persons are forbid employing him, and Masters of Vessels taking him from the Colony.
April 13. JOHN D. HINKSON.

NOTICE is hereby given, that LEWIS FORRESTER is no longer authorised to administer to the One-half of the Plantation Good Fellowship, in Mahaica, which is the property of the Subscriber; and that no debts or engagements entered into by him, after this notice, will be valid or binding, without the previous written consent of
J. L. FORRESTER.
George-Town, April 13, 1813.
 

SECRETARY's OFFICE. [centered]

 
This is to inform the Public, that the following Persons intend quitting this Colony: -
Hugo Cantzlaar, j.z. with a servant, in fourteen days, from April 1.
B. J. Hopkinson, in fourteen days, or six weeks, from April 1.
Samuel Knight, (free coloured) in fourteen days, or six weeks. [sic – no date]
Roderick Young, by the April Fleet, or six weeks, from April 2.
Malachy Glyn, in fourteen days, or six weeks, from April 2.
C. F. E. Windisch, in fourteen days, from April 3.
James Walcott, in fourteen days or six weeks, from the 5th of April.
G. Wells, in fourteen days or six weeks, from the 5th of April.
The free coloured Martha C. Jordan, in fourteen days, from the 7th of April.
W. Forsyth, in fourteen days or with the fleet, from the 7th of April.
John Munro, in fourteen days, or ditto, from the 7th of April.
Samuel Dealey, in fourteen days, or six weeks, from the 9th of April.
Secretary's Office, Demerary, April 10, 1813.
CHARLES WILDAY,
Sworn Clerk.

PUBLIC VENDUES. [centered]

On Monday, the 10th of May, [see 18130403EDRG] . . .
Also by order of the Executors of the late ROBERT WILLIAMSON – Six Prime Field Negroes.
April 3. A. MILLS, & Co.

The King's House, [centered]
DEMERARY. [centered]

NOTICE. [centered]
AS in the Proclamation of the 23d of March, the day on which the Votes for Kiezers were intended to be opened, was by mistake called Tuesday the 14th of April. - In order to obviate any inconvenience which might arise from this error, the Votes will be opened to-morrow morning at 10 o'clock.
King's-House, Tuesday, April 13, 1813.
By Command,
JOHN EYRE,
Assistant-Government-Secretary.

ARRIVALS. - The schooner Catharine, from St. Vincent, last from Barbados: and the long-expected Packet, with the February Mail for these Colonies.

British Journals have been received, by the way of Barbados, to the 6th ultimo; and having been kindly favoured with the use of them, our extracts are so extensive, as our limits admitted of. The intelligence we are thus enable [sic] to communicate, will be found of the most agreeable nature, particularly respecting the North of Europe.

The Packet has had too long a passage for her to afford any intelligence of a recent date.

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE. [centered]

LONDON, March 6. [centered]

[Transcriber's note: most European news not transcribed.]

They write from Holland, that serious disturbances took place at Haarlem, on the 8th of February – in attempting to organize the Conscripts, who fired on the Officers. A French General was among the killed.

THE WAR WITH AMERICA. [centered]

(See our Gazette of the 30th of March.)

No. 2. [centered]

