They arrived at Madeira, after a pleasant passage, on the 1st of June; and, on the 8th, proceeded to the place of destination, which they safely reached just before the hurricane season. The ladies expressed themselves well satisfied with their accommodation on board, which had certainly cost the captain nearly two hundred pounds extraordinary; for which Lady Hughes is stated, from most respectable authority, to have demonstrated her gratitude, by presenting him with a silver tea-caddy ladle, which could hardly be worth more than five shillings! The service, on this station, was attended with difficulties which had, perhaps, been but little expected, either by the officers of the British navy, or those who sent them; and it was far more fortunate for government, than it was for Captain Nelson, that he had been employed on the occasion. The Americans, while colonists of Great Britain, had enjoyed, as subjects, almost the entire trade between their country and our West India Islands. Having erected themselves into independent states, they had hoped that, on the return of peace, we should have permitted them again to enjoy the privileges of fellow-subjects, which they had, by withdrawing their allegiance, undoubtedly forfeited. This hope had not been indulged, by the Americans, through any want of political discernment on their part; they well knew themselves now to be, what on other occasions they loudly enough boasted, foreigners in every sense of the word. They were satisfied, however, at the same time, that the mother-country had not always been renowned for the highest degree of national sagacity; they felt, that they had themselves acquired, by force, the independence which they enjoyed; and they trusted that the British administration, through apprehensions of renewing an unpopular and disastrous war, would be induced to connive at, if not confirm, the privilege the Americans affected to claim under the very Navigation Act of Great Britain, the most beneficial effect of which they were thus artfully contriving to destroy. The West Indians, themselves, who were prevented, by an immediate prospect of the return of their own interest, from contemplating it in a remote view, they well knew, would oppose no obstacle: these, in fact, readily fell into the snare, and were clamorous for their old customers. Those persons, too, who held official situations, generally more considerate of their ease and their emoluments, than of the duties proper to be performed, in a climate so enervating, and a country so luxurious, would naturally, it was not doubted, rather contend for, than against, such claims as seemed to favour these indulgences. Here, too, with very few exceptions, they met with equally zealous and still more powerful supporters.