Fowle's New Hampshire Gazette And General Advertiser

LONDON, August 9.

It is impossible to describe the scene of riot and confusion that was exhibited on Wednesday at the custom-house, in consequence of the manifest-act taking place on that day. The merchants knew not how to proceed under it; whilst even the Commissioners of the Customs, their Solicitors, and every other officer in that department, were equally embarrassed, and could give no directions how entries might be made with safety. Penalties and confiscations lurking beneath every arrangement; and the whole act presented a system so entirely Utopian, and incomprehensible, that the business of the customs was totally suspended.

The quays near the custom-house, from Wednesday till Friday last, exhibited a spectacle of the most extraordinary kind, being covered with piles of merchandize, almost from one end of the wharf to the other; the shipping of which was rendered impracticable, from the construction put by the Commissioners of the customs on a part of the eighteenth clause of the most wonderful and abstruse performance, yclept, the manifest act; a construction which every man of common sense clearly perceived it would not bear. and in consequence of which it was insisted that all merchants exporting, by commission, goods the property of foreign countries, entitled to a drawback. should declare upon oath, on the certificate, at the time of entry, the names and places of abode of the persons to whom they were consigned.

This they protested against, as impolitic and unjust. tending to lay open their connexions, and unfold those secrets in their trade, which ought to be wholly confined to the parties immediately concerned; the Commissioners were inflexible, and an entire stop was put to the shipping of the goods by certificate for almost three whole days.