taken was readily obtained, and the underwriters were obliged to make good the ideal loss. A more innocent species of warfare, I believe, was never practised! Some discoveries of their frauds gave the first check to this curious system of peculation; and its ruin has since been achieved by the excellent regulations which the chief consul has introduced into the maritime code of France.
About the time to which I have alluded, privateers under the French flag, but actually the property of British subjects resident in Holland, and some of them in England, sailed from the ports of the Batavian republic, and made captures of British vessels to a considerable amount. This was attacking the lives and liberties, as well as the property, of their countrymen; and I should hesitate to record so disgraceful a fact, could I doubt the authority from whence I derive it. To the lasting infamy of these men, it must be considered, that they had none of those excuses for parricidally preying on their country, with which the French and Dutch refugees are furnished, by the unhappy
