Gazette Of The United States, & Daily Advertiser

By this Day's Mail.

NEW YORK, September 13.

To the Editor of the Mercantile Advertiser.

His Majesty's Ship Andromache Halifax, September 3, 1800.

SIR,

I have observed in your paper (the Mercantile Advertiser) of the 22d August. an article of information from Captain Parsons, of the schooner Fox, from Charleston, August 8, stating that on his passage from Cape Francois, under convoy of the United States frigate Constellation, Captain Talbot on the 30th July, an English ship come into the fleet sent his boat on board the Commodore, afterwards made sail and stood to the westward. " We learnt from the Commodore," says he, " that he was called the Andromache from Halifax. The English frigate requested the Commodore to permit him to overhaul the fleet ; but he would not permit him."

As the last paragraph is so notorious a falsehood inserted, (as I conceive) only to depreciate the character of a British Officer in the eyes of the ignorant and uninformed; as I can hardly believe any others would give credit to it, as the whole world must have learnt that the British Navy will do its duty on all occasions ; I request you will take the earliest opportunity to contradict it : and I am certain that Captain Talbot, so far from having given the information your paper mentions, if he had seen the above mentioned paragraph, feeling as an officer must do, whose character is at stake, by such villainous and dangerous misrepresentations, would himself have desired you to contradict it. I had no cause to have wished to overhaul any of the convoy, as Captain Talbot, in a very proper manner, was so well acquainted with the vessels under his charge, that he assured the Lieutenant of the ship, whom I sent onboard for that purpose, that, upon his honour, they were all belonging to subjects of the United States, and carrying no property belonging to the enemies of Great Britain ; that he was well acquainted with the owners and others concerned in every one of them. After such an assurance from Captain Talbot who appeared to act in the most honourable manner, I could have no cause to doubt his word, nor wish to delay him one moment longer by claiming the right of powers at war, of examining all neutral vessels according to the practice and laws of all nations, more especially coming from an enemy's port. ' I have already wrote to Captain Talbot ; and beg you will take the earliest opportunity, and most public, to attend to my request ; and should it have appeared in other newspapers, that the Editors of such may also contradict it.

I am, sir, yours, &c.

ROBERT LAURIE.

Captain of his Britannic Majesty's ship the Andromache.
[The paragraph to which the officer of his Britannic Majesty alludes originated at Charleston, and was copied into the Mercantile Advertiser, from a paper in that city of the 7th August: It was connected with some other information of an important nature to ship owners and underwriters, and we should have considered ourselves highly culpable had any part of it been suppressed. We assure Captain Laurie that we felt much less pleasure in recording the circumstance which honoured us with his correspondence. than we do at having an opportunity, on his authority, of giving it this positive and unequivocal contradiction.]

N.Y. M. Adv.