SIR – In my Letter of yesterday, I stated the very important fact, that so early as May last, the Admiral of the Newfoundland station, (and probably all the others), was prepared by the orders of our Government, for the war with America, and with authority and instructions to proceed to immediate and vigorous measures of retaliation; I shall now proceed to shew that these Officers were not furnished with orders only for this purpose, but with means also.
It is necessary that I should premise that I have not access to any sources of information which are not open to the public at large; Steele's List and the American and English newspapers are, I will frankly confess, my chief authorities. I might easily affect the appearance of superior information. – I might put on that mysterious mask which would give a kind of oracular importance to my assertions; but I leave these pretences to the bad cause – such little arts are for the weak and not for the strong. The case of the Government may be better or worse than those public documents make it; but as their antagonists can have access to no other sources of intelligence, they (I mean the antagonists), at least, can have no reason to complain, if I consent to meet them on this common ground, and choose my weapons from an armoury that is open to both parties.
When the matter comes (as it probably will) to be discussed in Parliament, we shall have the facts on official authority; at present we must take them on public report, and I freely confess, that I am not afraid, on even the present appearance of the case, of being over-matched, though the plodding pedantry of the Times should coalesce against me with the flippant ignorance of the Morning Chronicle.
These few preliminary signals being made, let me hasten to renew the general engagement.
The American Navy consisted, at the breaking out of the war, of three large and two smaller frigates, three sloops, and six brigs, &c. To meet this force, there appear to have been on the 1st of June, on the Halifax and Newfoundland stations, one line of battle ship, one ship of 50 guns, six frigates, nine sloops, and ten brigs. The Jamaica squadron consisted of one of the line, ten frigates, eight sloops, and eleven brigs, &c. At the Leeward Island station, there were one of the line, seven frigates, eight sloops, and fifteen brigs, &c. So that there were three sail of the line, one 50-gun ship, twenty-three frigates, twenty-five sloops, and thirty-three brigs, &c. a total if 85 sail, to oppose 14 American pendants.
Now, Sir, I really do not think it will be again asserted that this force was not adequate, that it was not ample.
Since that period it will appear by an examination of Steele's List, that the force has been gradually encreasing, not so much in the total number of pendants as in the classes of ships employed – More line of battle ships and heavier frigates appear to have been sent out to the stations; while the convoys to the westward were protected by a greater number of ships and of a greater force than had been before found necessary.
The next charge made against the Government is the having appointed one Admiral, Commander in Chief over the three American stations, instead of permitting them to remain distinct commands under one Vice and two Rear Admirals: and this the Morning Chronicle and the Times blames as "unprecedented and most injudicious." First, I shall say a word or two on the assertion that this measure is unprecedented. The Morning Chronicle has a famous reputation for geographical knowledge, and it has now a mind to shew us that it is equally well versed in history.
Does this writer forget, or did he ever know, the nature of the authority with which Sir George Rodney was invested during the former American war; I am old enough to recollect, that that gallant Admiral had authority over the Jamaica, Leeward Islands, and Halifax stations, and could enter into each of them and assume the command at his discretion. Is the Chronicle as ignorant of our victories in former times, as it is dissatisfied at our later glories, and does it not know that Sir George Rodney won the great battle of the 12th of April, 1782, in the Leeward Island station; that he went down immediately after to refit at Jamaica; and subsequently went to cruise on the Coast of America, on what is now called the Halifax station; and that he returned again in the same autumn successively to Barbados and Jamaica. The power ten given to Sir George might have been called unprecedented; but if he had not possessed them, we never should have won that glorious and at that time unprecedented victory.
Here then is a precedent, (not in form indeed, but in spirit and analogy,) for the union of those three commands; but if there had been no precedent, would it have been followed that the measure was wrong. New circumstances require new arrangements. Three several Admiral in three distinct and independent stations may be a distribution of naval command, fitted for times of peace: does it necessarily follow, in any logic but that of the Chronicle, that it is also proper for a state of war?
The truth is, that the question ought to be, not of forms and precedents, but, whether this union of commands is or is not advantageous to the public service? This is the fair ground of discussion, and upon this I am prepared to argue it.
In the first place it is to be observed, that the Admirals originally commanding the several stations have not been removed, nor are their powers (as I understand), as far as relates to the duties of the respective stations, curtailed. They are no longer Commanders in Chief in title, but they have, actually within their limits, all the authority that local purposes can require. Nothing but a disposition to find fault with every thing, could, I think, induce even the Morning Chronicle to assert, that, having one enemy to fight, we should have three distinct and unconnected systems of warfare. What could be in practice as well as in theory more absurd and mischievous than that one Admiral should be executing one project, another advising a second, and the third, a third against a common enemy, and yet without concert or co-operation – that instead of having one enlarged view of our forces in one quarter, each of these autocratic Admirals should be in ignorance of his neighbour's means and intentions; - and that (as would follow of course) they should be thwarting and counteracting their several measures! Would the Times have recommended, that Lord Wellington and the British, Marshal Beresford and the Portuguese, and General Callanos and the Spaniards, should, by all means, have been kept distinct and independent? And yet it will say, that though it would have been madness not to have united three armies under one General, yet that it was impolitic and injudicious to place the three American stations under one Commander in Chief.
If the Admiral at Jamaica should learn that a squadron was fitting at Charleston to attack Bermuda, he could not send to intercept it; no, no, Charleston is beyond his limits, and the stations must be kept distinct! But he might send his compliments to the Admiral at Halifax, with a copy of the intelligence, and some weeks before the messenger arrived, the enemy would probably have sailed. If Admiral Sawyer, at Halifax, should find that a squadron from Boston had escaped him, and though he should have information that they were gone to windward of Barbados to intercept the West India convoy, he could not proceed to that station in quest of them, and for the protection of the trade; because, forsooth, it lies within the limits of Sir F. Laforey's command: it is almost waste of time to insist on a point so plain, and on an argument so irrefragable. I declare no better proof of the uncandid, the inveterate, the factious spirit which actuates the attacks upon the Naval Government, than this absurd charge, and the monstrous conclusion to which it inevitably leads those who make it.
Unity of councils, and co-operation of forces, used to be considered as essential to a successful campaign, either by sea or land, and we beg that the Times or Chronicle will be so good as to state distinctly whether they think that portioning out the American coast and seas into three independent commands was the best way of obtaining these objects.
The Editors of those Papers are, indeed, I should suppose, no great admirers of the principle which I contended for, of carrying on a war, for I observe that in the war which they themselves wage on the Government, they make charges of the most opposite nature, and counteract and contradict one another much oftener than they do the common enemy. But really, Sir, I cannot help recommending to the Times, though it may not consent to put itself under the command of the Chronicle, yet, at least, to establish a little "unity of principle, and co-operation of arguments" within its own limits. Certainly, never did hostile columns of French and British troops do more execution on one another than two columns of the Times of Wednesday the 30th, from each of which we shall quote a passage.
"The Editor of the Courier," says one paragraph, "must surely have forgotten, that the Americans are much better seamen than the French, and that the American Navy is one third manned by British Sailors."
"A Paper of last night," says the other article, "throws out so infamous a suggestion against British seamen as a body, that we are bound to expose its absurdity."
Now, Sir, what do you suppose this absurd and infamous suggestion is? Why, truly, no other than a statement of the Courier's (for that, I presume, is the paper alluded to), that "there were a great number of British seamen on board the American frigates."
Pray, Sir, observe the beautiful consistency of these paragraphs:-
The Courier is charged with forgetting a fact, which it is abused for remembering, and an assertion made by the Times itself, is candidly attributed to its antagonist, and politely called infamous and absurd.
You, Sir, cannot feel much offended with your brother Editor, when you see that he treats himself no better than he does you. But I think you will agree with me, that here is strong evidence, that the Times is under the orders of two distinct and independent Commanders in Chief; but as long as it chooses to wage war upon us, you and I are the last men in the world that should recommend to it a union of the commands.
London, Jan. 2. NEREUS.

AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE. [centered]

Extract of a letter dated Richmond, 14th Feb. – "Smith's Island, at the mouth of the Bay, is in possession of the English; fortifications are erected, and His Majesty's colours flying there. Two frigates have proceeded up as far as York River. – Indeed nothing can pass or repass, or evade the enemy. It is the geneal [sic] opinion, that a long and severe blockade is intended. Norfolk is, I think, safe: - the time (which has been improved) allowed for defensive measures, and 3000 brave men will, I think, ensure its safety. A party from the British squadron, a few days since, came up to burn a schooner which had run ashore; but were driven back by a party of militia. Two companies have marched to-day (Sunday) to Rackett, to embark for Norfolk.
"P.S. Evening. – News in Town, that the British squadron has received a reinforcement of eight or ten sail, probably to relieve some vessels that have been out a long time. So you see a force sufficient can be kept here, even without supplies from us.
"From Cape Henry an engagement has been seen between two frigates, which lasted two hours and 20 minutes. We are ignorant of the result."

LOCALITIES. [centered]

The Grampus Capt. Smith, late of the Demerary gun-brig, has sent into Barbados, a vessel under Swedish colours - but believed to be American property. There is no truth whatever in the report respecting the Grampus and the Essex.

The Koutusoff, Johnstone, and the Joseph, Strickland, late from this river - are safe arrived at Barbados.

[right pointing hand icon] L on B. H. in our next. - We thank S. for his Exposure of Names, relative to the late Advertisements, &c.

GEORGE-TOWN: [centered]
Printed and Published, every Tuesday and Saturday Afternoon.
By Edward James Henery. [centered]
 

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