vessels have been proved to be under illegal conduct, and even though the said Article is rendered doubtful in its meaning by the opposition it receives from others in the same Treaty, and even though it advance the traffic in slaves (to which trade it is conceded that the Court is averse); but in Article 3, Spanish Treaty, directing who shall be sent up in the detained vessel on the part of the captured party, the Court can make such alteration as they deem fit, and will probably say, hereafter," It has been established," &c.

It is the more extraordinary that any alteration of an Article relating to the number of persons, and their qualities on board the detained ship, should have been declared admissible by the Mixed Commission Court (for no other authority justifies it), when, but a very short time previously, a strong representation to the authorities in England was made by the Court, relatively to a naval officer alleged to have erred in sending up fewer persons than required by the Instructions supplied to those employed in the suppression of the slave-trade; but now, without one vestige of authority for the course, the Commissary Judge of that very Court declares that the Instructions upon the same point may be neglected! But from the decisions of this Court there is no appeal.

Another curious case has very recently distinguished this Mixed Commission Court: a small Spanish schooner was captured in February or January, 1836, with slaves on board, and sent for adjudication to Sierra Leone, by H. M. S. Pylades, after having left that place to cruize upon the coast. Just at this time the New Spanish Treaty had also been brought out by the same ship. On the arrival of the prize schooner the Court demanded under which Treaty she had been captured, and said, "if under the Old Spanish Treaty, her trial can come on; but if under the New, at this moment it cannot, as the Court is now waiting for instructions relatively to it." It was not known by any person whatever under which Treaty the said schooner had been captured; consequently the Court declined taking any cognizance of her whatever, and but for the humane interference of the Governor, the slaves must have remained on board in precisely the same crowded state in which the Spaniards had packed them for a passage to the island of Cuba. The Governor, however, took the responsibility upon himself of ordering them to be landed and taken charge of by the Liberated African department, notwithstanding the refusal of the Court to proceed to trial.

Now this case was perfectly clear; no one intended to defend it; but the Court, merely because they did not know under which Treaty the vessel was captured, refused to act.

In the first instance, the Court had either no business to inquire anything about the Treaty under which the vessel was captured, or it has been otherwise most unpardonably culpable in not inquiring by what right any vessel of war upon the station has ever captured a slaver: for the authority for seizing slave-ships given to the officers commanding H. M. ships now upon the African station has neither been seen nor inquired for by the Court. If then this Court is authorized to proceed to the trial of vessels sent for adjudication by H. M. ships, without having ever seen or inquired for the authority by which such ships detained the said vessels, how does it refuse to extend the same practice to any other vessel of war sent to the same station?

Such has been the trifling, inconsistent, and, but for the interference of

the Governor, Major Campbell, cruel steps taken by the Mixed Commission Court, in a case of infinite consequence, as it affected the negroes, who were crowded in the usual manner on board a small schooner, the vessel being about sixty-five tons, and having 280 slaves on board; that Court could coldly look on at the miserable state of these poor creatures, insisting upon a form which in no instance, as it regards a vessel of war from England appointed to the African station, had ever been before considered necessary. But for the humane feelings of Governor Campbell these 280 slaves would have remained cooped up in a small vessel, until either some one arrived who could swear that the old treaty with Spain was or was not on board the Pylades, or until removed on shore by the orders of one who feared not responsibility, when by the dictates of humanity he was called upon to assume it.

It remains for the Court now to show upon what grounds they formerly proceeded with slave-vessels sent in by cruisers, whose authority to seize had never been placed before the Court, or any inquiry made about it, and also why in the case mentioned the Court deems it necessary to know upon what authority a vessel of war has seized a slave-ship. This Mixed Commission Court has no right whatever to know anything about any authority of any kind being on board a vessel of war. No officer commanding one is called upon in any manner to communicate any knowledge of his authority to the Court. He is only obliged to conform to the laws regulating the forms by which a slave-ship is to be presented for trial; and so long as he does this, the Mixed Commission Court has no right to demand anything farther, but is bound to proceed.

But as if the Mixed Commission Court were determined to make a perfect title to the absence of consistency in their proceedings, it may be as well to show another instance, and which occurred within two or three weeks of the same period.

A vessel of war sent up a Spanish slave-ship, when the same circumstances conspired to puzzle the Court, having her slaves on board for adjudication; the Court instantly proceeded to the trial of this vessel, and actually condemned her. She was sold before the prize of the Pylades had even been taken into Court.

