80] 



ANNUAL REGISTER, 1818. 



claimants who were in possesBlon 

 of sentences of restitution from 

 British courts in this country. 

 The parties who had sought for 

 restitution of their propertj', had 

 appealed to the British courts in 

 the fullest reliance on their ac- 

 knowledged, character for good 

 faith and justice ; and on refer- 

 ring to the cases in which resti- 

 tution had been made, he found 

 that it had been ordered in two 

 instances as far back as January 

 1817, in another in May of the 

 same year, and in a fourth in 

 December, though the treaty with 

 Spain was not ratified till the end 

 of that month. Yet by that 

 treaty, a decree of the law of 

 nations putting these parties 'fa 

 possession of their property, or 

 the value of their property, was 

 rendered, to all useful purposes in 

 this country, but as so much 

 waste paper. Before the execu- 

 tion of the recent treaty, no 

 merchant in England would have 

 refused the most liberal advances 

 to these claimants on the security 

 of those sentences of restitution: 

 at present they were wholly va- 

 lueless. 



But the case of these claimants 

 stood on stronger grounds than 

 the mere sentence of restitution : 

 they were protected by an act of 

 parliament, the 55th of the pre- 

 sent reign, by which, not only a 

 restitution in value was enacted, 

 but it was ordered that payment 

 should be made on the produc- 

 tion of the sentences by the trea- 

 surer of the navj'. Apphcation 

 had been made by these claimants 

 to the courts, in order to accele- 

 rate the payment, and the answer 

 was, that a treaty was pending. 

 Of the treasurer of the navy the 



value of the property had been 

 demanded, but the claim was from 

 time to time evaded ; althoughs 

 under the provisions of the very 

 act of parliament, a sum of 

 48,000/. was paying to French 

 claimants similarly situated. 



There remained one point on 

 which, from what he had heard 

 since be entered the House, he 

 was anxious to be fully under- 

 stood. No man more sincerely 

 wished for tlie total abolition of 

 the slave trade ; no man was 

 more sensible of the embarrass- 

 ments this country had to con- 

 tend with in achieving that im- 

 portant concession by which the 

 African continent to the north- 

 ward of the equinoctial line was 

 at length placed witliin the pale 

 of civilized society. The ques- 

 tion he had the honour to submit 

 stood wholly independent of the 

 slave trade. 



The hon. and learned gentle- 

 man concluded with moving, 

 " That an humble address be 

 presented to his royal high- 

 ness the Prince Regent, to re- 

 present to his Royal Highness, 

 that it appears to this House, 

 that several Spanish subjects have 

 obtained sentences of restitution 

 of vessels engaged in the Afri- 

 can slave trade, which had been 

 detained by his majesty's cruizers, 

 and brought to adjudication in 

 the courts of admiralty in this 

 country, but have not yet been 

 put into possession of the same : 

 and that they commenced and 

 prosecuted their suits at consider- 

 able expense, under the implicit 

 confidence which they have re- 

 posed in the justice and integrity 

 of the British tribunals, and upon 

 the faith of an act passed in the 



55th 



i 



