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40] ANNUAL REGISTER
of the consul and merchants; and even the request of the consul, to accept a deposit of the money, until he could receive instructions from his court how to act; though it is stipulated by the treaty we have to often mentioned, that the British merchants shall be allowed to give security for the payment of the duty. It is even said, and we do not find that it has been contradicted, that this prince descended to the meanness of seizing on the revenues of a national and charitable fund, which had been established by the English merchants and factory, for the support of worn out sailors, and the relief of their indigent countrymen.

Though we cannot make the leaft doubt, but all those grievances, so far as they relate to this country, have been already fully redressed, the recital of them, fhews the dangers to which commerce will be exposed, by the transferring of fo considerable a share of maritime power and property, into such grasping, oppressive, and arbitrary hands,
The King of Poland had a revenue still left, arising from the post-office at Dantzick; this miserable fragment, and support of royalty, could not escape the watchful attention of the King of Prussia; he accordingly erected a new post-office at Stoltzemberg, and the merchants of this great commercial city, afforded the new and ridiculous appearance, of being obliged to travel out of town to receive or forward their letters; by this means he not only seized the revenues of the old post-office, but what was of infinitely greater importance, became mafter of the whole public and private correspondence of Dantzick; a circumstance, in their present situation, the most irksome and dangerous that could be conceived. To compleat the system of oppression, custom houses were erected at their very gates, fo that no perfon could co in our out of the town, not excepting the ladies, without being searched in the strictest manner.
In the mean time, his agents and emissaries were busily employed among the magistrates and people, in endeavoring to persuade them, to make a surrender of the city with all its rights and immunities, into the hands of their master. They represented to them, the danger of obstinacy, and of irritating so powerful a prince, in their present situation ; the futility of the hopes they placed, in impotent, ir in indolent guarantees, who either would not, or could not, give them any effectual support; that altogether the king was too religious an observer of his engagements, to make use of open violence, and that therefore, their submission to his government must be a voluntary act, they could not but be sensible, that no person knew how to distinguish better, between his friends and those that were not so; that in fact, his new acquisitions put the town to much in his power, and supplied him with such various means of vexing and oppressing them, that the consequences would at length be as fatal as if it had been taken by storm; and that if they made an immediate and voluntary surrender, he would grant them an honorable and advantageous capitulation, which they could not afterwards expect, if by their delays, the shewed and indisposition to his service, and a vain reliance upon foreign support.
Though

For the YEAR 1772 [41
Thought the magistrates and citizens shewed at first a considerable degree of firmness, and totally rejected those, as well as several other proposals that were made to them; yet finding at length, that they were entirely abandoned or neglected, by all those powers, who were bound by interest, as well as by treaties to protect them ; that their new and dangerous neighbour, had already cut off the corn trade from Poland, and seized on the whole navigation of the Viftula; that they were hampered with custom-houses and tolls, and the remains of their foreign trade ruined by insupportable duties; in these circumstances it is no wonder, that such continued suggestions as these we have mentioned, should by degrees have their full effect. The spirit which they at first affirmed, accordingly funk away; personal security for the present, and the hopes of preserving some part of their property, took place of all distant considerations and the town appears now, except in its not having yet received a garrison, to be in every other respect in the hands of the King of Prussia.
Such is the fate of the great mart of the North; the protestant, and once noble free city of Dantzick; and such the treatment which it has met with from a protestant prince and neighbor, who instead of oppressing it himself, was bound by the strongest ties to protect it from the oppression of others. There is not perhaps in history a more striking instance of the futility, if not of the absurdity of treaties, so far as they are considered as guarantees or acts of security, than the fate of Dantzick. Few cities ever existed, and it is probable that none do at present, that have been comprehended in so many general and particular treaties, whose rights and liberties have been so frequently secured, and guarantied by so many great powers, and by such a long and regular succession of public acts, as that of Dantzick has been. Nor have the commercial powers of Europe, so often armed in the defence or support of any other. Of such importance was it considered, that the English and Dutch in Queen Anne's wars, hazarded the dangerous enmity of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden in the height of his victories, and all the serious consequences that might have attended his throwing himself, at that time, into the scale with France, to protect this city from his resentment.
Even so late as the year 1767, the Empress of Russia concluded a treaty with the Dantzickers, bu which she engaged them to join in the confederation of the Dissidents, and in which, besides renewing and confirming the former guarantees, she engages in the strongest terms, for the maintaining of that city, in all its rights, liberties, privileges, customs, religious or civil; and specially in the possession of its territories and lands; also in its right of navigation, commerce, port, coinage, and garrison, without any diminution thereof; she also engages, that if a war should be the consequence of the present dissections, and that it should sustain any injury, either as to its goods, revenues, or rights, thereby, it should not only receive full reparation for its losses at the conclusion of a peace; but that besides, all of it rights and privileges should be again most strongly guarantied, not only by herself, but also by