Now, the authority by which this latter vessel was seized by the ship of war had never been seen or inquired for by the Mixed Commission Court. This vessel of war had sent other slavers previously for adjudication, and always conformed to the rules laid down for presenting them before the Court, and upon this the Court had always proceeded.

The new Treaty with Spain had been, to the knowledge of the Court, distributed to the ships of war (because seventeen or eighteen Spanish vessels were at this time lying at Sierra Leone and actually received into Court, awaiting instructions from home relating to the new treaty). Therefore how could the Court with any consistency proceed with the trial of this slave-ship upon the old treaty, when, for anything the Court knew, she might have been detained upon the new treaty, and at the same time refuse to proceed to the trial of a slave-vessel sent up by another vessel of war, because they did not know upon which treaty she was detained?

The fact is, as before observed, the Court is going beyond its limits when it requires to know under what treaty a vessel is detained; if the

forms presented to the Court with the detained vessel by the captors are in conformity to the law, the Court has nothing farther to do than proceed to trial. If the forms ordered in the old Treaty differ from those ordered in the new Treaty, then the Court would know by the difference which Treaty the slave-ship was detained under; but as the Court did not know under which Treaty the Pylades had seized the slave-ship already mentioned, it must be presumed that the forms are the same; and consequently this slave-ship ought to have been brought to trial as soon as by law established she could be after being presented to the Court, which time is one week.

In one of the two cases the Court was clearly wrong for in neither case could it declare positively under which Treaty either slave-ship had been detained; and if it was necessary to ask in one case which Treaty had been used, it may be presumed it was equally so in the other, before proceeding to trial.

It is remarkable that, in selecting the highest authorities of the Mixed Commission Court, there has been hardly an instance of any having practised at the bar. The late Commissary Judge, a man universally esteemed, had not been so prepared, but selected from the circumstance of being a resident at Sierra Leone at the time, and capable of living

where others could not.

The present Commissary Judge, certainly most highly educated, has, it is understood, been uniformly engaged in mercantile pursuits; and the present Judge of Arbitration was never connected with the profession of the law, though he has, with great credit to himself, gone through the several grades in the Mixed Commission Court, until he has reached the elevated seat he now fills.

We have thus endeavoured to show

1st. That the Treaties with Spain and Portugal, in their present form, never can cause the least diminution of the slave-trade while the demand for slaves exists.

2ndly. That under the construction by the Mixed Commission Court of one of the articles contained in the Portuguese Treaty, it is utterly impossible for the officers of the Navy employed in the ships of war on this station to do their duty.

3rdly. That under the sentences of the Mixed Commission Court, awarding damages in three instances, that Court has acted in opposition to the laws laid down for its guidance; and that in refusing to take under trial the slave-ship sent for adjudication by H.M.S. Pylades, in January or February last, that Court altogether neglected its duties, and wandered infinitely beyond its authority.

It may, however, be right to state, that the precedents established in the cases of the " Active," "Perpetuo Defensor," and " Seredade,' although quoted in reply to the queries, were so established previously to the appointment of the Commissary Judge, who merely gives them as decisions of the Court over which he presides on the part of England, without adopting or rejecting them himself.

NARRATIVE OF CAPTAIN JAMES CLARK ROSS S VOYAGE, IN H.M.S.

COVE, IN SEARCH OF THE MISSING WHALERS, IN 1836.

OUR readers may remember the painful anxiety and deep feelings of sympathy which were manifested, about this time last year, for the fate and sufferings of the crews of eleven of the ships engaged in the whalefishing at Davis' Straits, whose protracted absence caused fearful apprehensions for their safety, and were eventually (though late) the occasion of a general subscription throughout the country, to defray the expense of an expedition equipped with the hope of rescuing some at least of the sufferers from their dreadful situation. We have made it our business to inform ourselves of many of the circumstances; of the origin, equipment, and result of that voyage, collected chiefly from the officers who were engaged in that perilous enterprise; and we are the more desirous now to communicate such facts to the public from our feelings of sympathy and interest being again awakened by a similar but somewhat more limited calamity, occasioned by the extreme severity of the last autumn and present winter, six of the whaling fleet of last summer being still absent.

