Independent Journal, Or, The General Advertiser

Amidst the variety of frauds practised in regard to Mediterranean passes, to obviate which, a bill has been introduced into the House of Commons.

In Ireland, a correspondent has favoured us with the following account of one detected about twelve months ago in the city of Tunis, on the coast of Barbary:—A large East country built ship was boarded by a Tunisian xebecque, and though the latter produced a Mediterranean pass and other papers, certifying that she was a British ship, named the St. Patrick, of Waterford, yet as the Bey's English linguist could not understand a single word of the jargon spoken by the captain and crew, who said they could speak nothing else but Irish, the Moors brought the vessel into Tunis; where, on being examined by Mr. Trail, the British consul, this Irish crew turned out a set of Lubeck Boors, who had possessed themselves of a forged or fraudulent British pass, to which they were as well entitled as they were to speak the Irish language, of which they knew not a syllable: the event, as was expected, became tragical—the ship was condemned and sold, Capt. and Mate were ordered the bastinado for their imposition, and then, with the rest of their fellows, sold for slaves.