ing 100%., or by imprisonment in the common jail for any space not exceeding three months, or both; or, if a free person of colour, or free black, by fine not exceeding 100%, or imprisonment in the workhouse for a space of time not exceeding three months, or both; or, if a slave, by imprisonment and hard labour in the workhouse for a space not exceeding six months, or by whipping, not exceeding 39 stripes, or both, as shall be in those cases respectively adjudged.

And be it further enacted and

ordained, by the authority afore. said, that no persons whatsoever, being, so as aforesaid, licensed and permitted, shall use public worship in any of the said places within this city and parish, which may be so licensed as aforesaid, earlier than the hour of six in the morning, or later than sun-set in the evening, under the penalty of such punishment by fine, not exceeding 1007., or imprisonment, not exceeding the space of three months, or both, as shall be in that respect adjudged.

And be it further enacted and ordained, by the authority aforesaid, that from and after the said 1st day of July next, in case any owner, possessor, or occupier of any house, out-house, yard, or other place whatsoever, shall permit any meeting of any description of persons, for the purpose of hearing or joining in any such pretended teaching, preaching, praying, or singing of psalms as aforesaid, such owner, occupier, or possessor, being a white person, shall incur and suffer such punishment by fine, not exceeding 1001., or by imprisonment in the common jail, not exceeding three months, or both: or, if a person of colour, or black, of free condition, by fine, not exceed ing 100%, or confinement in the

workhouse for any space not exceeding three months; or, if a slave, by confinement and hard labour in the workhouse, for any space not exceeding six months, or by whipping, not exceeding 99 stripes, or both, as shall in these respective cases be adjudged.

Passed the common council the 15th day of June, 1807.

DANIEL MOORE, recorder.

PRUSSIAN PROCLAMATION.

Copy of a proclamation issued at Memel by the court of admiralty and commerce.

It is hereby made known to all merchants of this place, that, in pursuance of the peace concluded at Tilsit, between Prussia and France, not only all Prussian ports shall be shut against English ships, but that also all trade and commerce between Prussia and England must cease.

Hitherto they could only be shut up in a private manner, be cause several Prussian ships were lying in English ports, and it be came, therefore, necessary to preserve them, and because several other vessels, laden with provisions unavoidably required for this coun try, were still at sea. These ob stacles being now removed, we hereby publicly make known by his royal majesty's command, that this port, in common with all other Prussian harbours, is shut against all ships which are English, or be longing to any individual of the English nation: that under no circumstances and no pretences whatsoever, an English ship, or even a neutral bottom, coming from English ports or English colonies, shall be admitted in the ports of this country; and that no person

shall

shall be permitted, on pain of the goods being confiscated, and other severe punishment inflicted, to send goods from this place to any English port or English colonies, or order them to be sent to this port: in short, no navigation or trade with England or the English colonies shall be permitted either in English or neutral bottoms. Now whereas strict observance and execution of this point stipulated in the treaty of Tilsit between France and Prussia, has been enjoined to us by his royal majesty in the most rigorous manner, and on pain of being dismissed from our offices, and other severe punishments therefore, we have strictly directed and instructed all our subordinate officers carefully to watch over all cases of transgression, and as soon as any such cases shall happen and take place, immediately to report

them to us.

While we thus give the public notice on the said subject, we at the same time advise and warn all merchants of this place not to render themselves guilty of a contravention, which, from the measures we have adopted, will certainly be discovered, and not expose themselves, on account of a small illicit profit, to the confiscation of their goods, and other severe criminal punishments.

BRAHL.

Royal Prussian court of naviga

tion and trade. Memel, Sept. 2, 1807.

BRITISH DECLARATION.

position only in the hope of that more amicable arrangement with the court of Denmark which it was his majesty's first wish and endeavour to obtain, for which he was ready to make great efforts and great sacrifices; and of which he never lost sight, even in the moment of the most decisive hostility.

Deeply as the disappointment of the hope has been felt by his majesty, he has the consolation of reflecting, that no exertion was left untried on his part to produce a different result. And while he laments the cruel necessity which has obliged him to have recourse to acts of hostility against a nation, with which it was his majesty's most earnest desire to have established the relations of common interests and alliance; his majesty feels confident that, in the eyes of Europe and of the world, the justification of his conduct will be found in the commanding and indispensable duty, paramount to all others amongst the obligations of a sovereign, of providing, while there was yet time, for the immediate security of his people.

