Council to state that, by letters I have received from them since my late departure from London, my orders respecting the discipline of the King's fleet are obeyed with more promptitude. I entirely coincide with your Lordship that the situation of the Lord High Admiral is very far different from the Commander-in-Chief of the Forces. So far from the annual visit I think it my duty to make to the outports during peace hurting my health, I find myself, with care and attention, much the better; and as, of course, during war the thing would be utterly impossible, I conceive it my peculiar duty in peace to do so. Of course, if urgent matters required my presence in London I should remain there. The eye of the First Lord of the Admiralty or of the Lord High Admiral does infinite good, and the nation at large felt the advantage of Lord Sandwich annually visiting the arsenals from 1771 till the war with America and France. I carry with me the estimates back to London, unless they are points that may require immediate decision, and then I send them at once to my Council. In addition to all this I have one most important observation to make, that, even including Cork, which I do not visit, I trust and hope to place before the minister next October every estimate that can be made to complete all our various arsenals to the utmost extent they can and ought to be carried, leaving only the time and the sums to his Majesty's confidential servants to arrange as suits their public duty. I ever remain, my dear Lord, yours sincerely, WILLIAM. James Stephen, Esq., to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY LORD DUKE, Master in Chancery's Office, Thursday evening, 24th July, 1828. After an absence from town of four or five days, occasioned by an alarming accident to one of my sons at Brighton, I find on my return to my official duties letters from respectable friends deeply interested, like myself, in the anti-slavery cause, which seem to impose on me the duty of thus intruding on your Grace, though I am not unconscious that it is a measure which may naturally be regarded as presumptuous. It is understood I find that your Grace, in your reply to Lord Calthorpe in a late debate, disclaimed the right of the British Parliament to legislate in the interior concerns of the colonies; and my friends call my attention to this as a death-blow if unrepelled to all our hopes on behalf of the unfortunate slaves. I was about to write in return my assent to that opinion, adding that I saw not any remedy, unless it might be found in a new style of appeal to the people at large, among whom it has, since the resolutions of May 1823, been a great and, in my opinion, a very unfortunate sedative, that they have considered our cause as ultimately safe in the hands of our rulers, and it has therefore been doubted by no small part of its most influential friends whether invocations of the popular voice were really necessary or useful. On such brief reflection as my official occupations during the day have allowed, I have changed these views so far as to think it possible, and even very probable, that your-Grace's meaning may have been mis understood, though certainly my impressions from the report of the debate that I saw, were not different from those of my correspondents; and that it may not yet be too late to prevent the mischief that I foresee in the West Indies if you should think it right by explanation in Parliament to correct the misrepresentation or mistake of the reporters. That misrepresentation or mistake it must have been I am inclined to think, because, though the expediency of parliamentary legislation on the subject has been unhappily denied, I am not aware that any statesman of any party, or at any time, even in the utmost effervescence of the American quarrel, or when conciliation at the end of it was the general spirit, ever denied that the right of interior legislation was inherent in Parliament throughout the King's British dominions for every other purpose but that of imposing taxes; and because it appears to me a solecism in policy to maintain that the colonies are a part of the British empire, and yet to deny that such a right resides in the imperial legislature. If there be no such right, then Jamaica and Hanover stand in the same relation to us; and a multitude of Acts of Parliament, the Abolition Act among the rest, ought to be repealed as manifest usurpations. But it is not for the sake of legal or constitutional principles that I would thus presume to intrude. The heart-stirring consideration with me is that if, upon the high authority of the Duke of Wellington, the doctrine in question goes forth to the West Indies as the sense of the British government, the hopes of humanity and justice on behalf of the unfortunate slaves will, as I firmly believe, be finally extinguished. The bands of a merciless homicidal oppression may be burst by a sanguinary revolution, but never will be relaxed by pacific or bloodless reformation. The fear of effectual reformation by the British Parliament will be no more, and that this is the only motive that has produced, or could possibly produce, in the West Indies any mitigation whatever, real or ostensible, of that cruel yoke under which the poor slaves are suffering and perishing, no man who knows the case as intimately as I have done for forty-five years can possibly doubt. The truth is as unquestionable to me almost as my own existence, and the conviction of it will, I hope, be my excuse. The measure I am taking is singular, but so is the occasion that leads to it; and if the Duke of Wellington had feared to act an extraordinary part in extraordinary circumstances, where would have been the liberty and the independency of England and of Europe? where the peace and order of the whole civilised world? Ah! my Lord Duke, God has raised you up as an instrument of astonishing mercies to your country and mankind. Let not, then, your purest glories be sullied by siding with the oppressors against the oppressed. Add rather wreath to your brow more brilliant and more lasting than the many it is already girt with, by succouring and sustaining, as you of all men best can, that sacred but I fear sinking cause of which I am a feeble advocate. Secure to yourself consolation in your declining years and at the hour of death, and afterwards a crown of glory that fadeth not away. I have the honour to be, with the heartfelt gratitude that every Englishman owes to you, and with the greatest respect, My Lord Duke, your most obedient and faithful servant, JAMES STEPHEN. [956.] SIR, To James Stephen, Esq. London, 25th July, 