Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

The Gazette.
PHILADELPHIA,
FRIDAY EVENING, DECEMBER 1.

For the GAZETTE of the UNITED STATES.

MR. FENNO,

Finding in your paper of the 29th ult. under the Norfolk head, extracts of two letters said to be written from Martinique, implicating several mercantile houses in that Island in a charge of a very serious nature, (in one of which houses I am concerned) I deem it necessary, in order to take off any undue impressions which may have been made on the public mind in regard to myself as well as in justification of the house of Ogden, Charrurier & Co. merchants of Martinique, to state the following facts.

It may be necessary to premise that Mr. John Charrurier, who the French administration in that Island thought proper to arrest is not of the house of Ogden, Charrurier & Co. but of another mercantile firm, entirely unconnected with the former, and the facts with regard to the money imported into the Island are simply these—The small coin in circulation there is a nominal thing of the value of one penny half penny currency. This being the principal medium of change, and becoming very scarce, induced some merchants to import a parcel from England, which importation was not restrained by the French administration (who have the civil government of the Island by capitulation) until the importers became numerous and the quantity imported so great as to cause an inconvenience in trade. The administration then passed an ordinance, inflicting fine and imprisonment on any person who should make any further importations of the coin—and a few weeks after a vessel arriving from England, having a quantity on board, which had been ordered out previously to its having been made illegal to import it—the administration seized on the property of all those, who they could discover had at any time imported any, and confined Mr. John Charrurier in gaol. In consequence of this violent proceeding a partner of Mr. John Charrurier's entered a formal protest against the administration, and commenced a suit against them, in which he has laid his damages at 30,000 l. The opposition thus made to the mode they had made use of for enforcing their edicts, induced them to liberate Mr. Charrurier, and offer to restore him the store and property they had attached, which he refused to receive, relying on the laws of his country for redress. The store of Ogden, Charrurier & Co. having been in the same manner taken possession of, the administration made a similar proposal of restitution, which met with a like refusal.

Although my residence is in New-York, I have full evidence from letters which I have received from Martinique, and by information from a gentleman direct from thence, that the foregoing is a true statement of the transactions relative to that business—and as the publication of the letters in your gazette (which have called forth this justification) principally pointed to the house of Ogden, Charrurier & Co. with a view no doubt of injuring its credit, and basely to vilify it, it has become my duty to counteract their wrong tendency, and the falsity of the charges contained in them, by all the means in my power. As to the house having imported base and gilt johannes, it is sufficient to declare the assertion utterly void of foundation and infamously false, and I never before heard of a johannes of that description being seen in the Island.

I am sir, yours, &c. &c.
WILLIAM OGDEN.
New-York, 28th Nov. 1797.

Justice to Mr. Ogden demands the insertion of the foregoing in the Norfolk paper, as well as any other into which the extract in question may have been copied. The Connecticut Gazette, printed at New-London, having also published an extract of a letter to the same purport, will doubtless notice the foregoing.