Gazette Of The United States, & Philadelphia Daily Advertiser

LONDON, April 24.
From the LIVING to the DEAD.
"Art thou a Spirit of Health, or Goblin damn'd."

SIR,

In the Sun of the 18th inst, we have seen your address, and which greatly surprised us, wherein we are accused of those crimes which disgrace the name of a British Seaman, and which may prejudice the minds of our countrymen against us; as we are called upon to make known our wants and wishes in an official and respectful manner.

Therefore we, his Majesty's most loyal subjects, wish to make known to the world that we have done so.

We, as the subjects of a loyal country, presented our petition to that hon. Earl who wore the laurels of the glorious first of June, and who was in the hearts of British seamen represented as their friend; but sorry are we to say, that we found to the contrary, in his not representing our petitions to the lords commissioners of the admiralty.

To convince our country at large, that there is not in any wise the least spark of republican spirit we have caused to be inserted the most private of our concerns; sorry also we are to mark the words (French Agents) as our country may think, by that assertion, we now take into our arms the people that a British seaman detests the name of.

But to the contrary we have our country's good as much at heart as any other description of men whatever, and that our request is no ways injurious to our country.

We ask for that comfortable subsistence which our country can easily bestow, and that those barbarities which are practised by some (sorry indeed we should be to say the whole, as there are among us men of every description, both good and evil) be erased out of this well instituted service.

We, the subjects of your address, coolly as the representatives of that body which has so long lain under the well known buoy, wish you to come forward in a fair and manly way, in your real corporal state, and try for one week if the scanty allowance on which we are obliged to subsist, will keep you in the spirited state, which men of our description require, but are at this moment without the assistance of at least two thirds of their pay and our wives and families languishing in want, whilst this country, that abounds with plenty, ought to be ashamed at the word want.

To the brave Adm. Kempenfeldt's Ghost,
Buoy of the Royal George, Spithead.

P. S. If the clamors of justice, daily echoing from the mouths of the loyal tars, should again awake the spirit of Kempenfeldt, let not his ethereal but his corporeal part make itself known, and we will convince him, that those who have made Britannia Rule the Main, know also their duty to their sovereign.

Spithead, April 20, 1797.