themselves known. The form and temperature of the hand produced in general the differences which she remarked; but she sometimes used to span the wrist, and measure the fingers. A lady with whom she was very well acquainted, coming in one very hot day after having walked a mile, presented her hand as usual. She felt it longer than ordinary, and seemed to doubt whose it was, but after spanning the wrist and measuring the fingers, she said, "It is Mrs. M. but she is warmer to-day than ever I felt her before."

To amuse herself in the mournful and perpetual solitude and darkness to which her disorder had reduced her, she used to work a great deal at her needle, and it is remarkable that her needle-work was uncommonly neat and exact. She used also sometimes to write, and her writing was yet more extraordinary than her needle-work. It was executed with regularity and exactness, the character was very pretty, the lines were all even, and the letters placed at equal distances from each other. But the most astonishing particular of all, with respect to her writing, was, that she could by some means discover when a letter had been, from mistake, omitted, and she would place it over that part of the word where it should have been inserted, with a caret under it. These circumstances were so very extraordinary, that it was long doubted whether she had not some faint remains both of hearing and sight, and many experiments were made to ascertain the matter; some of these she accidentally discovered, and the discovery always threw her into violent convulsions, so poignantly did she feel any suspicion of insincerity or deceit.

Her family were at last perfectly convinced from the experiments which they made, and several accidental circumstances proved that she was totally deaf and blind.

Sir Hans Sloane, her physician, being still doubtful of the truth of facts, which were scarce less than miraculous, was permitted to satisfy himself by such experiments and observations as he thought proper: the issue of which was, that he pronounced her to be absolutely Deaf and blind. I

See Encyclopedia Britannica, Article Blind.

1

AMERICAN ENCROACHMENTS

ON

BRITISH RIGHTS, &c.

PART II.-Concluded from last No.

I

IN N answer to the complaints of the Shipping Interest in 1802, on the improvident indulgences which had been, and were continued to be granted to neutral shipping, much stress,, it appears, was laid by the then ministry, on the statement of the exports and imports of the country; and the value of the merchandize exported confounded with the increase of Shipping. It is however easy to show that such was not a fair criterion; for instance, on a comparative estimate of four years immediately preceding the late war, it will appear that,

In 1789, 1790, and 1791, taking the average of those years, that the tonnage of British ships, which cleared at the custom-house, was

Tons.

1,312,570

And that of foreign shipping, in the like period,

140,686

Whilst, in 1792, the tonnage of British ships, which

cleared out, was only

1,396,003

And that of foreign ships, in that year

169,151

Making an increase of British shipping of nearly one

fifteenth, or

83,425

And an increase of foreign shipping of nearly one

fifth, or

28,470

The value of goods exported, on the average of the

three former years, was

And in the latter year

Being an increase of about one-fifth.

£24,466,849

1 See Cobbett's Political Register, 1st and 2d vols.

NO. XII.

Pam.

VOL. VI.

2A

If, therefore, the value of the exports had increased one-fifth, and in the same period the tonnage of British shipping only one-fifteenth, it was rather too bold to argue that the increase of one was a fair criterion to judge of the increase of the other, and subsequent to that period an infinitely greater proportion of foreign ships were employed in the trade of this country, for it appears,

that

In 1797, before the provisions of the Dutch Property
Act could have had much effect, the tonnage of
foreign vessels trading with Great Britain was
And that in 1801, when in full operation, it amounted to

Tons.

451,000

780,000

Tons 329,000

Being an increase of foreign tonnage under the suspending acts in the trade of Great Britain, in five years, of whilst there was a very considerable decrease in the employment of British tonnage as before stated. In this manner the employment of the shipping of Great Britain decreased, and the tonnage of neutral ships employed in British trade under the operation of the suspending acts increased; although the reverse has been most confidently stated and attempted to be shown by the advocates of the new system.

Another inconvenience resulted from the suspension of the navigation laws, by the increased employment it afforded to neutral shipping; namely, the difficulty it often created in procuring foreign seamen for British vessels. At every period, when English seamen are required for the navy, it is obvious how injuriously every measure must operate which enables foreign seamen, who would otherwise be employed in British merchant ships, to find so readily safety and employment in neutral vessels, in which they are not liable to be captured by the enemy, or occasionally impressed into the king's service.

In addition to these objections to "the suspending system,” a constitutional point arises, of some importance; as the acts on which it is founded divest parliament of its legislative faculties, and invest the same in the privy council, so far as relates to the foreign trade and commerce of Great Britain, and to part of its colonial trade under the American Intercourse Bill of 1806; indeed it approximates in principle to the doctrine of non obstante, which, according to the best legal and constitutional authorities, has always been looked upon with a jealous eye. It is to be observed there is no authority in the Act of Navigation to enable

■ See Alley's Vindication, in which this subject is most ably and impartia lity treated.