ctors of two insurance companies
presented to the Admiralty remonstrances on the want of protection in
the Channel; to which the usual official reply was made that an
adequate force was stationed both in St. George's Channel and in the
North Sea. The London paper from which this intelligence was taken
stated that premiums on vessels trading between England and Ireland
had risen from an ordinary rate of less than one pound sterling to
five guineas per cent. The Admiralty, taxed with neglect, attributed
blame to the merchant captains, and announced additional severity to
those who should part convoy. Proceedings were instituted against two
masters guilty of this offence.[254] September 9, the merchants and
shipowners of Liverpool remonstrated direct to the Prince Regent,
going over the heads of the Admiralty, whom they censured. Again the
Admiralty alleged sufficient precautions, specifying three frigates
and fourteen sloops actually at sea for the immediate protection of
St. George's Channel and the western Irish coast against depredations,
which they nevertheless did not succeed in suppressing.[255]

At the same time the same classes in Glasgow were taking action, and
passing resolutions, the biting phrases of which were probably
prompted as much by a desire to sting the Admiralty as by a personal
sense of national abasement. "At a time when we are at peace with all
the rest of the world, when the maintenance of our marine costs so
large a sum to the country, when the mercantile and shipping interests
pay a tax for protection under the form of convoy duty, and when, in
the plenitude of our power, we have declared the whole American coast
under blockade, it is equally distressing and mortifying that our
ships cannot with safety traverse our own channels, that insurance
cannot be effected but at an excessive premium, and that a horde of
American cruisers should be allowed, unheeded, unmolested, unresisted,
to take, burn, or sink our own vessels in our own inlets, and almost
in sight of our own harbours."[256] In the same month the merchants of
Bristol, the position of which was comparatively favorable to
intercourse with Ireland, also presented a memorial, stating that the
rate of insurance had risen to more than twofold the amount at which
it was usually effected during the continental war, when the British
Navy could not, as it now might, direct its operations solely against
American cruisers. Shipments consequently had