Commons Chamber

rose and spoke as follows:

Sir; I rise to bring before the House a proposition regarding the subject which has recently occupied so large a share of our attention—the present state of trade and manufactures, and the sufferings of the people of England. And I am confident that I shall not be accused of exaggeration when I say, that it is by far the most interesting and momentous topic which can at this crisis engage the attention of parliament. After six weeks spent in the enquiry—after a mass of evidence unparalleled in extent has been collected—the time is at length arrived, when we are called upon for the result of our investigation, for our determination in behalf of the country, and our advice to the crown upon the mighty interests which we have been examining. But while I dwell upon the importance of this subject, I am by no means disposed to follow the practice usual upon such occasions, and to magnify its extent or its difficulty. The question is indeed one of unexampled interest, but of extremely little intricacy. Its points are few in number—they lie within a narrow range—they are placed near the surface—and involved in no obscurity or doubt. Its materials are only massy in outward appearance, and when viewed at a distance. There seems to be a huge body of details. This load of papers—these eight or nine hundred folios of evidence—together with the bulk of papers and petitions lying on your table, would naturally enough frighten a careless observer with the notion, that the subject is vast and complicated. Yet I will venture to assert, that I shall not have proceeded many minutes, before I have convinced not only those who assisted in the labours of the committee—not those merely who have read the result of the enquiry on our minutes—but those who now for the first time give their attention to the question, and come here wholly ignorant of its merits, that there has seldom been a subject of a public nature brought before this House, through which the path was shorter and surer, or led to a decision more obvious and plain.

There is however, Sir, one task which meets me in the outset, and one of so painful a nature, that I would fain recede from it. It is my severe duty this night to make you acquainted with the distresses of the people, and principally of the lower orders—that is to say, the most numerous and industrious classes of our countrymen. To handle the question without entering into these afflicting details, or to travel amongst them without the deepest uneasiness, would require an ingenuity or an insensibility which are equally foreign to my nature. For to whom could the scenes which we positively witnessed in the committee be so distressing, as to those, whose anxiety for the welfare of the lower orders, impelled them to devote their days and nights to the labours of the inquiry? And it is now my hard task to give those who were not there to see and hear, some idea of what passed before our very eyes—the strange and afflicting sight of respectable ancient men, the pillars of the trade and credit of the country, coming forth to lament, not that they saw wasting away beneath the fatal policy of our government the hard-earned fruits of their honest and industrious lives—not that they were approaching to old age stripped of the support which they had been providing for that season—but because they no longer had the means of saving from absolute want the thousands of unhappy persons dependent upon them for subsistence—because they had no longer wages to give the thousands, who were eager to work for any pittance to sustain life—because, having already exhausted their whole means, all the accumulations of their lives, in the charitable offices of employing those poor people, they were now brought to the brink of that dreadful alternative, either of leaving them to perish, or of shutting their ears to the wants of connections that had still stronger claims. These are things which I cannot pass over; but I willingly delay entering upon them for some little time; and at present I should prefer calling your attention to more general circumstances, which less directly, though with equal force, prove the unexampled calamities of the times.

And here, Sir, I do not allude merely to the numerous Petitions preferred to parliament, setting forth the distresses of the country, and praying for a repeal of the Orders in Council. I will not dwell upon these, nor ground my inferences upon them. And yet I well might avail myself of such an argument on the present occasion. For if the system was adopted for the express purpose of relieving our trade and manufactures, what better proof of its inefficacy, than the loud and general complaints of our merchants and Workmen against it? If the very ground and justification of those measures has always been the necessity of affording relief to the commerce and industry of the country, what can be more in point, while they are urging the merits of the plan, than the fact that Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Warwickshire, all the great districts of our manufactures, joined formerly in expressing their fears of the relief you were offering them; and now, after four years' trial of its virtues, loudly pray to be saved from such a remedy, imploring you for pity sake to abandon them to the hostility of their enemies, and spare them the merciless kindness of the protection under which they are groaning? Yet I will forego whatever support the cause may derive from the fact of these Petitions, in order to dwell upon the more indirect and unexpected, and therefore wholly unsuspicious testimony, which it derives from other quarters. I would beseech the House to cast its eye abroad upon the various projects for obtaining relief, to which of late the people have in different parts of the country had recourse—the attempts and devices to which, in the restlessness of their sufferings, they have been resorting with the vain hope of shifting or shaking off from them the load of calamity under which they labour. Some of those schemes, I know, are most inadequate to the object—some are nugatory and absurd—some are positively hurtful to them, and deserving of reprobation. But they all proceed from the feverish uneasiness, the impatience of rest, which forms an undoubted symptom of the prevailing malady. Take, for example, the disorders which in different districts have given rise to short-sighted attacks upon machinery and other private property. Of these it is impossible to speak without blame; but when we reflect on the misery which brought on this state of violence, it is hard to avoid mingling pity with our censure. Another remedy, as short-sighted, though unhappily perfectly legal, I have myself had occasion to see attempted in the course of my professional employment—I mean the applications which numerous bodies of manufacturers have made to courts of justice, for enforcing one of the most impolitic laws on the statute-book, the act of Elizabeth, requiring magistrates to fix the rate of wages; a law which has been absurdly permitted to subsist on the pretence that it was not likely to be acted upon, and which, as might have been expected, stands ready to promote, mischief at the moment when it may be most dangerous, without the possibility of ever doing good. A third expedient has been thought of, in application to this House for the abolition of sinecure places, or the appropriation of their profits to the expences of the war. Of this remedy I by no means think so lightly as some do; it would indeed only afford a trifling relief, but it would go far to prevent the recurrence of the evil, by diminishing the interest of many persons in the continuance of hostilities, and would disarm, I believe, some of the most warlike characters of the time. But I would particularly entreat you to consider the numberless Petitions from almost every part of the country which now crowd your table, against continurng the East India Company's monopoly. That some of those applications are founded in the most just and politic views of the subject I am far from denying; that the great and once opulent city of Liverpool, for instance, the second in the empire, would derive material relief from that participation in the East India trade, to which it has undoubted right, cannot be doubted; and Glasgow, Bristol, and one or two other places, are in the same predicament. But is this the case with all the other towns, I might almost say villages, which have preferred the same prayer to us in equally urgent terms? Is it the case with any considerable proportion of them? What think you, Sir, of places demanding a share of this trade, which have neither commerce nor manufactures? I will give you a specimen of others which have something to export, but not exactly of the quality best suited to those Eastern markets—One district has petitioned for a free exportation to the East Indies, which to my knowledge raises no earthly produce but black horned cattle. The potteries have demanded permission to send freely their porcelain to China, and the ancient and respectable city of Newcastle, which grows nothing but pit coal, has earnestly entreated that it may be allowed to ship that useful article to supply the stoves and hot-houses of Calcutta. All these projects prove nothing less than the competence of their authors to find out a remedy for their sufferings; but they do most distinctly demonstrate how extensive and deep-seated the evil must be, and how acute the sufferings which seek relief from such strange devices. They remind one of the accounts which have been handed down to us of the great pestilence which once visited this city. Nothing in the story of that awful time is more affecting, than the picture which it presents of the vain efforts made to seek relief; miserable men might be seen rushing forth into streets, and wildly grasping the first passenger they met, to implore his help, as if by communicating the poison to others they could restore health to their own veins, or life to its victims whom they had left stretched before it. In that dismal period there was no end of projects and nostrums for preventing or curing the disease, and numberless empirics every day started up with some new delusion, rapidly made fortunes of the hopes and terrors of the multitude, and then as speedily disappeared, or were themselves borne down by the general destroyer. Meanwhile the malady raged until its force was spent; the attempts to cure it were doubtless all baffled; but the eagerness with which men hailed each successive contrivance proved too plainly how vast was their terror, and how universal the suffering that prevailed.

So might I now argue, from the complaints and projects which assail us on every hand, how deeply seated and widely spread is the distress under which the people are suffering; but unhappily we have to encounter its details in many other shapes. Although it is not my intention to travel through the mass of evidence on your table, the particulars of which I may safely leave to my hon. friend, (Mr. Baring) who has so laudably devoted his time and abilities to this investigation. Let me only, Sir, remind the House of the general outline of the enquiry. We have examined above a hundred witnesses, from more than thirty of the great manufacturing and mercantile districts. These men were chosen almost at random, from thousands whom we could have brought before you with less trouble than it required to make the selection; the difficulty was to keep back evidence, not to find it; for our desire to state the case was tempered by a natural anxiety to encroach as little as possible on the time of the House, and to expedite by all means the conclusion of an enquiry, upon the result of which so many interests hung in anxious suspence. In all this mass of evidence there was not a single witness who denied, or doubted—I beg your pardon, there was one—one solitary and remarkable exception, and none other even among those called in support of the system, who even hesitated in admitting the dreadful amount of the present distresses. Take, for example, one of our great staples, the hardware, and look to Warwickshire, where it used to flourish. Birmingham and its neighbourhood, a district of thirteen miles round that centre, was formerly but one village, I might say one continued workshop, peopled with about 400,000 of the most industrious and skilful of mankind. In what state do you now find that once busy hive of men? Silent, still, and desolate during half the week; during the rest of it miserably toiling at reduced wages, for a pittance scarcely sufficient to maintain animal life in the lowest state of comfort, and at all times swarming with unhappy persons, willing, anxious to work for their lives, but unable to find employment. He must have a stout heart within him, who can view such a scene and not shudder. But even this is not all, matters are getting worse and worse; the manufacturers are waiting for your decision, and if that be against them they will instantly yield to their fate, and turn adrift the people whom they still, though inadequately, support with employment. Upon your vote of this night the destiny of thousands in that district alone depends; and I ask you before you give it to tell me what must become of those thousands, or of the country in which they shall be turned loose? I am aware that the language I use may be misinterpreted—it may be perverted into a threat; but I speak of incontrovertible facts from the evidence before you, when I affirm, that if you this night say, "No" to the Petitions against the Orders in Council, you let loose upon the country thousands and thousands—I will not say of riotous, or disorderly, or seditious, or even discontented people—but only of hungry men, who must either find food or perish. Look now to Yorkshire—to the clothing country. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the only conversation I had the honour of holding with him upon this question, was very confident that the case of the petitioners would fail in these districts; you have proved it, said he, as far as respects hardware, but you will do nothing in the woollen trade. Sir, we have now gone through the case, and how stand the facts? It is still stronger with respect to the clothing than the hardware! It is more various in its features and more striking in the result, because the trade is more extensive, and employs both larger capitals and a more numerous people. One gentleman tells you that he has 20, another 25,000l. locked up in unsaleable, unprofitable stock, which load his warehouses. A third has about 30, and a fourth no less than 90,000l. thus disposed of. In the warehouses of one merchant there are 80,000l. worth of cottons, and in those of another at Liverpool from 2 to 3,000 packages, chiefly woollens and cottons, valued on the lowest computation at 200,000l., every article of which was destined for the American market, and can find no other vent. In the West Riding thousands have been thrown out of all employment; but this is nothing compared with the fearful apprehensions which are there entertained, if you this night refuse them relief. I pass lightly over this ground—but the fact is known that in that populous country, the applications to the parish officers have so alarmingly increased, that they have given repeated warnings to the master manufacturers, and I believe to the higher authorities, of their utter inability to relieve the increasing distress, or to answer for its consequences. Among other circumstances which marked this part of the case, there was one peculiarly affecting to every one who heard it.—It had been proved that at Kidderminster, where the great carpet manufacture is almost entirely destroyed, the wants of the poor became so pressing that they were forced to part with their little stock of furniture, which used to make their cottages in some degree comfortable, and even the clothes off their backs, to raise food, until the pawnbrokers, having already loaded themselves with such deposits, refused to issue any more tickets. But at Sheffield, the same feature recurred in an heightened and still more striking form. The workmen in the cutlery trade, unable to obtain any longer their usual market, from the master dealers and merchants or brokers refusing to purchase any more, were compelled to pawn their articles at a very low valuation, for money, and even for food and clothes—so that this extraordinary state of things arose—the pawnbrokers came into the London market with the goods, and there met the regular dealers, whom they were able greatly to undersell; in such wise as to supply in a considerable degree the London and other markets, to the extreme augmentation of the distresses already so severely pressing upon this branch of trade.

