Governor Meynell, who died, was supposed to have fallen a victim to the hardships he had endured.

The next measure was the general proscription of all the inhabitants, by which they were ordered to quit the island; all without exception: the Dutch were banished because they were Dutch; the Americans, because they were the king's enemies. Ill-fated Americans! destined to be always the objects on which the English were desirous to heap misfortunes; banished as enemies from St. Eustatius; surrendered without condition at York-town, though friends: consequently destined to suffer, either as friends or foes to Great Britain, and to receive the deadly blow from her own hand! Among these, the case of Mr. Gouverneur was not a little remarkable: he had traded solely in dry goods, and no naval or military stores whatever had passed through his hands; but he acted upon commission from the congress. This gentleman was seized, his property confiscated, and himself hurried on board, to be carried to England; while his wife was unable to obtain even a bed from her own house, for her husband and herself. It was true, indeed, that on board they were both treated with the greatest humanity by Commodore Hotham and Captain Halliday; but the guilt of those who had treated them so barbarously could not be effaced by the humanity of other people. Mr. Gouverneur had no chance for his property in the hands of the admiral and general. They viewed him in a two-fold light, and thereby were sure to catch him doubly: they considered him as a Dutchman and an Englishman; as a Dutchman, they confiscated his property; as an Englishman, they confined him as a traitor, and sent him to England, to be reserved for the justice of his country to pronounce upon him. But did not the commanders know, that if he was a subject of this country, and even guilty of treason, his property could not be confiscated, until a jury of his country should have pronounced him guilty? It was conviction alone that produced confiscation, and gave the king a right, which a moment before he did not possess, to dispose of the con

vict's property. But the commanders went to work another way; they first confiscated and made sure of the goods, before they knew whether Mr. Gouverneur would be convicted or not; and then subjected him to the hardships of four or five months' close confinement in a gaol, with the meanest and most depraved malefactors.

The French inhabitants of the island of St. Eustatius were also banished, but they were indeed treated with a degree of politeness which the other nations had not experienced. The Americans our subjects, and the Dutch our natural allies, were treated with uncommon severity; whilst the French, our natural enemies, met with some respect and politeness; probably because they were the subjects of a polite nation, or rather because a retaliation was apprehended. Letters, indeed, had passed between Sir George Rodney and the Marquis de Bouille, which were conceived in language that equalled the highest that had been used in the wildest days of ancient chivalry; and there the admiral bid defiance to the enemy, and told him he did not dare to retaliate: but if retaliation had not taken place, it was not to be ascribed to fear, but to the native generosity of the King of France, and the sense he entertained of public justice. Our own merchants at home had solicited relief, but they could find it only at the foot of the French throne; and the British ministry, who could not be moved by the dictates of national justice, or the supplications of our merchants, soon gave way to a menacing letter from the court of France, in which the French king said, that, contrary to his natural disposition, he should be obliged, in justice to his subjects, to have recourse to retaliation, if the British ministry would not adopt a different line of conduct. Ministers then gave, and the French met with, better treatment after the menace had been conveyed to our court. It was really a matter of astonishment, that the English should act in a manner to provoke retaliation; yet so it was, that at the very time Lord Cornwallis was surrounded with forty-two pieces of heavy artillery when he could not so much as shew the nose of a gun to the

enemy, General Arnold was employed in burning shops and houses in New Hampshire; and this species of warfare was unknown even to General Arnold, till he joined the British standard: but so common was that kind of war to the English, and so many acts had the enemy to retaliate upon them, that, by the most unheard-of article, Lord Cornwallis was obliged to strengthen the flank of his capitulation, in order to screen his troops from all reprisals under the idea of retaliation.

