A letter has been addressed to us under date of the 15th inst., by Mr. R. R. Gibbons, sending to us, at your Lordship’s desire, a copy of Dr. Madden’s Report on the Gold Coast of Africa, and its dependencies, and stating that this is done in consideration of “our being personally interested therein, but that we are to consider it as entirely confidential.” In common with all other merchants in this city, we may of course be said to possess more or less of a professional interest in all matters which relate to commerce. As having occasionally executed shipping orders for ports in the coast of Africa, on foreign account, of lawful merchandise, lawfully, and therefore publicly cleared at Her Majesty’s Customs, in lawful vessels, and as far as we, as mere shipping agents, could be supposed or expected to know, to the best of our knowledge, for no unlawful purpose, without any other interest or emolument in the operation antecedent or subsequent to the shipment than that of the simple and regular commission usually charged in, or legitimately connected with the invoice, and possessing no control, direct or indirect, over either vessels or goods, from the moment they left the shores of Great Britain, we may perhaps be supposed to feel a more direct interest in whatsoever throws light on the subject of trade with ports with which, in the course of our mercantile career, we may have had general business transactions, although they have not been either extensive or frequent. Still more as shippers, in the form and capacity just described, and in no other, of a cargo consisting not only of legal, but even unsuspected merchandise on board the English schooner Augusta, Captain Jennings, the Report of Dr. Madden, as a document in which the capture of that vessel is alluded to, may also be supposed to form an interesting piece of information, whatever its merits may be in other respects. Such is the nature and the extent of the interest which we acknowledge to possess in the Report of Dr. Madden, neither more nor less; and we submit that, in describing it as personal, a supposition is advanced which, considering the nature of that Report, we have reason to deem unfavourable to our characters, which the facts will not justify, and which we may say, even appearances will not warrant.