I might detain you, Sir, in an endless repetition of this same tale of misery, through its different shapes, were I to describe its varieties in the other districts to which them evidence applies; but I shall only refer to the cotton trade; and that, not for the sake of stating that here too the same picture was presented of capital locked up—men of great nominal wealth living without income—trading, or seeming to trade, without profits—mumberless workmen dismissed—those who remain employed earning only half or quarter wages—parish rates increasing—charitable supplies failing, from the reduced means of the upper classes, and the hourly augmented claims upon their bounty—and the never-ceasing feature of this case in all its parts, the impending necessity of instantaneously disbanding those who are only now retained in the hopes of your favourable decision; but I would draw your attention to the cotton districts, merely to present one incidental circumstance which chanced to transpire respecting the distresses of the poor in those parts. The food which now sustains them is reduced to the lowest kind, and of that there is not nearly a sufficient supply; bread, or even potatoes, are now out of the question; the luxuries of animal food, or even milk they have long ceased to think of. Their looks, as well as their apparel, proclaim the sad change in their situation. One witness tells you, it is only necessary to look at their haggard faces, to be satisfied what they are suffering; another says that persons who have recently returned, after an absence of some months from those parts, declare themselves shocked, and unable to recognize the people whom they had left. A gentleman largely concerned in the cotton trade, to whose respectability ample testimony was borne by an hon. bart. (Sir R. Peel,) I cannot regularly name him, but in a question relating to the cotton trade, it is natural to think of the house of Peel—that gentleman, whose property in part consists of cottages and little pieces of ground let out to work-people, told us that lately he went to look after his rents, and when he entered those dwellings, and found them so miserably altered, so stript of their wonted furniture and other little comforts, and when he saw their inhabitants sitting down to a scanty dinner of oatmeal and water, their only meal in the four and twenty hours, he could not stand the sight, and came away unable to ask his rent. These feelings, so honourable to him, so painful to us who partook of them, were not confined to that respectable witness. We had other sights to endure in that long and dismal enquiry. Masters came forward to tell us how unhappy it made them to have no more work to give their poor men, because all their money, and in some cases their credit too, was already gone in trying to support them. Some had involved themselves in embarrassments for such pious purposes. One again, would describe his misery at turning off people whom he and his father had employed for many years. Another would say how he dreaded the coming round of Saturday, when he had to pay his hands their reduced wages, incapable of supporting them; how he kept out of their way on that day, and made his foreman pay them. While a third would say that he was afraid to see his people, because he had no longer the means of giving them work, and he knew that they would flock round him and implore to be employed at the lowest wages; for something wholly insufficient to feed them. Indeed, said one, our situation is greatly to be pitied; it is most distressing, and God only knows what will become of us, for it is most unhappy! These things, and a vast deal more, a vast deal which I will not attempt to go through, because I absolutely have not the heart to bear it, and I cannot do it—these things, and much more of the same melancholy description, may be seen in the minutes by such as did not attend the committee; or as far as I have been able to represent them, they may be understood by those who have not heard the evidence. But there were things seen in the committee which cannot be entered on its records; which were not spoken in words, and could not be written down; which I should in vain attempt to paint, which to form any idea of, you must have been present, and seen and heard. For I cannot describe to you the manner in which that affecting evidence was given. I cannot tell you with what tones and looks of distress it was accompanied. When the witnesses told the story of the sufferings of their work-people and their own sufferings on their account, there was something in it which all the powers of acting could not even imitate; it was something which to feel as I now feel it, you must have seen it as I saw. The men to whom I am now alluding belonged to the venerable society of Friends—that amiable body of persons—the friends indeed of all that is most precious to man—the distinguished advocates of humanity, justice, and peace, and the patterns, as well as promoters of all the kindest charities of our nature. In their manner of testifying to this cause, there was something so simple and so touching, that it disarmed for a season the habitual indignation of the learned father of the system (Mr. Stephen), and seemed to thaw the cold calculations of its foster parent (Mr. Rose), and his followers of the board of trade and shipping interest, (Mr. Marryatt, &c.)

Sir, there is one circumstance in these melancholy details, which I have refrained from touching upon, because it seemed always to excite a peculiar degree of soreness: I mean the scarcity. We have often been taunted with this topic. We have been triumphantly asked, "What! is the scarcity too owing to the Orders in Council?" Certainly we never thought of ascribing the wet summer, and the bad crop, to the present commercial system; but as for scarcity, I imagine there may be two kinds of it equally inconvenient to the people—a scarcity of food, and a scarcity of money to buy food with. All the witnesses whom we examined were, without exception, asked this question—"Do you recollect the scarcity of 1800 or 1801?" "Yes," was the answer, "we do remember it; the dearth was then great, greater than at present, for there were two failing crops." But when we asked, whether the distress was as great, they flung up their hands and exclaimed—"O nothing like it, for then the people had plenty of work and full wages, whereas now the want of money meets the want of food. "But further, Sir, have you not taken away the only remedy for this scarcity; the only relief to which we can look under a bad harvest—by closing the corn market of America? Did we not always say, in arguing upon these measures prospectively; "Where are you if a bad season comes, and there is a risk of a famine?" Well, unhappily this calamity has come, or approaches; the season is bad, and a famine stares us in the face, and now we say as we did before—"Where are you with your Orders in Council, and your American quarrel?" Why, Sir, to deny that those measures affect the scarcity, is as absurd as it would be to deny that our Jesuit's Bark Bill exasperated the misery of the French hospitals, for that the wretches there died of the ague and not of the Bill; true, they died of the ague; but your murderous policy withheld from them that kindly herb which the providence that mysteriously inflicted the disease, mercifully bestowed for the relief of suffering humanity.

Before I quit this subject, let me intreat of the House to reflect how it bears upon the operations now carrying on in the peninsula. Our armies there are fed from America; supplies to the amount of eight or nine millions a year are derived by them from thence; the embargo the other day raised the price of flour in the Lisbon market above fifty per cent.; and when the news of this advance reached London, you heard from one witness that it occasioned in one morning, within his own knowledge, an export from this port of six thousand barrels of flour to supply tho Portuguese market. Our operations in Spain and Portugal then depend upon the intercourse with America, and yet we madly persist in cutting that intercourse off!—And is it indeed come to this? Are we never to lose sight of the Spanish war, except when America is concerned? To that contest what sacrifices have we not cheerfully made? To its paramount importance what perpetual tribute have we not been paying? Has it not for years been the grand object of our hopes as of our efforts; the centre upon which all our politics, external and domestic, have hinged; the point which regulated every thing, from the negociation of a public treaty to the arrangement of a cabinet? Upon this contest what millions of money, what profusion of British blood have we not lavished, without ever stopping to count the cost, so self-evident have we ever deemed its advantages or rather its necessity to be? Yet now are we prepared to abandon it—to sacrifice all our hopes of its future profit—to throw away every advance that we have already made upon it, because it can no longer be prosecuted without involving us in the costs and dangers of—a reconciliation with America! For this war, for this same bootless war, we hesitate not to neglect every interest, every domestic tie—to cripple, oppress, starve, and grind down our own people; but all attention to it, all thought of it, suddenly leaves us the moment we ascertain that, in order to carry it on, we must abandon an unjust and ruinous quarrel with our kinsmen in America, and speedily relieve the unparalleled distresses of our own countrymen! Now, and now only, and for this reason and none other, we must give up for ever the cherished object of all our hopes, and no longer even dream of opposing any resistance to France upon the continent of Europe—because by continuing to do so we should effectually defeat her machinations in America.

I have now, Sir, slightly and generally touched upon the heads of that case of deep distress which the evidence presents to our view; and I here stop to demand by what proofs this evidence has been met on the other side of the House? Not a question did the hon. gentlemen, who defend the system, venture to put by way of shaking the testimony, the clear and united testimony to which I have been alluding; not a witness did they call, on their part, with the view of rebutting it, save only one, and to this one person's evidence it is necessary that I should call your attention, because from a particular circumstance it does so happen that it will not be found upon the minutes, and can therefore only be known to those who heard it, by whom I well know it never can be forgotten. This man, whom I will not name, having denied that any great distress prevailed among the lower orders in the manufacturing districts, it was fit that I should examine him a little more closely, seeing that he took upon himself to contradict the statement unanimously given by the most respectable merchants and manufacturers in the country but a few days before. I therefore asked whether he meant to say, that the artisans had the same wages as usual—And then was disclosed a scene the most revolting, the most disgusting, that it is possible to conceive, insomuch indeed, that I was immediately afterwards implored by the gentlemen opposite to allow the evidence to be expunged, that it might not remain on our journals to defile them. This man in substance told us, that the people had enough of wages—that they had no right to more—that when their wages were at the former rate they had three times as much as they ought to have!—What? Did he really dare to say that the food which we had heard with sorrow described by the Lancashire witnesses was enough for the support of Englishmen—or that this miserable fare was all that the lower people of this country have a right to—the lower people to whom we owe all our national greatness? Did he venture to tell the representatives of that people—us who are sent here by them—who meet here only to consult for their interests—who only exist by and for them—that a short allowance of oatmeal and water (for such is the fact) was the fit fare for them?—[See Evidence of Mr. Wood, Mr. Bentley, &c. &c.] Sir, this man sprung, I make no doubt, himself from the same class of the community, and at any rate now became by their, labour, I am ashamed to say, one of the most affluent merchants in the city of London—this loyal man, for he began his evidence with an attack upon Jacobinism; and imputed the present distresses to the seditious machinations of party men in this town, I rather think he meant to insinuate in this House—an attack which was also ordered to be expunged from the minutes—this very person standing in this Commons House of Parliament,—was shameless enough to insinuate that Englishmen must be fed low to keep them quiet; for he distinctly stated, that if you gave them more, you pampered them, or as he termed it, accustomed them to "luxuries irrelevant to their condition," and unhinged (as he phrased it in the jargon of his loyalty) "unhinged the frame of society." Sir, I yielded to the united intreaties of the gentlemen opposite, and for the sake of peace and the credit of our records, I consented to this disgraceful evidence being expunged. I now repent me of what I did; for I ought rather to have suffered the contamination to remain, that it might record by what sort of witnesses this system is upheld, and according to what standard of popular rights and national happiness the defence of the system is framed. So much, however, for the first and last attempt which was made to impeach the facts brought forward by my witnesses.

