ADDRESS TOUCHING THE SPANISH DEPREDATIONS.

Other merchants complained by petition of the losses they sustained by the Spaniards. The house, in a grand committee, deliberated on this subject, inquired into the particulars, examined evidence, and drew up an address to the king, desiring his majesty would be graciously pleased to use his utmost endeavours for preventing such depredations; for procuring just and reasonable satisfaction; and for securing to his subjects the free exercise of commerce and navigation to and from the British colonies in America. The king assured them he would use his best endeavours to answer the desires and expectations of his people, in an affair of so much importance; and they, in another address, thanked him for his gracious answer. They did not, however, receive such a satisfactory reply to a former address, touching the sum of sixty thousand pounds that had been stated in the public account, without specification of the particular uses to which it was applied. His majesty gave them to understand that the money had been issued and disbursed for secret services; and that a distinct and particular account of the distribution of it could not be given without a manifest prejudice to the public. A bill was prepared for the more effectual preventing bribery and corruption in elections for members of parliament; and it passed through the house without opposition; but their attention was chiefly employed upon the Spanish depredations, which had raised a great clamour through the whole kingdom, and excited very warm disputes in parliament; for they were generally reputed the fruits of negligence, incapacity, or want of vigour in the ministers.. The commons having made further progress in the inquiry, and received fresh petitions from the merchants, passed some resolutions, in which the Spaniards were accused of having violated the treaties subsisting between the two crowns; and with having treated inhumanly the masters and crews of ships belonging to Great Britain. They justified the instructions given to admiral Hosier, to seize and detain the flota and galleons of Spain, until justice and satisfaction should be rendered to his majesty and his allies; nay, even declared that such seizure would have been just, prudent, and necessary, tending to prevent an open rupture, and to preserve the peace and tranquillity of Europe. They again addressed the king to use his endeavours to procure satisfaction; and he promised to comply with their request.

Mr. Scroope, member for Bristol, moved for an address entreating his majesty to order an account of the produce of the civil list revenues for one year to be laid before the house. The address was presented, the account produced, and the house, in a grand committee, took this affair into consideration. The courtiers affirmed that they fell short of the eight hundred thousand pounds settled upon his majesty; and Mr. Scroope proposed that the sum of one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds should be granted to the king, on account of those deficiencies and arrears. The motion was vigorously opposed by Mr. Pulteney and other members. They expressed their surprise that it should be made so late in the session, when no further demand of money could be reasonably expected; and they said it was the more extraordinary, because it appeared in the former session, from the examination of the accounts then before the house, that the revenues of the civil list produced yearly a much greater sum than that for which they were given. Mr. Pulteney moved, that the accounts and papers should be referred to the examination of a select committee, properly empowered to investigate the truth. The ministers opposed this motion; and the question being put, it passed in the negative. The majority voted the sum demanded; and in a bill for settling the price of imported corn, they inserted the resolution for granting to his majesty the sum of one hundred and fifteen thousand pounds, on account of arrears due on the civil list revenues.