The New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

SALEM, December 18.

Last Thursday Capt. Baldwin arrived here in 15 days from St. Croix. By several late news papers, printed in that island, we find, that the inhabitants of the British West-India islands are under alarming apprehensions of distress, occasioned by the Proclamation issued by their King on the 2d of July last, construed to exclude the citizens of these United States from trading in their ports: The sentiments of the people of Antigua, are fully discovered in an address presented to Gen. Shirley, their Governor, on the 20th of October, the substance of which address is as follows:

"Your Excellency must have beheld with pleasure, that upon the restoration of peace, this colony came into the immediate possession of an unaccustomed plenty—a plenty they had long been strangers to, and had wished for; and in the prospect of a long enjoyment of it, they had forgotten all the injuries, mischiefs and disappointments that were inseparably allied to the war.—In this momentary enjoyment, the publication of his Majesty's Royal Proclamation, dated at St. James's, the 2d day of July last, has taken place, which, by tolerating British vessels, navigated according to law, to trade with the United States of America, is construed to exclude, by implication, the United States of America from trading to our ports.—This interpretation of the Royal pleasure, arresting in so sudden a manner the commerce of America, at the very moment it was returning to our ports, has thrown the interest of the Planters into more confusion and distress than they ever felt at any stage or period of the war: because, by placing a false dependence upon a continuance of such supplies, the disappointment leaves them almost without remedy, and, from the best information, at a time when the provisions now at market will not answer the consumption of the island for more than two months, and such provisions too, by the effect of the Proclamation, rises in their prices at nearly the rate of fifty per cent.—With the melancholy evidence of these facts before their eyes, and the more gloomy prospect of their future wants, the inhabitants at large have petitioned us, their Representatives, to lay their case before your Excellency, and to implore the aid of your Excellency in the adoption of such measures as may suggest themselves to your Excellency's wisdom, for their immediate relief.—We, knowing the just grounds of their fears and apprehensions, and not doubting but his Majesty, from his paternal care and affection for the remotest of his subjects, would approve and ratify your Excellency's conduct in exceeding his commands, when, from peculiar, local and unthought of circumstances, the strict execution of them would be ruinous to the smallest branch of his kingdom—Do most humbly pray, your Excellency would be pleased to order and direct, that the produce of the United States of America may not only be imported into this Island in British ships and vessels, owned by British subjects, and navigated according to law, but that the same may be also imported in the ships and vessels of the
Inhabitants of the United States of America, and that the produce of this Island may also be exported in such last mentioned ships and vessels, upon payment of his Majesty's duties, until such time as his Majesty's pleasure shall be known, or until the Commercial Treaty, now negotiating between Great Britain and States of America, is definitively settled; and that your Excellency would signify such your pleasure to the Officers of his Majesty's Customs of this Island, or that your Excellency would take such other measures for our relief, as to your Excellency's wisdom shall seem meet."

The Governor's answer was in these words:

Gentlemen,

I have carefully attended to the purport of your address, and am very sorry to tell you, that it is totally out of my power to take any steps in this business, but those of strictly obeying his Majesty's Proclamation, which is backed likewise by an Act of Parliament, and doing my utmost to have it obeyed by all within my government.

I assure myself, Gentlemen, you do not doubt of my warmest wishes and inclination to serve this community, where it is compatible with my honor and duty.