Driven from this ground, then, the right hon. gentleman retreats to his well known hold, and takes refuge in the Custom House books—in the accounts of the inspector general. I could have wished that he had brought that worthy and respectable officer himself to the bar, because then we might have learned more accurately how those returns are made up; at present we have only a meagre note of a few lines describing the errors of this proceeding. But, with respect to these returns, I must in the first place observe, that we cannot in this stage of the enquiry rely on such evidence—the period is gone by when they might have been admissible. I shall explain myself in a moment upon this point. Accounts of exports and imports are resorted to, and most properly, in order to estimate the trade of the country when we have no better data; because those accounts give something like an approximation or rough guess at the state of the trade, and are in ordinary cases the only means we have of getting at a knowledge of the state of the country in point of commercial prosperity. But when we know from other sources of the most unquestioned authority, every thing relating to this very point—when we have by actual enquiry learned in what state the commerce of the country is—when we have gone to the fountain head and seen the situation of things with our own eyes—it is idle and preposterous to run after lists of exports and imports, which are only the less perfect evidence—the indirect sign or symptom—and utterly out of time after we have examined the thing itself. We have seen that the people are starving all over the manufacturing districts, and the master manufacturers ruined; after this to produce an array of custom house figures, for the purpose of shewing whether manufactures are flourishing or not, is stark nonsense—such an array is superfluous if it coincides with the better proofs; if it contradicts them, what man alive will listen to them for one moment? But I confess, Sir, that with me, at any stage of the enquiry, the credit of those custom house tables would be but small, after the account of them which appears in evidence. The inspector himself has stated in his memorandum, that the method of making up the account of exports cannot be safely relied upon, in those instances where no payment is made; and by one of the returns it appears, that of twenty seven millions, the average yearly value of exports, only ten millions are subject to duty on exportation, and that above eight millions neither pay duty, nor receive bounty or drawback; upon this sum, at least then, all the inaccuracy admitted in his minute must attach. But the evidence sufficiently explains on which side of the scale the error is likely to lie. There is, it would seem, a fellow feeling between the gentlemen at the custom house, and their honoured masters at the Board of Trade; so that when the latter wish to make blazing statements of national prosperity, the former are ready to find the fuel. The managing clerk of one of the greatest mercantile houses in the city, tells you that he has known packages entered at 5,000l. which were not worth 50l.—that those sums are entered at random, and cannot be at all relied upon. Other witnesses, particularly from Liverpool, confirm the same fact; and I know, as does my right hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was present, that the head of the same respectable house, a few days ago, mentioned at an official conference with him, an instance of his own clerks being desired at the custom house to make a double entry of an article for export. After such facts as these, I say it is in vain to talk of custom house returns, even if they were contradicted in no respect by othere vidence. After shewing one such flaw in them, I am absolved from all further trouble; I am not bound to follow their details and prove them false step by step; I have shewn enough to destroy their credit as documents, and with this irreparable damage on their face, I might here leave them. But strange to tell, after all the boasting of the gentlemen opposite—in spite of every contrivance to conceal the real fact—and notwithstanding the essentially vicious mode of preparing those documents, it does so happen, that the falling off in our trade is too great even for the machinery of the custom house to sustain, or cover it over; and, with every effort to prevent its appearance, here it breaks out upon the face of the custom-house papers themselves! At first the methods I have spoken of were, no doubt, successful. When the defalcation was confined within certain limits, those methods might conceal it, and enable the ministers to delude this House and the country, with details of our flourishing commerce. But that point has been passed, and no resources of official skill can any more suppress the melancholy truth, that the trade of the country has gone to decay. I hold in my hand the latest of these annual returns; and by its details we find that, comparing the whole amount of trade, both exports and imports (which is the only fair way of reckoning), in 1809, with its amount in 1811, there is a falling off in the latter year to the amount of no less than thirty-six millions—compared with 1810, the falling off is thirty-eight millions. If we confine our view only to the export of British manufactures, we find, that the falling off in 1811, as compared with either of the former years, (for they are nearly equal,) amounts to sixteen millions. And if we take in the export of foreign and colonial produce also, the falling off in 1811, compared with 1809, is twenty-four, and compared with 1810, no less than twenty-seven millions! Then, Sir, we need not object to the evidence afforded by those papers—they make most strongly in favour of our argument—they are evidence for us, if any evidence from such a quarter were wanted—and, whatever credit you may give to the testimony by which I have been impeaching their au- thenticity—how little soever you may be inclined to agree with me in doubting their accuracy, and in imputing exaggeration to them—I care not even if you should wholly deny that any such flaws are to be found in their construction, and that any such abatement as I have described is to be made from their total results; I say, corrected or uncorrected, they prove my case—and I now rely on them, and hold them up in refutation of the Board of Trade, because they distinctly demonstrate an immense, an unparalleled diminution in our commerce, during the last eighteen months, and—wholly coincide with both our evidence and our argument.

Of the positions advanced by the defenders of this system, one of the most noted is, that what we may have lost by its operation in one quarter, we have gained elsewhere—and that if the United States are no longer open to us, we have extended our trade in the other parts of America, and in some new European channels. To this argument, however, the returns which I have just been dwelling upon furnish a most triumphant, if it were not rather a melancholy, answer. For you will observe, Sir, that the mighty falling off, which those accounts exhibit, is upon the whole trade of the country—that it includes South America, Heligoland, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean, as well as the United States, and the dominions of France. If, therefore, upon the whole trade there has been this great defalcation, it is idle to talk of compensation and substitutes. The balance is struck—the deficiency is proved, after all the substitutes have been taken into the account, and credit has been given for them all. Every such allowance being fully made, there is still a total loss of trade in one year to the enormous amount of eight and thirty millions sterling. In like manner do these returns dispose of another famous argument—that the deficit of last year is only apparent; that it arises from making a comparison with 1810, the greatest year ever known; but that, compared with former years, there was no falling off at all. What now becomes of this assertion? The falling off in the last year, as compared with 1810, being thirty-seven millions; it is thirty-five, as compared with 1809; and the deficit of exports of British manufactures is very nearly the same in both those comparisons. So much for the assertions of honourable gentlemen, and the real results of the custom-house document.

But let us attend a little more closely to the much-boasted substitutes for our American trade, which are to be found in the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the South, and in our own settlements in the North. Almost all the witnesses who were examined knew something of these branches of commerce; and it was the constant practice on this side of the House to ask them, how far they had found relief from them? We generally began with enquiring, whether they had tried the South American markets? And there was always the same sort of answer: it was in most cases given with an air and manner sufficiently significant, independent of the words; there was generally a something which I should distinguish by a foreign expression, if I might be permitted to use it, where we have none at home that will convey the meaning—a sort of naiveté—an arch and humorous simplicity, which some now present must recollect. "Try the South American market?—Aye, that we have!" Or, "Know the Brazil trade?—We know it full well!" Some who had not personal experience of it, on being asked, "Whether they knew of any others who had tried the South American trade?" said, "They never wished to know any such people, or to have any thing to do with them." Most of them told us, that their disappointments were owing to sir Home Popham's circular; and when we desired explanation, and demanded what profits they had turned on those adventures, whether twenty or only ten per cent—they said they had always lost fifty or sixty, or more in the hundred, and never sold for prime cost; frequently abandoning the goods to their fate, to save further charges in enquiring after them. Thus much appeared when I examined them; being myself no trader I could only question them generally and diffidently: accordingly, in my hands, they came off easily and safely enough—not so when the Vice President of the Board of Trade took up the tale, which he never failed to do as soon as I laid it down. Then was seen all the closeness of a practical scrutineer; he took them to task as a real merchant, dealer and chapman; he spoke to them in their own language, and rated them in a manner so alarming to them—but to my honourable friend (Mr. Baring) and myself so amusing, that even now it is some merriment to recollect the dialogue:—"What!" he would say, "did you suffer a loss from the great South American market?" "Yes," was the answer, "a loss of fifty or sixty per cent." "Indeed," said the oracle of trade, sharply enough, "why what sort of cargoes did you send?"—"Woollens," they would answer, "or flannels, or callicoes," as the case might be:—"Woollens," he would reply, "why how could you think of such a thing?—Woollens!—no wonder that you lost."—So that all comes of their bad trading, and not of the bad market.—"While you are left to yourselves," says the right hon. gentleman, "no wonder that you make a losing speculation of it: what can your ordinary traders know of such fine markets as our South Sea bubble?—Come to us—repair to our Board of Trade—let us assort your cargoes—take a hint from my noble colleague in trade (earl Bathurst) and me, who carry on the commerce of the country—come to the licence shop, and we will teach you the sure way—not perhaps of making a profit, for in these times that is not to be expected—but of reducing your losses, so that you shall only lose thirty or perhaps not more than twenty per cent on each adventure!"—But grant that these merchants have really mistaken the right hon. gentleman's grand market, and have not exactly hit upon the articles that suit it; is it nothing against this new market that none of the real traders—nobody but lord Bathurst, and his Board in Downing-street, can find out what things answer for it? Is certainty and steadiness no longer a desirable quality in trade? Are we to value commerce for its changeableness? Is variety now the great beauty of traffic? Is that line of employment for capital to be preferred which gives the most precarious returns, where the hazards are the greatest, and the obstacles the most difficult? as if the merchant was in search of amusement, or of that kind of unnatural delight which gamesters are said to take, in the risks and dangers of their unworthy occupation? Really, Sir, I speak as one ignorant of the subject, practically; I am not, like the gentlemen of the Board, an adept in the mysteries of commerce; but from every thing I had heard, I did imagine that there was some merit in the old fashioned qualities which were conceived foolishly I imagine, and ignorantly, to distinguish a good market, and that it was nothing the worse for being accessible—plain enough to enable traders to find out what suited it—large enough not to be soon glutted—regular enough to be con- fided in more years than one—and gainful enough to yield some little profit, and not a large loss upon each adventure.

Then comes the other great substitute, the market of British North America, and here the same proofs of a complete glut are to be found in every part of the evidence. At first, indeed, when the people of the United States did not go hand in hand with the government, and unwillingly supported, or endeavoured to evade the prohibitory laws, it was found easy to smuggle in our goods through Canada, to a considerable amount. But this outlet too we have now taken especial care to close up, by persisting in the same measures which rendered such a roundabout trade necessary, until we exasperated the people of the United States as well as their government, and enabled the latter to take whatever steps might be requisite for completing the exclusion of our trade—those measures have been adopted—the contraband in Canada is at an end, and there is no longer that vent in British North America, which the Board fondly imagined it had so slily provided for our commerce; a vent which, at the best, must have been a most wretched compensation for the loss of the American traffic, in its direct and full course.

But, Sir, we are talking of substitutes; and I must here ask how much of the South American or European trade is really a substitute for that of the United States?—because, unless it is strictly speaking so substituted in its place, that it would be destroyed were the North American trade restored, no possible argument can be drawn from its amount, against the measures which I now recommend for regaining the market of the United States. It is pretended that the export to North America used to be much greater than the consumption of that country, and that a large part of it was ultimately destined for the consumption of South America and the West Indies; from whence the inference is drawn, that as we now supply those markets directly, the opening of the North American market would not be so large an increase as is supposed. The fact is quite otherwise. It is proved in evidence by a respectable witness (Mr. P. C. White) who has resided for years in America, and by the official returns before congress, that not above a thirteenth in value of the amount of goods sent from this country to the United States, is in the whole re-exported to South America and the West Indies; and of this not above a half can be British manufacture. There will only be then a diminution of half a million in the export to North America from this cause, and that must have been much more than supplied by the increase of the North American market since the trade was stopt. So too the markets of Brazil, and of Spain and Portugal, which are spoken of as substitutes for our North American commerce, will most unquestionably continue as at present after that commerce shall have been restored. All the deductions that we have any right to make are too contemptible to be mentioned. No proof is offered or even attempted to be given, that these pretended substitutes are in fact substitutes; that they would not continue to exist in their present extent after the revival of the branches in the place of which they are absurdly said to be substituted. Therefore I need not argue as to the extent or the excellence of these new markets. Be they ever so valuable—be they as fine as the Vice-President and his Board can dream of, my argument is not touched by them, until it be shewn, that we must lose them by restoring our intercourse with the United States.

