As the announcement of these annoyances, recurring day after day, became a practice of the press, the public began to grumble in louder and louder tones. “That the whole coast of Ireland, from Wexford round by Cape Clear to Carrickfergus,” said the “Morning Chronicle” of August 31, “should have been for above a month under the unresisted dominion of a few petty ‘fly-by-nights’ from the blockaded ports of the United States, is a grievance equally intolerable and disgraceful.” The Administration mouthpiece, the “Courier,” admitted, August 22, that five brigs had been taken in two days between the Smalls and the Tuskar, and that insurance on vessels trading between Ireland and England had practically ceased. The “Annual Register” for 1814 recorded as “a most mortifying reflection,” that with a navy of nearly a thousand ships of various sizes, and while at peace with all Europe, “it was not safe for a vessel to sail without convoy from one part of the English or Irish Channel to another.” Such insecurity had not been known in the recent wars. As early as August 12, the London Assurance Corporations urged the government to provide a naval force competent to cope with the privateers. In September the merchants of Glasgow, Liverpool, and Bristol held meetings, and addressed warm remonstrances to government on the want of protection given to British commerce. The situation was serious, and the British merchants did not yet know all. Till that time the East India and China trade had suffered little, but at last the American privateers had penetrated even the Chinese seas; and while they were driving the British flag into port there, they attacked the East India Company’s ships, which were really men-of-war, on their regular voyages. In August the “Countess of Harcourt” of more than five hundred tons, carrying six heavy guns and ninety men, was captured in the British Channel by the privateer “Sabine” of Baltimore, and sent safely to America. The number and value of the prizes stimulated new energy in seeking them, and British commerce must soon yield to that of neutral nations if the war continued. The merchants showed that a great change had come over their minds since they incited or permitted the Tories to issue the Impressment Proclamation and the Orders in Council seven years before. More than any other class of persons, the ship-owners and West India merchants were responsible for the temper which caused the war, and they were first to admit their punishment. At the Liverpool meeting, where Mr. Gladstone, who took the chair, began by declaring that some ports, particularly Milford, were under actual blockade,[302] a strong address was voted; and at a very numerous meeting of merchants, manufacturers, ship-owners, and underwriters at Glasgow, September 7, the Lord Provost presiding, resolutions were unanimously passed--