The poor Jews at St. Eustatius were treated in a worse manner, if possible, than all the other inhabitants; they were stripped of all their money, and eight of them put on board a ship to be carried out of the island: one of them in particular, Mr. Hoheb, a venerable old gentleman, of near seventy years of age, had even his cloaths searched;and from this bit of linen [holding it up] which was sewed in the poor man's coat, were taken thirty-six shillings, which he had the consummate audacity to endeavour to conceal for the purpose of buying victuals! Here is the linen; and I can produce at your bar the coat from which it was taken, and the man who wore it. Mr. Hoheb was treated in the most harsh manner, as were all his brethren, for this concealment. This treatment, Mr. Burke said, brought to his mind a story of an Irish gentleman, who, finding his wife indulging a little too freely in the follies and amusements of London, carried her over to a venerable old castle he had in Ireland. The lady's acquaintance in London were much offended at this step, and their expressions of disapprobation reached the gentleman's ear: upon this he said, the world dealt whimsically by him; "for," said he, "if I had run away with another man's wife, I should have been applauded, as a fashionable man; but because I ran away with my own wife, I am censured by the world." So with the Jew: he was ill-treated because he had endeavoured to carry away some of his own money.

With respect to the confiscation in general, the commanders were without the shadow of excuse; for they had very able assistance at hand, if they had thought proper to

resort to it; they might have taken the opinion of his majesty's attorney and solicitor-general of St. Kitt's on the point of law, but no such opinion was ever called for, though Mr. Bridgewater, the solicitor-general, had been twice with Sir George Rodney. This was a fact which should be proved at the bar, if the House would go into the inquiry.

The commanders-in-chief having determined upon the confiscation, the next thing to be thought of was the sale of the goods. A proclamation was accordingly issued, promising free ingress and regress to all purchasers, together with security that their money should not be taken from them, and that they should be at liberty to carry away the goods they should purchase: this promise of protection eundo, redeundo, and commodando, might not have been thought necessary from any but the conquerors of Eustatius. Seventeen.flags of truce were ordered from various parts to that island; and the goods being set up at auction, ad crudelem hastam, they were mixed so as to make proper assortments; and, in particular, a kind of sail-cloth called Maven's Stuff, which was generally used for scudding and stay sails, and of which kind half the sails of every American vessel were made, was sold to whoever should purchase, without taking any other notice of the purchaser, than to see if he had money enough. Another difficulty, however, was still to be obviated; the privateers were like vultures, hovering round the island, waiting for the return of the purchasers, to pick up their purchase. If this difficulty had not been obviated, there would have been no purchasers: a convoy was therefore promised to them, and actually granted; and he could prove that the convoy was the Convert frigate, Captain Hervey, which was appointed to see the purchasers with their commodities clear of the privateers, by which means the goods got safe into Martinique, a place which our privateers would never have suffered them to reach, if St. Eustatius had remained under the Dutch. Another circumstance was, that the goods so sold had been disposed of 50 per cent. cheaper than the

Dutch had before that sold similar articles to the French; so that, in fact, the only use that the conquest of St. Eustatius appeared to be of, was, that the French and Americans had been supplied with stores, by conquerors, and at 50 per cent. cheaper than they used to get them from the Dutch. The provocation of the English, to confiscate every thing, was merely imaginary; for the Dutch sold equally to all nations: and though it was said in the last session of parliament, that Sir George Rodney had applied for cordage to the Dutch, but had not been able to obtain any, the reason was, that at the time they had scarcely any on hand. This was a fact; and he would prove it by the books seized there, and by living witnesses, who would also establish these two facts, that at St. Eustatius the English always had the preference at the market; and that at the time Admiral Rodney could not obtain cordage at St. Eustatius, it was so scarce, that what little there was sold at 10 per cent. dearer than at St. Kitt's.

In the glorious business of the sales were the two commanders taken up from the beginning of February to the beginning of May; a period in which the admiral had twenty-one sail of the line under his command, and 3,000 veteran troops at St. Eustatius, while the enemy had not six sail at Martinique. That, surely, was the time for offensive operations, when the enemy had not force to oppose us; that, surely, was our time either to recover some of our former possessions, or to take others from the enemy: but that time was lost; and the first misfortuné that sprang from it was, that Sir Samuel Hood was left with an inferior fleet, to fight the superior force of De Grasse just arrived from Europe. The position of that admiral was not such as to prevent four of the enemy's ships in Fort Royal from coming out and joining De Grasse: thus the enemy was strengthened, while our force was weakened by the detention of three ships of the line at St. Eustatius. If our fleet had been reinforced by these three, the four which came out from Fort Royal might have been blockaded; and

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