Since the pressure then which the loss of our foreign trade has occasioned, have we discovered in the course of the enquiry any relief? The gentlemen opposite eagerly fly to the home market; and here their disappointment is, I grieve to say, speedy and signal. On this branch of the question the evidence is most striking and harmonious. In all the trades which we examined, it appeared that the home market was depressed in an unexampled degree. And this effect has been produced in two ways. Goods destined for the foreign market, no longer finding that vent, have been naturally thrown more or less into the home market so as to glut, or at least greatly overstock it. And again, those places which depended for part of their support upon the foreign market, have been so crippled by the loss of it, that their consumption of articles of comfort and luxury has been materially contracted. This is remarkably illustrated in the evidence respecting the cutlery trade; which, from the nature of its articles, is peculiarly calculated to explain both the circumstances I have alluded to. Not only do the dealers in that line find the home market unusually loaded with their goods, but they tell you that they find a much smaller demand than formerly for those goods, in all places which used to be engaged in the American trade. Evidence of the same kind is to be found touching another article of luxury, or at least comfort, the Kidderminster manufactory; and the respectable and intelligent witnesses from Spitalfields, explained fully how the diminution of their staple manufacture, from what causes soever arising, never failed to affect all the other branches of industry in that district, down to the bricklayer and common day labourer. It must be so; the distribution of wealth, the close connection and mutual dependency of the various branches of industry will not permit it to be otherwise.

While I am speaking of the home trade, Sir, I must call your attention in passing, to one species of relief which is more apparent than real, arising to that branch of our commerce out of the war and its expenditure. It is certain that at present a great part of the trade which remains to us is not a regular, lucrative, and if I may so speak, wholesome and natural trade—but a mere transference of money from the tax-payer through the tax gatherer to the manufacturer or merchant—a mere result of the operations of supply within this House, and the operations of war out of it. I speak now, not only of the three millions a year paid to the shipping interest for the transport service—nor of the vast amount of our expenditure in the peninsula and Mediterranean; which delusively augment by many millions the apparent exports of the country, but I will take an instance from the evidence and the papers on your table, and it shall be from Birmingham. Half of the trade there being now gone, there remains a manufacture, we are told, of goods to the amount of 1,200,000l. a year for home consumption. But this home consumption includes the demand of that great and extravagant consumer the government. The ordnance accounts shew that above 700,000l. are paid in one year for gun and pistol barrels made at Birmingham; so that only half a million is the real and genuine extent of the remaining manufacture. The rest no doubt relieves the manufacturers and workmen, but it is a relief at the expence of the other members of the community; and the expence goes to feed the war—to support soldiers and sailors, who in return, though doubtless they perform great and precious services to the country, yet do not at all contribute to augment its wealth, or maintain its revenues, as workmen and peasants would do if the same sums were expended upon them. A similar observation may be applied to the expences of clothing the army and navy. In Yorkshire, and some parts of Scotland, these demands have been found to constitute the bulk of the remaining trade. Their amount I know not with any accuracy, as the returns which I moved for are not yet produced; but it is easy to conjecture that six or seven hundred thousand men cannot be clothed at a very small expence. All these demands must be deducted from the account, if we wish to exhibit a fair view of the actual state of our manufactures.

Suffer me, Sir, before leaving this part of the subject, to state a circumstance, connected with the home trade, which is peculiarly striking, and argues to shew clearly, that things are in such a state that any relief obtained in one quarter must be at the expence of another. In the clothing districts, it was stated, that about a year and a half ago a considerable extension of trade had been experienced in many branches; and no sooner was the circumstance mentioned than the Vice-President's countenance brightened up, as if he had at length begun to see daylight, and the tide was really turning in his favour: so he greedily pursued the enquiry. It turned out, however, that this relief (and it was the only one of which we met with any trace during our whole investigation) was owing to a change of fashions, which about that time was introduced, the ladies having taken to wearing cloth pelisses that winter. But soon after came the sequel of the same tale; for we were examining the Spitalfields' weavers on some other points, and upon their stating that they were never so badly off as about a year and a half ago, we enquired to what this was owing, and it turned out that it arose entirely from the change of fashions among the ladies, who no longer wore silk pelisses. Thus the clothiers were relieved entirely at the expence of the weavers, and the only instance which this long and various enquiry affords of the universal sufferings being interrupted by any more favourable events—the only diminution to the distresses that is any where to be met with—is one which increases those miseries precisely in the same degree in some other quarter, equally deserving our protection and our pity.

But there is one ground which the advocates of the system always retreat to, when they are driven out of the facts, and find themselves unable either to deny the miseries which their projects have occasioned, or to contend that there are any practicable means of relief. They allow that our commerce is destroyed—they admit that the people are impoverished—but there are other considerations, they contend, which a great nation should entertain—there are more valuable possessions than trade and wealth—and we are desired to consider the dignity and honour of the country. Sir, there is no man within these walls to whom such an appeal could be made with more effect than to him who is now addressing you. Let it but be shewn to me that our national honour is at stake—that it is involved in this system—nay that it touches it in any one point—and my opposition from that moment is at an end—only prove to me, that although our trade is gone, or turned into confined, uncertain and suspicious channels—although our manufacturers are ruined and our people starving—yet all these sacrifices and sufferings are necessary for our character and name—I shall be the first to proclaim that they are necessary and must be borne, because I shall ever be the foremost to acknowledge that honour is power and substantial inheritance to a great people, and that public safety is incompatible with degradatron. Let me but see how the preservation of our maritime rights, paramount as I hold them to every other consideration, is endangered by the repeal of the Orders in Council—and I sit down and hold my peace. But I now urge you to that repeal, because I hold it most conscientiously to be, not injurious but essential to the preservation and stability of those rights, and of the naval power which protects them; and I must therefore crave your leave to step aside for a while from the details in which I have been engaged, in order to remove, as I well know I speedily can, all idea of the necessity of the Orders in Council to the security of our naval rights. This explanation is due both to the question itself, to the numerous parties who are now in breathless anxiety awaiting its decision, and if I may presume to say so, to my own principles and character.

In the foundation of our pretensions as at the present time urged, I am loth to enter, because whether they are just or not, according to my view of the question, the maintaining or abandoning of them, even of the most untenable among them, is quite foreign to this discussion. I will not therefore stop to examine the value, or the justice of our claim to unlimited blockade—what is significantly termed paper blockade. I might ask, since when this has been introduced or sanctioned by even our own courts of public laws? I might refer you to the beginning of last war, when our commanders in the West Indies having declared the ports of Martinico under blockade, the highest authority in matters of prize, the lords of appeal, without hesitation decided this blockade to be contrary to the law of nations, and refused to support it. But as my argument requires no such position, as it leads me quite clear of this question, I wish not to embarrass myself at all with it, and I will freely grant every thing that can be asked upon the question of right. I will admit that we have a right to blockade, by a few lines in the Gazette, whole islands, coasts, continents, nay, the entire world and all its harbours, without sending a single sloop of war to enforce the order. This admission, I should think, is sufficient to satisfy the most blockading appetite in the House, though I perceive, by the smile of distrust on the Chancellor of the Exchequer's countenance, that it falls short of his notions. I will also pass over the still more material question, how far we have a right to blockade, for purposes not belligerent but mercantile, that is, to exclude neutrals from trading with our enemy, not with the view of reducing that enemy to submission and terminating the contest more speedily for the general good, but upon the speculation of stunting the enemy's trade and encouraging our own. Lastly, I shall say nothing of the most obvious of all these questions—how far we have a right to blockade the enemy and exclude the neutral, for the purpose of breaking our own blockade and engrossing the trade with the enemy, from which we keep the neutral out—a question ably stated the first time I had the honour of bringing forward this subject, by a right hon. gentleman on the opposite side (Mr. Canning). All these questions I pass from, however strong my opinion may be upon some of them; and I do not even stop to show what the evidence does at every step substantiate, that the Orders in Council do in no respect tend to secure any one even of those pretended advantages for our own trade over the enemy's, but I hasten to grapple with the substance of the argument on the other side, by which the Orders in Council are connected with these maritime rights, all of which I am now admitting. It is said, that if we repeal those Orders, and wave or relinquish for the present and for our own evident advantage, the rights on which they are founded, then we sacrifice those rights for ever, and can never again, happen what may, enforce them. Is it really so, Sir? Then woe betide us and our rights! for which of all our maritime rights have we not at one time or another relinquished? Free ships make free goods, says the enemy, and so say many other powers. This we strenuously deny, and we deem our denial the very corner-stone of our maritime system. Yet at the peace of Utrecht we gave it up, after a war of unexampled success, a series of uninterrupted triumphs, in which our power was extended, and France and her allies humiliated. The famous rule of the war of 1756, has had the same fate—that principle out of which the Orders in Council unquestionably sprung. The name by which it is known shews that it is but a modern invention; but it seems to have been waved or relinquished almost as soon as it was discovered; for in the American war it was given up, not only in practice, but by repeated decisions in our prize courts: I allude especially to the well-known judgments of sir James Marriott upon this point. In the last war it was also departed from, by express acts of the government in 1703 and 1794; yet, by a strange coincidence, the very person who now tells us that to refrain from forcing a right and to abandon it for ever are one and the same thing, was he who contributed more than any other man to revive the rule of the war 1756; he who gave to the world an able and learned work, certainly—but one which I deeply lament ever saw the light; I mean the tract known by the name of "War in Disguise." Another and, in my opinion, by far the most valuable of our maritime rights, is the right of search for contraband of war; it is one of the most unquestionable too, for it is strictly a belligerent principle. But have we invariably exercised it? Nay, have we not offered to give it up? Recollect the first armed neutrality, at the close of the American war; Mr. Fox was then engaged in negociating away this very right; and by a fatality as remarkable as that which I have just spoken of, this very statesman, (and a greater has never ruled in this kingdom, nor one more alive to the true honour of his country), was the very man who first extended the right of blockade, in May, 1806; and his colleagues, regulated by his principles, were the authors of the coasting blockade, the first step to the famous Orders in Council. How then can any man, who has a memory about him, pretend to tell us, that if we for a moment cease to exercise those rights, we never can again enforce them, when you find that we have not merely abstained from exercising, but actually surrendered at different times all the maritime principles which we now hold most sacred and most essential? Is it necessary always to do a thing because you have the right to do it? Can a right not be kept alive except by perpetually using it, whether hurtful or beneficial? You might just as well say, that because I may have a clear right of way through my neighbour's close, therefore I must be eternally walking to and fro in the path, upon pain of losing my right should I ever cease to perform this exercise. My hon. and learned friend (Mr. Stephen) would run up and tell me, if he saw me resting myself, or eating, or sleeping, or walking to church—"Why, what are you about? You are leaving, relinquishing, abandoning, your inviolable and undoubted right; if you do not instantly return and constantly walk there you are an undone man." It is very possible that this may be destructive of my comforts, nay, absolutely ruinous to me; but still I must walk, or my right of way is gone. The path may lead to a precipice or a coal-pit, where I may possibly break my neck in groping after my sacred rights. What then? My grand-children, long after I shall have been destroyed in preserving this claim, may have to thank me for some pleasant or profitable walk, which it seems there was no other way of keeping possession of but by my destruction. This is precisely the argument applied to the present question. I will maintain that every right may safely be waved, or abandoned for reasons of expediency, and resumed when those reasons cease. If it is otherwise—if a right must be exerted, whether beneficial or ruinous to him who claims it, you abuse the language by calling it a right—it becomes a duty, an obligation, a burthen. I say, if your interest requires the relinquishment of the rights in question, abstain from enforcing them; give them up under protest; do not abandon them; do not yield them in such a way that you may seem to acknowledge yourselves in the wrong; but with all the solemnities which can be devised, with as many protestations and other formalities as the requisite number of civilians can invent; state that you are pleased to wave the exercise of the right for the present, or until further notice; and that for your own interest, and with views of your own, you are content to refrain from enforcing this chapter of the maritime code. Their brain must be filled with whimsies, and not with ideas of right, who can imagine that a conduct like this would place our pretensions in jeopardy, or throw a single obstacle in the way of exerting on the morrow the very same rights, of which next Saturday's Gazette should contain the waiver. Always let it be remembered, that I ask no surrender, no acknowledgment—I say keep fast hold of your rights—on no account yield them up—but do not play the part of madness, and insist on always using those rights even when their use will infallibly work your ruin.