His majesty had received the most positive information of the determination of the present ruler of France to occupy, with a military force, the territory of Holstein, for the purpose of excluding Great channels of communication with Britain from all her accustomed the continent; of inducing or com pelling the court of Denmark to close the passage of the Sound against the British commerce and navigation; and of availing him. self of the aid of the Danish marine for the invasion of Great Britain and of Ireland.

which this intelligence was derived, and confirmed in the credit which he gave to it, as well by the notoricus and repeated declarations of the enemy, and by its recent occupation of the towns and territories of other neutral states, as by the preparations actually made for collecting a hostile force upon the frontiers of his Danish majesty's continental dominions, his majesty would yet willingly have forborne to act upon this intelligence, until the complete and practical disclosure of the plan had made manifest to all the world the absolute necessity of resisting it. His majesty did forbear as long as there could be a doubt of the urgency of the danger, or a hope of an effectual counteraction to it, in the means or in the dispositions of Denmark. But his majesty could not but recollect that when, at the close of the former war, the court of Denmark engaged in a hostile confederacy against Great Britain, the apology offered by that court for so unjustifiable an abandonment of a neutrality which his majesty had never ceased to respect, was founded on its avowed inability to resist the operation of external influence, and the threats of a formidable neighbouring power. His majesty could not but compare the degree of influence, which at that time determined the decision of the court of Denmark, in violation of posi tive engagements, solemnly contracted but six months before, with the increased operation which France had now the means of giving to the same principle of intimidation, with kingdoms prostrate at her feet, and with the population of nations under her banners. Nor was the danger less imminent than certain. Already the army destined for the invasion of Holstein was

assembled on the violated territory of neutral Hamburgh. And, Holstein once occupied, the island of Zealand was at the mercy of France, and the navy of Denmark at her disposal.

It is true, a British force might have found its way into the Baltic, and checked for a time the movements of the Danish marine. But the season was approaching when that precaution would no longer have availed; and when his majes ty's fleet must have retired from that sea, and permitted France, in undisturbed security, to accumu late the means of offence against his majesty's dominions. Yet, even under these circumstances, in calling upon Denmark for satisfaction and security which his majesty was compelled to require, and in de manding the only pledge by which that security could be rendered effectual-the temporary possession of that fleet, which was the chief inducement to France for forcing Denmark into hostilities with Great Britain,-his majesty accompanied this demand with the offer of every condition which could tend to reconcile it to the interests and to the feelings of the court of Denmark. It was for Denmark herself to state the terms and stipulations which she might require. If Denmark was apprehensive that the surrender of her fleet would be resented by France as an act of connivance, his majesty had prepared a land force of such formidable magnitude as must have made concession justifiable even in the estimation of France, by rendering resistance altogether unavailing.If Denmark was really prepared to resist the demands of France, and to maintain her independence, his majesty proffered his cooperation for her defence-naval, military,

and

and pecuniary aid; the guarantee of her European territories, and the security and extension of her colonial possessions.

That the sword has been drawn in the execution of a service indispensable to the safety of his majesty's dominions, is matter of sincere and painful regret to his majesty. That the state and circumstances of the world are such as to have required and justified the measures of self-preservation, to which his majesty has found himself under the necessity of resorting, is a truth which his majesty deeply deplores, but for which he is in no degree responsible.

His majesty has long carried on a most unequal contest of scrupulous forbearance against unrelenting violence and oppression. But that forbearance has its bounds. When the design was openly avow. ed, and already but too far advanced towards its accomplish ment, of subjecting the powers of Europe to one universal usurpation, and of combining them by terror or by force in a confederacy against the maritime rights and political existence of this kingdom, it became necessary for his majesty to anticipate the success of a system, not more fatal to his interests than those of the powers who were destined to be the instruments of its execution. It was time that the effects of that dread which France has inspired into the nations of the world, should be counteracted by an exertion of the power of Great Britain, called for by the exigency of the crisis, and proportioned to the magnitude of the danger. Notwithstanding the declaration of war on the part of the Danish govern, ment, it still remains for Denmark to determine whether war shall con

tinue between the two nations. His majesty still proffers an amicable arrangement. He is anxious to sheathe the sword which he has been most reluctantly compelled to draw; and he is ready to demonstrate to Denmark and to the world, that, having acted solely upon the sense of what was due to the se-curity of his own dominions, he is not desirous from any other motive, or for any object of advantage or aggrandisement, to carry measures of hostility beyond the limit of the necessity which has pro

duced them.

Westminster, Sept. 25, 1807.

DECLARATION OF THE EMPEROR OF RUSSIA.

The greater value the emperor attached to the friendship of his Britannic majesty, the greater was his regret at perceiving that that monarch altogether separated himself from him. Twice has the emperor taken up arms; in both cases his cause was most directly that of England; and he solicited in vain from England a cooperation which her interest required. He did not demand that her troops should be united with his; he desired only that they should effect a diversion. He was astonished that in her cause she did not act in union with him; but, coolly contemplating a bloody spectacle, in a war which had been kindled at her will, she sent troops to attack Buenos Ayres. One part of her armies, which appeared destined to make a diversion in Italy, quitted, at length, Sicily

where it was assembled. There was reason to believe that this was done to make an attack upon the coasts of Naples, when it was un(TS) derstood