The eleven missing vessels were, the William Torr of Hull; Jane of Hull; Viewforth of Kirkcaldy; Middleton of Aberdeen-supposed to be frozen in the land ice of the West Coast of Baffin's Bay, in about latitude 67° N.; and the Duncombe of Hull; Abram of Hull; Harmony of Hull; Dordon of Hull; Norfolk of Berwick; Grenville Bay, Newcastle; Lady Jane, Newcastle.

The latter seven were last seen together beset in the main pack, at the distance of from seven to thirty miles within its margin, and drifting down with it to the southward.

The crews of these vessels amounted to upwards of 600 men, and the value of the vessels was estimated at no less than 59,000l., independent of the value of the oil that might be on board of them. It was therefore evident that if humanity failed to establish her power over the hearts of our rulers, the, to some minds, more forcible appeal to pecuniary interest might fairly be called to aid her endeavours.

The merchants and shipowners of Hull, who were most deeply interested in the recovery of these vessels, and whose humanity and generosity of feeling have on many occasions manifested themselves, took the lead, by petitioning the Lords of the Admiralty to send an expedition without delay to the relief of the sufferers. To this first application their Lordships refused to attend, from a well-founded apprehension of the very serious difficulty, amounting almost to impossibility, of a ship crossing the Western Ocean against the strong prevailing westerly gales at so late a period of the season, and also from a reluctance to order officers to embark in a service of so much severity and danger.

But the voice of the nation was raised, petitions poured in from all parts of the kingdom, and Captain James Clark Ross, R.N., whose experience gained during six successive voyages of discovery to the arctic regions well fitted him for the service, having expressed his belief that it was possible to afford relief, and having volunteered to take the command of any expedition the Admiralty might be pleased to send, was

dispatched to Hull about the middle of December, for the purpose of obtaining further information respecting the position and resources of the absent ships, and of communicating with the Committee of Merchants and Shipowners, in whom the first petition originated.

Captain Ross's arrival at Hull was greeted with the warmest demonstrations of joy and gratitude. Public meetings were immediately called, in which the most proper mode of proceeding was discussed, and much information elicited. The Hull merchants, with the liberality for which they are eminently distinguished, offered to hire and equip any vessel belonging to the port which the Captain should consider best adapted to the service, on condition that the Admiralty should put on board the necessary provisions and stores, and place her under naval discipline, so conducive to the maintenance of order, and so essential to the success of enterprises of so desperate a character.

After a careful examination of the ships in the harbour, the Cove, of 380 tons, belonging to Messrs. Spivey and Cooper, was selected, and Captain Ross hoisted his pennant on board of her on the 21st of December.

The utmost exertions were now made to prepare the ship for the service. Shipwrights, caulkers, and artificers of all kinds, were kept working day and night (by torch-light); and when we reflect that of the two or three hundred men that were constantly working at the ship, most of them had a brother, a father, or a son on board the absent vessels, it is not to be wondered at the zeal and enthusiasm which were displayed; and the managing committee allowed neither trouble nor expense to impede the anxious and benevolent work.

Nor was the Admiralty less prompt in the performance of their part of the undertaking. Provisions, stores, and clothing, were shipped off in steamers from Deptford and Woolwich dock-yards, to the Cove, at Hull; and thus, by dint of almost unparalleled exertion, that ship was fortified, rigged, officered, manned, provisioned, and at sea in a fortnight after the pennant was flying at her mast-head.

We were anxious to get her away; and now that she is fairly off, attended by the prayers and blessings of the thousands that witnessed her departure, let us pause awhile to give a brief sketch of the proposed mode of operations.

During the interval of time occupied in equipping the Cove, two of the absent ships, the Harmony and Duncombe of Hull arrived in England. The information derived from the masters of those vessels confirmed the accounts previously received-viz. that four of the ships, namely, the William Torr, Jane, Viewforth, and Middleton, were frozen in the land-ice of the West Coast, and that the other four, which had been in company with these two vessels, were still beset in the pack, and drifting with it to the southward. The eleventh vessel, the Dordon, had been wrecked, and her crew received on board the other ships.

Very sanguine hopes were entertained that the four vessels in the pack would eventually be released, and might shortly be expected to arrive; but it was not improbable also that they might be detained in the pack until all their provision, which must by that time have become very short, was expended, and the scurvy, which had already seriously affected the crew of the Duncombe, might be expected to begin its fatal ravages. Under these circumstances it was proposed that the Cove should pro