In entering, Sir, upon the discussion of our maritime system, I have been drawn aside from the course of my statement respecting the importance of the commerce which we are sacrificing to those pure whimsies, I can call them nothing else, respecting our abstract rights. That commerce is the whole American market—a branch of trade in comparison of whether you regard its extent, its certainty, or its progressive increase, every other sinks into insignificance. It is a market which in ordinary years may take off about 13,000,000 worth of our manufactures; and in steadiness and regularity it is unrivalled. In this respect, or indeed in any other, it very little resembles the right hon. gentleman's (Mr. Rose) famous South American market. It has none of the difficulty and uncertainty which it seems are now among the characteristics of a good trade; neither has it that other remarkable quality of subjecting those who use it to a loss of 50 or 60 per cent. unless they put their speculations and assortments under the fostering care of the board of trade. All such properties I disclaim on the part of the American commerce; it is sure and easy, and known, and gives great and steady profits. The returns are indeed as sure, and the bad debts as few, as they used to be even in the trade of Holland. Those returns are also grown much more speedy. Of this you have ample proof before you, not merely from the witnesses actually examined, who have all said that the pay- ment was now as quick as in any other line, and that the Americans often preferred making ready money bargains for the discount; but the same thing is exemplified in the omissions of the case brought forward by the petitioners. Four years ago they told you, and proved it at your bar, that were the intercourse with the United States cut off we should lose above 12 millions, or a year and a half's payments, that being the sum then due from America to this country. Now they have no such case to urge; for they well know, that were a balance struck between the two nations to-morrow it would be considerably in favour of the Americans—so greatly have they increased in wealth, and so rapidly has this immense trade been growing, as it were, under our very eyes!

There are some political facts, which we must take as facts, because they are proved to us, without being able to account for them, or to trace them to their origin, and explain their causes. But the extent, and swift and regular progress of the American market for British goods is not of this number; we can easily and clearly account for it. In the nature of things it can be no otherwise, and the reason lies on the very surface of the fact. America is an immense agricultural country, where land is plentiful and cheap; men and labour, though quickly increasing, yet still scarce and dear compared with the boundless regions which they occupy and cultivate. In such a country manufacturers do not naturally thrive; every exertion, if matters be left to themselves, goes into other channels. This people is connected with England by origin, language, manners, and institutions; their tastes go along with their convenience, and they come to us as a matter of course for the articles which they do not make themselves. Only take one fact as an example—the negroes in the Southern States are clothed in English made goods, and it takes 40s. a year thus to supply one of those unfortunate persons. This will be admitted to be the lowest sum for which any person in America can be clothed; but take it as the average, and make a deduction for the expences above prime cost—you have a sum upon the whole population of eight millions, which approaches the value of our exports to the United States. But it is not merely in clothing; go to any house in the Union, from their large and wealthy cities to the most solitary cabin or log-house in the forests—you find in every corner the furniture, tools, and ornaments of Staffordshire, of Warwickshire, and of the northern counties of England. The wonder ceases when we thus reflect for a moment, and we plainly perceive that it can be no otherwise. The whole population of the country is made up of customers, who require and who can afford to pay for our goods. This too is peculiar to that nation, and it is a peculiarity as happy for them as it is profitable to us. I know the real or affected contempt with which some persons in this country treat our kinsmen of the West. I fear some angry and jealous feelings have survived our former more intimate connection with them—feelings engendered by the event of its termination, but which it would be wiser as well as more manly to forget. Nay, there are certain romantic spirits who even despise the unadorned structure of their massive democratic society. But to me I freely acknowledge the sight of one part of it brings feelings of envy, as an Englishman; I mean the happy distinction, that over the whole extent of that boundless continent, from Canada to the Gulph of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic ocean, there is not one pauper to be found—Such are the customers whom America presents to us. The rapid increase of their culture and population too, doubling in 25 or 30 years, must necessarily augment this demand for our goods in the same proportion. Circumstanced as the two countries are, I use no figure of speech, but speak the simple fact when I say, that not an axe falls in the woods of America which does not put in motion some shuttle, or hammer, or wheel in England. Look at Mr. Parkes's evidence and you will see, that the changes which happen in the new world, or the political proceedings of the two governments, their orders and manifestoes and negociations, may be perceptibly traced in their instantaneous effects in this country—in the increased or diminished velocity (I speak to the letter) of the wheels which are moving in the different districts where English manufactures used to flourish.

But let us merely pause upon the broad fact of the present amount of the American market, and let us keep our eye for a moment upon the numerical expression of its demand—13 millions sterling by the year! Why, Sir, only conceive any event which should give an opening in the North of Europe, or the Mediterranean for but a small part of this vast bulk—some change or accident by which a thirteenth, aye, or a thirtieth of this enormous value of British goods could be thrown into the enemy's countries! Into what transports of delight would the Vice-President be flung! I verily believe he would make but one step from his mansion to his office—all Downing-street, and all Duke's-place would be in an uproar of joy—Bless me, what a scene of activity and business should we see! What cabinets, what boards! What amazing conferences of lords of trade? What a driving together of ministers! What a rustling of small clerks! What a mighty rushing of brokers! Circulars to the manufacturing towns—harangues upon change, performed by eminent naval characters—triumphal processions of dollars and volunteers in St. James's-square!—Hourly deputations from the merchants—courteous and pleasing answers from the board—a speedy importation into Whitehall, to a large amount, of worthy knights representing the city—a quick return cargo of licences and hints for cargoes—the whole craft and mystery of that licence trade revived, with its appropriate perjuries and frauds—new life given to the drooping firms of dealers in forgery, whom I formerly exposed to you—answered by corresponding activity in the board of trade and its clerks—slips of the pen worth 15,000l. ^*—judicious mistakes—well-considered oversights—elaborate inadvertencies—Why, Sir, so happily constituted is the right hon. gentleman's (Mr. Rose) understanding, that his very blunders are more precious than the accuracies of other men; and it is no metaphor, but a literal mercantile proposition, to say, that it is better worth our while to err with him than to think rightly with the rest of mankind! And all this life, and activity, and machinery for what? To snatch at a miserable export—occasional, fleeting, irregular, ephemeral, very limited in amount, unlikely to recur, uncertain in its return, precarious in its continuance, beneficial to the enemy, exposed to his caprices, and liable by his nod to be swept at once into the fund of his confiscations—enjoyed while he does permit it, by his sufferance for his ends, enriching his subjects, manning his fleets, nursing up for him a navy which it has already taken the utmost efforts of our unconquerable marine to destroy! Good God! the incurable perverseness of human folly! always straining after things that are beyond its reach, of doubtful worth and discreditable pursuit, and neglecting objects of immense value, because in addition to their own importance, they have one recommendation which would make viler possessions desirable, that they can be easily obtained, and honestly as well as safely enjoyed! It is this miserable, shifting, doubtful, hateful traffic that we prefer, to the sure, regular, increasing, honest gains of American commerce; to a trade which is placed beyond the enemy's reach—which besides encircling ourselves in peace and honour, only benefits those who are our natural friends, over whom he has no controul, but who if they were ever so hostile to us, could not annoy us—which supports at once all that remains of liberty beyond the seas, and gives life and vigour to its main pillar within the realm, the manufactures and commerce of England!

^*had stated, that by two mistakes at one time licences were rendered so valuable, that he would have given that sum for them. See vol. 21, p. 845.

And now, Sir, look to the other side of this picture—See to what sources of supply you are driving the Americans, when you refuse them your own markets—Why, you are forcing them to be wholly dependent on themselves!—The eighteenth century closed with a course of violence and folly, which in spite of every natural tie, dissolved their political connection with the crown; and, as if the cup of our infatuation was not full, we must begin the nineteenth with the phrenzy of severing them from all connexion, and making them, contrary to the course of nature itself, independent of our manufacturers and merchants!—I will not go through the evidence upon this important branch of the case, for I feel myself already too mnch exhausted to attempt it, but whoever reads it will find it uniformly in every page shewing the effects of our system, in forcing manufactures all over America to rival our own. There is not one branch of the many in which we used quietly and without the least fear of competition to supply them, that is not now to a certain degree cultivated by themselves; many have wholly taken rise since 1807—all have rapidly sprung up to a formidable maturity. To give but a few examples—In New York there are now forty thou- sand looms going—glass is made in a way that we ourselves witnessed, for we saw the specimen produced—wool cards are now made there, which used regularly to be imported from hence—and there is a considerable exportation of cotton twist to the South of Europe, from the country which possesses the most abundantly the raw material. I say nothing of their wool and the excellent Merino breed they have obtained from Spain. Look only to one striking fact—Pittsburgh is a town remotely situated in the most Western part of the Union. Eighteen years ago it was a hamlet, so feeble and insecure that the inhabitants could scarcely defend themselves from their Indian neighbours, and durst hardly quit the place for fear of being scalped—now there are steam engines and a large glass work in the same town, and you saw the product of its furnaces—it stands on a stratum of coal fifteen feet thick, and within a few inches of the surface, which extends over all the country west of the Alleghany chain—coal there sells for six shillings the chaldron, and the same precious mineral is to be found in the Atlantic states, at Richmond and elsewhere, accessible by sea It is usual to see men on 'Change in the large towns with twenty, thirty, and fifty thousand pounds in trade—companies are established for manufactures, insurance, and other mercantile speculations, with large capitals, one as high as 120,000l. sterling—the rate of interest is six per cent, and the price of land in some places as high as in England. I do not enumerate these things to prove that America can already supply herself,—God forbid!—If she could the whole mischief would be done and we could not now avert the blow; but though too much has indeed been effected by our impolicy, a breathing time yet is left, and we ought at least to take advantage of it, and regain what has been thrown away—in four or five years' time it will be gone for ever.