1828. I have had the honour of receiving your letter of the 24th instant; and although I must decline to explain in Parliament what I said in debate, which has been misrepresented in the newspapers, I have no objection to inform you that I did not say anything so absurd as that Parliament had no right to legislate for the West Indian colonies. I must have forgotten all that had passed, and the principle on which I was acting, and I must likewise have forgotten a Bill at that moment on the table of the House of Lords, if I could have uttered such an opinion. What I did say was that the Secretary of State had no right to give orders to the Colonial Assemblies; and I deprecated the measure of forcing upon the colonies the provisions of law recommended for their adoption, inasmuch as it would be found that, without the assistance of the resident gentry and proprietors these provisions of law could not be carried into execution. This is the substance of what I said, if not the very words of which I made use; and I beg you and your friends to reflect upon them. I likewise beg leave to refer you to what I said respecting the determination of the government to persevere steadily in carrying into execution the wishes of Parliament. I have now only to make an observation upon the intention of yourself and your friends to adopt a new style of appeal to the people at large, and to invoke the popular voice. It must be intended to rouse the people by such appeals and invocations, in order (I won't say to intimidate, but) to induce the government and Parliament to force upon the colonies measures which the wisdom of the government and of Parliament might think it expedient to attain by milder means. Before these "invocations" are made I earnestly entreat you to re-peruse the Histories of the Revolution in St. Domingo, likewise brought about by popular appeals and invocations, and of the miseries which it occasioned; and the various accounts of the state of society at present existing in that once flourishing and beautiful island; and I likewise entreat you to direct these "appeals" and "invocations" which you have in contemplation against those ministers, or rather against that minister, who you think betrays his duty to his Sovereign and to the public by lukewarmness in the cause of these reforms in the colonies, rather than to produce a premature and forced adoption of them by popular clamour. I have, &c., WELLINGTON. The Right Hon. J. Wilson Croker to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY DEAR DUKE, Admiralty, 25th July, 1828. In obedience to your Grace's commands I have consulted Sir George Cockburn on the means which we could afford towards the transport of the French troops from Toulon to the Morea. Cockburn (soit dit en passant) quite agrees with me that it would be desirable, on a great many accounts, to avoid this transaction if possible: but that is no affair of ours. I enclose a list of our whole force in the Mediterranean, and the number of troops they could convey; but, as the force is much dispersed, the Admiral could not hope to be able to collect more than half his total strength for this object: in other words, he might undertake to convey about 2000 men in ships of war; but there appear also to be four or five transports in the Mediterranean which he could appropriate to a service of this nature, which would probably carry 1200 or 1500 men more. In any case, I submit that it would be desirable that all the measures should be taken in the Mediterranean, and that the matter should not get wind in England, which would be the case if we were to send any transports hence. 1 am, my dear Duke, yours most faithfully, J. W. CROKer. P.S.-Cockburn thinks that transports might be sent from England without difficulty, and that he would prefer that mode to the employment of the men-of-war. Lord Stuart de Rothesay to Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. MY DEAR DUKE, Paris, 25th July, 1828. The French government are greatly pleased with the answer which has been received from England respecting the expedition to the Morea, and appear inclined to follow the same course with ourselves in almost every question of foreign policy. Their internal affairs have certainly improved within these two months, though I fear the improvement has been brought about by rather too much concession to the Liberal party. Ever faithfully yours, STUART DE ROTHESAY. [957.] EXTRACTS FROM LORD ANGLESEY'S LETTER TO MR. PEEL, dated Rich View, July 26th, 1828. "The priests are using very inflammatory language, and are certainly working upon the Catholics of the army. I think it important that the depôts of Irish recruits should be gradually removed under the appearance of being required to join their regiments, and that whatever regiments are sent here should be those of Scotland, or at all events of men not recruited in the south of Ireland. I desired Sir John Byng to convey this opinion to Lord Hill." "If I should fortunately be enabled, by the advice and the warnings I give, to keep this country in a quiet state for a little time longer-if the Association should cease to agitate, and there were to be anything like an appearance of moderation-I most seriously conjure you to signify an intention of taking the state of Ireland into consideration in the first days of the next session of Parliament. I hold it to be my duty thus freely to express my opinion, but I beg you to be assured that I never commit myself or the King's government by holding out to any one that the question will be entertained. It is perfectly well known that I have no authority to discuss it, still less to negotiate upon it. Negotiation, indeed, would be beneath the dignity of the State. We must legislate, not negotiate." To the King. London, 28th July, 1828. I I beg to submit for your Majesty's pleasure that Mr. Spencer Perceval should be appointed Clerk of the Ordnance, vice Sir Henry Hardinge, appointed Secretary-at-War. understand that he is likely to distinguish himself in the House of Commons. I spoke to the Bishop of London, and conveyed to him your Majesty's most gracious pleasure; for which he expressed the utmost gratitude. I have written to the Bishop of Chester, who was gone to his diocese. I have informed both that your Majesty was desirous of conversing with them together. All of which is submitted to your Majesty by your Majesty's most dutiful and devoted subject and servant, WELLINGTON. [958. ] To the King. London, 28th July, 1828. I enclose to your Majesty a letter which I have just received from the Bishop of Chester, and according to your Majesty's |