SPANISH DEPREDATIONS.

Ever since the treaty of Seville, the Spaniards in America had almost incessantly insulted and distressed the commerce of Great Britain. They disputed the right of English traders to cut logwood in the bay of Campeachy, and gather salt in the island of Tortugas; though that right was acknowledged by implication in all the treaties which had been lately concluded between the two nations. The captains of their armed vessels, known by the name of guarda-costas, had made a practice of boarding and plundering British ships, on pretence of searching for contraband commodities, on which occasions they had behaved with the utmost insolence, cruelty, and rapine. Some of their ships of war had actually attacked a fleet of English merchant ships at the island of Tortugas, as if they had been at open enmity with England. They had seized and detained a great number of British vessels, imprisoned their crews, and confiscated their cargoes, in violation of treaties, in defiance of common justice and humanity. Repeated memorials were presented to the court of Spain, by the British ambassador at Madrid. He was amused with evasive answers, vague promises of inquiry, and cedulas of instructions sent to the Spanish governors in America, to which they paid no sort of regard. Not but that the Spaniards had reason to complain in their turn, of the illicit commerce which the English traders from Jamaica and other islands, carried on with their subjects on the continent of South America; though this could not justify the depredations and cruelties which the commanders of the guarda-costas had committed, without provocation or pretence.