But I shall here be told, as I often have been, that these councils spring from fear, and that I am endeavouring to instil a dread of American manufactures, as the ground of our measures—not so, Sir,—I am inculcating another fear—the wholesome fear of utter impolicy mixed with injustice—of acting unfairly to others for the purpose of ruining yourselves. And after all from what quarter does this taunt proceed? Who are they by whom I am upbraided for preaching up a dread of rival American manufactures?—The very men whose whole defence of the system is founded upon a fear of competition from European manufactures—who refuse to abandon the blockade of France, from an apprehension (most ridiculous as the evidence shews) of European manufactures rivalling us through American commerce—who blockade the continent from a dread that the manufactures of France, by means of the shipping of America, will undersell our own—the men whose whole principle is a fear of the capital, industry and skill of England being outdone by the trumpery wares of France, as soon as her market is equally open to both countries!—Sir, little as I may think such alarms worthy of an Englishman, there is a kind of fear which I would fain urge—a fear too of France—but it is of her arms and not of her arts.—We have in that quarter some ground for apprehension, and I would have our policy directed solely with a view to removing it. Look only at the Spanish war in its relation to the American trade—in that cause we have deeply embarked—we have gone on for years, pouring into it our treasures and our troops, almost without limit, and all the profit is yet to come. We have still to gain the object of so many sacrifices, and to do something which may shew they have not been made in vain. Some great effort it seems resolved to make, and though of its result others are far more sanguine than I am able to feel, I can have little hesitation in thinking, that we had better risk some such attempt once for all, and either gain the end in view, or, convinced that it is unattainable, retire from the contest. If then this is our policy, for God's sake let the grand effort be made, single and undivided—undistracted by a new quarrel, foreign to the purpose, and fatally interfering with its fulfilment—let us not for the hundredth time commit the ancient error which has so often betrayed us, of frittering down our strength—of scattering our forces in numerous and unavailing plans—we have no longer the same excuse for this folly which we once had to urge: all the colonies in the world are our own—sugar islands and spice islands, there are none from Martinico to Java, to conquer—we have every species of unsalable produce in the gross, and all noxious climates without stint. Then let us not add a new leaf to the worst chapter of our book, and make for ourselves new occasions, when we can find none, for persisting in the most childish of all systems. While engaged heartily on our front in opposing France, and trying the last chance of saving Europe, let us not secure to ourselves a new enemy, America on our flank. Surely language wants a name for the folly which would, at a moment like the present, on the eve of this grand and decisive and last battle, reduce us to the necessity of feeding Canada with troops from Portugal—and Portugal with bread from England.

I know I shall be asked, whether I would recommend any sacrifice for the mere purpose of conciliating America. I recommend no sacrifice of honour for that or for any purpose; but I will tell you, that I think we can well and safely for our honour afford to conciliate America. Never did we stand so high since we were a nation, in point of military character. We have it in abundance, and even to spare. This unhappy and seemingly interminable war, lavish as it has been in treasure, still more profuse—of blood, and barren of real advantage, has at least been equally lavish of glory; its feats have not merely sustained the warlike fame of the nation, which would have been much; they have done what seemed scarcely possible; they have greatly exalted it; they have covered our arms with immortal renown. Then I say use this glory—use this proud height on which we now stand, for the purpose of peace and conciliation with America. Let this and its incalculable benefits be the advantage which we reap from the war in Europe; for the fame of that war enables us safely to take it;—and who, I demand, give the most disgraceful counsels—they who tell you we are in military character but of yesterday—we have yet a name to win—we stand on doubtful ground—we dare not do as we list for fear of being thought afraid—we cannot without loss of name stoop to pacify our American kinsmen—Or I, who say, we are a great, a proud, a warlike people—we have fought every where, and conquered wherever we fought—our character is eternally fixed—it stands too firm to be shaken—and on the faith of it we may do towards America, safely for our honour, that which we know our interests require?—This perpetual jealousy of America! Good God! I cannot with temper ask on what it rests! It drives me to a passion to think of it—Jealousy of America! I should as soon think of being jealous of the trades- men who supply me with necessaries, or the clients who entrust their suits to my patronage. Jealousy of America! whose armies are yet at the plow, or making, since your policy has willed it so, awkward (though improving) attempts at the loom—whose assembled navies could not lay siege to an English sloop of war:—jealousy of a power which is necessarily peaceful as well as weak, but which, if it had all the ambition of France and her armies to back it, and all the navy of England to boot, nay, had it the lust of conquest which marks your enemy, and your own armies as well as navy to gratify it—is placed at so vast a distance as to be perfectly harmless! And this is the nation of which for our honour's sake we are desired to cherish a perpetual jealousy, for the ruin of our best interests!

I trust, Sir, that no such phantom of the brain will scare us from the path of our duty. The advice which I tender is not the same which has at all times been offered to this country. There is one memorable œra in our history, when other uses were made of our triumphs from those which I recommend. By the treaty of Utrecht, which the execrations of ages have left inadequately censured, we were content to obtain as the whole price of Ramillies and Blenheim, an additional share of the accursed slave trade. I give you other counsels. I would have you employ the glory which you have won at Talavera and Corunna, in restoring your commerce to its lawful, open, honest course; and rescue it from the mean and hateful channels is which it has lately been confined. And if any thoughtless boaster in America or elsewhere should vaunt that you had yielded through fear, I would not bid him wait until some new achievement of our arms put him to silence, but I would counsel you in silence to disregard him.—Sir, I move you,

"That an humble Address be presented to his royal highness the Prince Regent, representing to his Royal Highness that this House has, for some time past, been engaged in an enquiry into the present depressed state of the manufactures and commerce of the country, and the effects of the Orders in Council issued by his Majesty in the years 1807 and 1809; assuring his Royal Highness, that this House will at all times support his Royal Highness to the utmost of its power, in maintaining those just maritime rights which have essentially contributed to the pros- perity, and honour of the realm—but beseeching his Royal Highness, that he would be graciously pleased to recal or suspend the said Orders, and adopt such measures as may tend to conciliate neutral powers, without sacrificing the rights and dignity of his Majesty's crown."

began by observing on the manner in which the question had been brought forward, and alluding to the numerous changes which had taken place in fixing days for certain discussions. He felt himself justified in saying, that the greatest number of the gentlemen present might have looked into the order book, without knowing that the discussion on the Orders in Council would be introduced that evening. The mode adopted for bringing forward a measure of such immense importance he contended to be unusual; and the consequence was, that although he had read the evidence with great diligence and attention, he found himself hardly prepared to enter fully into the discussion; and he was sure that a very grreat number of those members now present had not had sufficient time to make themselves masters of a subject so complicated and of a mass of evidence so voluminous, as it was necessary to consider upon the present question. However, called on personally as he had been by the hon. and learned gentleman in the course of his speech, he felt it his duty to address the House, although labouring under considerable disadvantage. The evidence which the honourable and learned gentleman had brought forward in support of his motion, had certainly proved (what was well known to exist), that there did prevail a very considerable degree of distress among large bodies of the manufacturers of this country. This was a fact which to a certain extent no man would dispute, and which no man could be insensible to. He was convinced, however, that there was nobody who knew him, that did not know that be felt as deeply for this distress as any other man. His whole political life would prove that he had, on all occasions, shewn sufficient commiseration for the distressed; he could not witness the misfortune, even of an individual, without lamenting it—but, when so great a body of manufacturers appeared to suffer from the exigencies of the times, sure he was, that no man, who was at all acquainted with his public character, could believe, for a single instant, that he could regard their complaints otherwise than as de- manding the most prompt and serious consideration. It was, however, necessary now to consider, how much of this distress was fairly to be imputed to the Orders in Council? or how much would be removed by agreeing to the motion of the honourable and learned gentleman, which went to a repeal of those Orders in Council. He had to contend, that this distress had not been occasioned by the Orders in Council; and that those Orders had never been issued from any feeling hostile to America, but from the just principle of retaliation against France, by the violent decrees of whose government, all neutral vessels were declared to be "denationalized" that traded with this country, or allowed themselves to be visited by British cruizers. Against such Decrees it was necessary that some measures of retaliation should be adopted; and the measures which had been resolved upon for this purpose were the Orders in Council. France said, "No vessel shall be allowed to enter England from the continent: she shall be denationalised." England answered, "If that be the case, no vessel shall enter a French port, except from those of Great Britain." Notwithstanding these violent and unjust Decrees of the enemy, it was to the Orders in Council alone however, that the hon. and learned gentleman chose to attribute all the distresses which were now complained of by the manufacturers in this country.

