The Enquirer

STOLEN LETTERS.

It is impossible to publish the following communication, without comment upon the infamous and dishonorable transaction which it records.--This communication comes to us from a respectable, perhaps authentic source. Had Willaumez's letters been intercepted on the high seas, on board of a French vessel, not a doubt can exist that they would have become English property by the Laws of war, and might have been disposed according to the wishes of the English agents. The national letters; those addressed to the minister of marine and to General Turreau, might have been seized, examined and published. The laws of civilized war would have protected the letter to Com. Barney from a public and profane disclosure.

Instead of floating on the high seas, they were deposited at Norfolk. Instead of being captured in an enemy's bottom, they were found within the limits, on the soil and under the roof of a neutral country. What then is the fact. Not that these letters were intercepted on the sea; but stolen on the land; purloined from the box in which it was safely supposed they would be safe; their seals broken, and their contents published to the world. Their bearer did not deliver them up, unsolicited and uncorrupted. He was not even bribed by British gold to betray his trust--No. There was not even this miserable quid pro quo, to give a shadow of right to them. The bearer, as it turns out, was thoughtless, but not false, and whilst reckless of the dishonesty, which threatened his own property, in the very bosom of a virtuous nation, his box was rifled; and the most valuable of its contents literally stolen.

By whom We do not accuse the Editor of the Ledger of any share in this dishonest transaction. We believe him to have a soul above it. But he is most probably acquainted with its agents. Let him then expose them; and let him declare, whether it was not executed by the agents of the same cabinet, which purloined the papers of Arthur Lee at Berlin, copied, and then returned them to his Bureau.

Let then the authenticity of Willaumez's letters be admitted, and what do they prove? Why only: that a proud and petulant French admiral has spoken of our nation and our government, in such contumelious terms as disgrace his own understanding. But surely the Cabinet of the Thuilleries is not to blame for all the expressions of all its subordinate agents.