The hon. and learned gentleman had observed with much exultation, that no witnesses had been produced to controvert the various points supported by those who opposed the Orders in Council. Now, one fact, to which he wished to draw the attention of the House was, that a strong feeling had gone abroad amongst the distressed manufacturers, a feeling which they were led to form from the opinions of those in whom they had confidence, that all their miseries arose from the Orders in Council: impressed with this idea, nothing was more natural than that these poor people should rise in one body, and exclaim with one voice and feeling, that their want of employment did origiginate in that source—an opinion so firmly rooted, that it was impossible to make them believe differently.—And, such numbers having declared their stedfast opinion on the subject, it became dangerous for others to come forward and give evidence in a contrary way. Even amongst those merchants of the city of London, men of respectability and character, who were examined at the bar of the House, several had stated their acquaintance with mercantile men, who, though favourable to the Orders in Council, were unwilling to give their testimony, fearful of offending those manufacturers with whom they were connected in the country, as well as their correspondents in America. Under these circumstances, it was not strange that the number of witnesses in support of the Orders should have been so inconsiderable.—With respect to the situation of the west riding of Yorkshire, the hon. and learned gentleman had painted its distresses too highly.—That distress existed there, he meant not to deny: but that distress was by no means so great as what was experienced among the manufacturers of iron. His statement was by no means consistent with the facts. He (Mr. Rose) in the progress of the hon. and learned gentleman's speech had been told, in strong terms, of his cold calculations, as connected with the board of trade. But this he would say, without fear of contradiction, that no board existed in the kingdom, more sensible of the public distress, or more anxious to alleviate it, than that to which he had the honour of being attached. But, sitting there, it was his duty to weigh every side of a question, and to do that which the circumstances appeared to demand. The hon. and learned gentleman had amused himself very much with the conduct of the inspector general of customs. He seemed to believe, that this gentleman had orders from the board of trade, to give a fictitious and colourable value to the amount of our exports.—It might be a very fine subject for jest, but the insinuation was most unworthy and most untrue. A merchant, they were told, had been positively directed to double his entry; but could any man, sitting in that House, believe—could any man assert as a fact, that such instructions could have come from the board of trade? To double the amount of the entries!—it was most improbable. The fact, with reference to the statement of the hon. gentleman, and which he had learned by a letter, since he came down to the House, was simply this:—the clerk of a respectable merchant had, in entering some goods, committed an error, by under-rating their value. As this subjected the property to confiscation, he applied for leave to renew the entry, which was granted. On this circumstance it was that the hon. gentleman had founded his charge. Of the 27,000,000l. of exports alluded to by the hon. gentleman, he could inform him, that, on 18,000,000l. there was a complete check, and on 9,000,000l. only could there be any uncertainty. Persons might, it was true, make declarations of exports not consistent with truth; but, of this he was certain, that they were made without any political view or object, and were not authorised by any official body whatever. But for the assertion that goods of really not more than 50l. value had been entered as worth 50,000l. though the hon. gentleman might exercise his fancy on that point, he did not believe any person could imagine he had a rational and solid foundation. And this he would repeat, notwithstanding any assertions to the contrary, that the papers which had been so contemned by the hon. gentleman, formed as fair a criterion of the actual value of goods exported as it was possible to produce. The hon. gentleman had stated the decrease in our trade, with America, at 20,000,000l. In this, too, he was mistaken. That decrease did not average more than between 11 and 12,000,000l. and, the only question was, whether, by giving up the Orders in Council, this country would not purchase the return of that portion of its trade, at too dear a rate. The hon. and learned gentleman alluded very forcibly to the manner in which he (Mr. Rose) had examined some of the witnesses. Now, he denied, and he appealed to those who were present for the truth of his statement, that he had manifested any thing like asperity during the course of the examination. Certainly he had expressed some astonishment at the selection of goods for the Brazils—cotton furniture, worsted stockings, coarse woollens, sedan chairs, and other articles, equally improper, were exported there. And, when so little judgment was shewn, it was no wonder that the trade, instead of being beneficial, should become ruinous to those engaged in it. But, on the other hand, he had received letters from those who had conducted that trade with more discernment, in which they declared, "That it was a profitable and growing trade, if properly carried on." In his opinion, some of the statements relative to the goods formerly exported to America, were greatly exaggerated. Thus, it was given in evidence by some of the witnesses, that hardware manufactures, to the amount of 1,200,000l. used heretofore to be annually sent from Birmingham to that country. Now from the Custom house books, it appeared, that the exports of hardware, from the whole of Great Britain, did not, at the periods alluded to, amount to more than 750,000l. The witnesses had, undoubtedly, given a contrary evidence. But was it possible that any person, residing in Birmingham, could be able to appreciate a circumstance of this description properly? Was the House to suppose that those persons were right, and the Custom-house wrong? If they were so to argue, then, instead of being over the mark, those accounts were in fact under it. The hon. gentleman had, with peculiar power, descanted on our maritime rights. He had introduced them, however, for the apparent purpose of conceding them, in the most extensive sense, to his opponents. But what was his ultimate request? "O," said the hon. gentleman, "pray give up those maritime rights!" But why should they be given up? They were not retaining those rights against America, but to protect them against the common enemy, France. "You have given them up," says the hon. gentleman, "on various occasions. They were given up after the glorious war which was terminated by the treaty of Utrecht, and, in your present plenitude of military strength, would you insist on them?" The war to which the hon. gentleman had alluded did not tend much to the advantage of this country; and those who made the peace were in such a hurry to effect it, that they did not take those calm deliberative measures which ought to characterise every negociation; and therefore, the proceeding was not perhaps very proper to be copied. "Having," said the hon. gentleman, "gained a brilliant victory at Talavera, and others in different quarters, we ought to make these concessions to America." This might be very expedient if Great Britain were at war with America, and wished to shew her magnanimity in the terms of a peace; but it did not apply here; for we should, by rescinding our Orders, be only giving way to France, whose Decrees would remain in full force, and she would then have an opportunity of recovering from those inconveniencies, which our retaliatory measures had occasioned. He disclaimed having been the author of the Orders in Council, and observed, that it was not a question in which even officially he should have a very prolonged interest, as it was not probable that he should for any great length of time continue to hold the situation of Vice President of the Board of Trade. Before he commented on the evidence, he must again regret, that time sufficient had not, in his opinion, been allowed for all the members to make themselves masters of it; and he declared, that if his Majesty's ministers could not agree to the prayer of many of the petitioners, of giving immediate relief by repealing the Orders in Council, it was not from any insensibility or indifference to the distress which existed, but from an imperious sense of their duty, grounded on the consideration which they had been enabled to bestow on the whole of the case. That gentleman from Birmingham who had dealt the most extensively in nails, and who had formerly exported from 27,000l. to 50,000l. annually, now stated in his evidence, that he did not believe that nails would ever again be exported to America in any quantity. If this were the case, would the recal of the Orders in Council remedy the distresses which existed among the workmen in that branch of trade? If some of the witnesses had represented the warehouses to be full, and that nothing was wanting but the repeal of those Orders to have a great exportation, it would be recollected that Mr. Thornhill, on the contrary, stated, that the warehouses at Liverpool were not full, but nearly empty, and that therefore the repeal could not produce a great immediate exportation. Others had confessed, that France would still be a great competitor for the American market against us; and that German ware was so decidedly cheaper, that even after paying the duty of eighteen and an half per cent. it could come into the market of South America on better terms than our iron ware. An hon. member of that House (Mr. Marryat) had given in evidence, that America could be supplied with nails from the continent of Europe on much cheaper terms than from this country. It seemed, indeed, to be perfectly acknowledged, that the export trade of this article had declined with every other part of the world, except with Ireland. Under these circumstances, it would not be just to attribute all the distresses of the workmen in this branch to the Orders in Council, or to suppose that they would be all removed if those Orders were repealed. The price of labour in this country was necessarily such, that the Germans could afford to undersell us in many branches of the iron trade. Neither did it appear to him that the wages of the persons now employed in the cotton trade, (which was allowed to be at present insufficient) could be materially increased by any effect which the repeal of the Orders in Council could produce. As to the great staple of our woollen manufacture, that appeared in many districts to be now in a more flourishing situation than had ever before been known. With regard to the silk trade, it must be recollected that there were many branches of it in which France could always undersell us in the markets of America. Having taken a review of the evidence given in the committee, he proceeded to observe, that if the Orders in Council were repealed, then the Americans would be enabled to supply France with the raw materials for many of her manufactures, which would afterwards come in competition with our own. At present the insurance to French ports in the Mediterranean and Bay of Biscay was as high as 30 or 40 per cent. which, of course, enhanced greatly the price of the raw materials. If, then, the Orders in Council were repealed, it was his decided conviction, that the repeal would give full effect to all the measures of France in favour of her own commerce and manufactures, to the detriment of our own. In order to perceive how much the Orders in Council had curtailed the commerce of France, it was only necessary to look at the accounts of the American exports to that country for 1810, given by Mr. Gallatin, as compared with those of 1804. In the latter of these years, the American exports to France amounted to near ten millions; while in 1810, they did not greatly exceed 600,000l. thus making a difference against France of above nine millions. It was the Orders in Council which had prevented the arrival of this American produce, and must thus have inflicted a deep wound on the commercial and manufacturing resources of France. Unquestionably, the loss of the American trade bore hard on many of the manufacturing districts; but it was, at the same time, to be considered, that other branches of our commerce had greatly increased. The Canada trade, for instance, had been doubled within the last five years; the South American trade, it appeared from the evidence, was now become profitable to the regular merchant. The Mediterranean trade had also greatly improved; and it was a well-known fact, that the merchants of London trading to that quarter, had, on a late meeting, come to an unanimous determination, that they were indebted to the Orders in Council for that amelioration, and that their continuance would be highly beneficial. They certainly were the best judges of their own interest. There was also this consideration, that if the Orders in Council were repealed, the Americans would come in for a large share of the carrying trade which this country now enjoyed, particularly to the Brazils and South America. This would most materially affect the shipping interest, which was one of the most vital importance to the country. Not an atom of evidence had been adduced to shew, that the shipping interest was at all injured by our commercial policy; and, indeed, he would assert, that it was now in a better state than it had experienced in any former year, except in 1809 and 1810, when the demand for shipping was peculiarly great. This information he had the satisfaction of affording to the House on the authority of many of the most respectable ship-owners in the kingdom. Upon the whole he was ready to admit, that the manufacturers were likely to obtain some relief from the repeal of the Orders in Council. No man was more desirous than himself of affording them that relief: but government were placed between difficulties on both sides of them, and it was their duty to consider which measures were likely to be attended with the most lasting detriment to the country. In his opinion the preponderance of the argument was, that the repeal of the Orders in Council would be much more prejudicial to the general interests of the country than their continuance. He was sorry, therefore, that it had been so sedulously impressed on the minds of the labouring manufacturers, that their distresses proceeded from the Orders in Council. If his opinion of these measures was erroneous, he was at least entitled to state, that he erred in company with the great body of merchants of this country. Four fifths of the merchants of Glasgow had petitioned in support of the Orders in Council; those of Bristol were unanimous in the same opinion; the majority of the merchants of Liverpool were the same; there was no petition from London against them: on the contrary, a great number of the London merchants had presented a petition in their favour. It was true that a gentleman connected with the house of Mr. Glennie had given evidence against them; but though he knew Mr. Glennie to be a most respectable merchant, yet it should be recollected that he was agent in this country for the American navy; and therefore it might be supposed, without any impeachment of his honour, that he had a leaning to one side of the question. It must be allowed, then, that the opinion of the great body of the merchants was in favour of the Orders in Council, and in addition to them there was the great body of the shipping interest. The opinions and the interests of these great bodies deserved the consideration of the House. He warmly complained, that the hon. and learned gentleman should make the mistake of a clerk at the Board of Trade the subject of repeated charges against himself. It was probably the only mistake of the kind which had happened in the course of five years, and he did not see what entitled the hon. and learned gentleman to make an error of this sort the subject of reiterated attacks. If ever he should be persuaded that the welfare of the empire would be more effectually promoted by the repeal of the Orders in Council, than by persisting in them, no man would be more ready than himself to promote their abrogation.

, as the individual who had first noticed the issue of an improper licence, begged leave to acquit the right hon. gentleman of any impropriety of conduct on his part, however blamable might be his subordinate agent. With respect to the momentous subject of debate, it was not his intention to follow the example just set, by going into a long detail of evidence, principally, because he could not expect to engage the attention of any gentleman, who had not thought it right to render it unnecessary by attending the committee, or by perusing the printed examinations. His hon. and learned friend had taken a most enlightened view of the subject, and delivered a speech which reflected the highest lustre upon his talents, while it evinced the deep attention which he had given to the subject; but yet, much remained to be stated upon it, as connected with the evidence, and the commercial policy of the measure. He would take the liberty of stating what appeared to him to be the essential points, to which the attention of the House should be directed, explaining them by such references to the testimony as might be required to render them more intelligible. When the Orders in Council were first issued, many different opinions prevailed as to their effects; no such difficulty could now be felt, since it was a fact, which none attempted to disguise, that the manufacturing districts were reduced to a state of unexampled distress. The House therefore had two questions to decide: 1st, Whether these distresses were attributable to the Orders in Council? and 2dly, Whether any benefits had arisen in any other quarter to compensate the nation for the sufferings it sustained, which were in his judgment to be ascribed only to these Orders? In arguing this subject at various times, the right hon. gentleman had found it convenient to shift his ground frequently; on one occasion the Orders in Council were called measures of retaliation; on another, they were justified as promoting commercial objects; during this night's debate, the right hon. gentleman had acted the same Protean character, and it was impossible to catch him from the frequent shifting of his ground: but whenever he set out with an assertion that they were resorted to as a political retaliation, he instantly proceeded to prove, that they were issued only for commercial objects. Many ingenious arguments had been employed on the question, but he could not perceive how those measures were justly termed retaliatory upon France, when their sole effect was the destruction of ourselves. If they were retaliatory, he should have imagined that they ought at least to have been in some degree injurious to our enemy, and beneficial to ourselves; if it were proved that as measures of trade they were detrimental only to Great Britain at least, the assertion that they were a retaliation, was completely disproved. Considering them as issued for the sake of commercial objects, the right hon. gentleman admitted that we were greatly distressed, but added, that if the Orders were withdrawn, the trade to the Brazils, to South America, and to the British colonies of North America, would be materially injured. He would not follow his hon. and learned friend over the ground he had travelled to give the House an adequate idea of the miseries of the lower classes, and he wished only to allude to them for the purpose of connecting them with the Orders, for the sake of shewing that in that fruitful source of evil they originated. When the witnesses were examined, the object on the other side of the House seemed to be to bewilder them with questions regarding the Orders in Council, which puzzled even their most vehement supporters; but however suc- cessful they might in some few instances be, the general result was disappointment, and the testimony adduced, incontestibly shewed not only that distresses did exist to a dreadful extent, but that those distresses were attributable to no other cause than the Orders in Council. In the absence of better arguments, it was then insisted that this latter opinion had been put into the heads of the witnesses by designing individuals, but a knowledge of the persons who were called to the bar, and of the manner in which they gave their depositions, was sufficient to contradict this assertion; they were master manufacturers, who had once been in the habit of employing from 300 to 3,000 workmen, and whose information and acuteness not only with regard to their own interests, but on the general trade of the country, were surprising to all, und unwelcome to the right hon. gentleman. They were produced from most of the great manufacturing towns and districts, with the nature of which they were intimately acquainted, and had most of them reduced the number of their workmen to two-thirds, and sometimes to one-third of the original number which their business formerly supplied with the necessaries and some of the comforts of life. It might be well to direct the notice of members to the proportion of trade these manufacturing places carried on with the United States, compared with the amount of their whole business. In Birmingham, it was supposed to be one-third or one half; in Wolverhampton one half; in Sheffield, one-third; in the potteries, one-fourth in value; and one-third in bulk; in Leeds, one-half, or one-third; in Dewsbury, one-half; in Rochdale, two-fifths; in Bury, one-half; in Manchester, one-third or one-fourth; in Leicester, one-third; in Hinkley, two-thirds; and from the salt works of Cheshire, 50,000 tons were annually exported. In all these places the demand stated had ceased; the consequence was, that those who formerly were engaged in the foreign trade, were thrown upon the home market, which thereby sustained most serious injury by the competition. The stock on hand was stated to be of an immense amount, having been gradually augmented by the unwillingness of the masters to turn off their men, and from all the evidence it was apparent, that many workmen were still kept on from charity, to manufacture articles for which there was no sale, and upon the fate of thousands in this deplorable condition, the House had now to decide. From the speech of the right hon. gentleman, he was sorry to find that it was intended by the present administration to persist in these destructive measures, and since such was their determination, Mr. Baring recommended that some decisive steps should instantly be taken to secure the tranquillity of the interior; he had received many letters from the country, which assured him, that upon the decision of the House rested the future peace of the manufacturing districts. In some of these districts the public repose had not yet been disturbed, on account of the laudable charity of the masters, who, though having no work, continued to pay their men. How long after this night's vote this state of things might continue, the most sanguine could not indulge a conjecture. It was at one period maintained, that these disturbances had no relation to the Orders in Council, but the witnesses had silenced such unwarrantable assertions. It was true that embarrassments in the West of England did not exist; he was free to admit that Mr. Woods, a most respectable witness, had so proved; and the opponents of the Orders in Council had no desire to make their case stronger than it in reality was; it had been also established, that although there were no distresses, many orders had been received for goods from America, with which it was impossible to comply. The same reason why there had been no disturbances in the West of England, would strew why there had been no disturbances in the metropolis; the lower orders being differently employed, did not experience the want that afflicted the manufacturing districts of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and Warwickshire. Setting aside altogether the commercial question, ought it not to be a great inducement with ministers to repeal the Orders, that it compelled them to maintain a large armed force, to conquer the unhappy people in the interior, which might be far better employed in subduing our enemies in the peninsula? With regard to the second question, whether, if the American market were re-opened, our distresses would not be removed, all the witnesses concurred in stating, that the obtaining of such a vent would remedy nearly all the commercial evils under which we laboured. They were convinced that the repeal of the Orders would open the ports of the United States to our manufactures, and that, the consequence would be the restoration of happiness and tranquillity. "But," said the right hon. gentleman, "we shall lose the South American trade." According to the evidence, such a loss would in reality, be a gain, for all agreed that it was a most ruinous speculation; and allowing that the losses sustained there had been caused by ignorance, yet it was evident that the market had been glutted, and the utmost that could be made of it was, that if it were reduced from three and a half to two and a half millions annually, it might be beneficial; but of what consequence was this trifling sum compared with the immense advantage to be derived from a free intercourse with the United States? This trade had every circumstance that could make it valuable; the demand was constantly increasing, and the returns were of a most important and essential nature, no less than the raw material for our manufactures, and food for our armies. It had been said, that the merchants of London had not petitioned for the repeal, but had prayed the continuance of the Orders in Council. The names of the individuals who had done so were certainly respectable, but they were by no means to be considered the principal merchants in the American trade, and no attempts had been made to obtain a counter-petition. An insinuation had been thrown out that Mr. Glennie was an interested witness, because he was agent to the American navy; the truth was that his only connection was as a banker, to receive bills, which did not produce him more than 50l. or 100l. per annum, a sum so trifling, that it could not for an instant be supposed to influence his sentiments. He would now take a view of the different branches of commerce which it was said would be injured by the Orders in Council. In the first place might be named the trade to Canada, the exports to which amounted to little more than 900,000l. and although it was probable that they might be enlarged, yet it could not bear a moment's competition with the commerce to the United States, ascending to 20 millions. The great foundation, however, on which the Orders in Council were rested, was, that if the ports of France were opened, that country would obtain from Cuba and the Brazils, sugars and raw materials for her manufactures—In the first place he would observe, that it was the first time he had ever heard, that it was a great object with a government to distress the trade of an ally, as we certainly should if we annihilated the commerce of Cuba, and certainly, in limine, it was not a policy of which a nation would be anxious to boast. The House, however, by the testimony of an honourable member (Mr. Marryat) would be convinced that the trade to and from Cuba was still maintained, and the principal, manufactures of the continent, silks and linens, were exported thither. By his evidence it appeared, that three cargoes of continental silks and linens had been sent out there in 1809, while we sent but one. The French in fact brought out silks so cheaply during the operation of the Orders in Council, that ours had no chance of being sold. It was therefore evident, that our commerce to that part of the world could not be rendered worse than it was under these Orders by any commercial regulation whatever. There was no doubt, indeed, that if a general trade was opened, the French manufactures would, in some instances, undersell us, but, he conceived it to be a great mistake to form that general desire for engrossing every thing, and seizing any advantage which might be possessed by other nations, and of all fears of rivalry he conceived none to be more absurd than that which regarded France in her present state.—In fact, the manufacturers had, to a man, declared, that they feared no rival, if the trade was once open; and even the right hon. gentleman himself allowed, that there was very little to be apprehended in the articles of iron, cotton, and wool. Thus, then, it was certain, that as to Cuba, the Brazils, and our American trades, the Orders in Council, instead of being useful, were altogether mischievous. With respect to the evidence on the other side, there was nothing asked but questions of opinion. Mr. Finlay, of Glasgow, and the other gentlemen who were examined on the other side, spoke even as far as they related facts against the Orders. They admitted that a considerable depression of trade had taken place; and on the whole it seemed as if the government had been merely looking out for two or three stout fellows to make speeches and give opinions. There was another point to which he would call the attention of the House. In consequence of the suspension of our intercourse with America, it was stated in the evidence that a particular branch of our trade—the cotton trade—had suffered materially, and that if the suspension continued for three years more, it never would be renewed. It never, should be forgotten, that our own trade originally owed much to the bigotry of other governments, and that we were in a manner forced into a manufacturing country by the repeal of the edicts of Nantes. A perseverance in our present system would inevitably do the same to America. It was said by the noble lord opposite, on a former night, that the Orders in Council were not the only obstacle to reconciliation with America. If the noble lord could shew that America had higher pretensions,—that she aimed at the destruction of our maritime rights, for instance,—he for one, great as our sufferings might be, would not compromise the honour or the interests of his country; but the fact was otherwise. The repeal of the Orders in Council was the only obstacle to conciliation, and this appeared from unquestionable documents. The American government and ours did not differ on the principle of blockade; for we never supported the principle of a mere paper blockade, and we stated this distinctly by our ambassador to Mr. Monroe. He was sorry not to see an hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Stephen) in his place, who used to dwell so much on this topic, because he should be glad to set him right on it by the correspondence between the two governments. So far, indeed, was America from differing from us on this point, that Mr. Monroe said, "Did not America repeatedly declare, that she wished only for the repeal of our Orders in Council?" After such a declaration as this of her ambassador, could any person say that there was any impediment to an agreement except those Orders? All America wanted was a satisfactory assurance that our Orders were at an end. It was unfair, therefore, to state, that there was any material question which involved the consideration of our maritime rights of search, of blockade, &c. From the papers to which he alluded, these facts were clear; and he was only astonished, when they were so satisfactory, that the noble lord should have resisted their production before the House. In a few days, however, he should move them to be printed, to which he hoped the noble lord would have then no objection. Before he sat down, there was another point on which he wished to say a few words, and that was the expence to which we were put by the existence of the Orders in Council. He would venture to say, that unless they were repealed, our commissary-general in Portugal could not be in future sufficiently supplied. By our in- ability to send any thing to America in return for her supplies, a loss of 2 millions a year was suffered from the state of the exchange. We had, then, the additional expence of military preparations in all our northern colonies; and it was possible even, as said by his right hon. and learned friend, that an additional force would be wanted from Portugal for the defence of Canada. This might be found necessary; but if America should go to war seriously against us, in his opinion we could not retain Canada three months. On the whole he thought, that by our Orders in Council we lost the most substantial commercial advantages, for an object which we could never obtain—that of forcing our trade with the continent.

, on such an important subject, felt anxious to offer to the House the reasons which appeared to him conclusive against the address. He lamented the precipitation of the honourable and learned gentleman in bringing forward this motion—a precipitation injurious to his own cause. This was the more to be regretted, as the evidence went to such a great extent. He was sorry that the honourable and learned gentleman, even for the sake of his own character, should have so much departed from all parliamentary practice, and should have pressed to a hasty discussion a question than which one more vital never came before the consideration of parliament. He deprecated any interference on the part of the House in a question of great national importance, involving unquestionably commercial considerations of the most serious nature, but mixed up with considerations of maritime right. It was certainly not out of the absolute province of parliament to interfere on such an occasion; but it had always been that from which they had been abhorrent, pending a negociation on a delicate subject, to dictate to the executive government the course which it ought to pursue. He admitted that the hon. and learned gentleman had made out a grave case of national distress, as affecting the manufacturers of the country. He further admitted that there was reasonable ground to believe, that if the American market was not opened within a limited period, the pressure would be increased. But still he hoped that parliament would not allow their imaginations to wander so widely with the hon. and learned gentleman, as to conceive that the general commerce and manufactures of the empire were in a state of decay and perishment. He by no means wished to understate the pressure on those of our manufacturers who had been accustomed to export to America.—He felt acutely for their distresses, and he declared that he had never met with more fair and liberal men than the individuals sent by those manufacturers to represent their case to parliament. He conceded to the honourable and learned gentleman, that if Great Britain revoked her Orders in Council, America might be disposed to abrogate her Non-Importation Act; but he contended, that on a retrospect of the past, he was by no means prepared to say that it would have been wise to have kept possession of the American market, by abstaining from those measures; an abstinence which would have exposed the commerce of this country to all the evils with which it had been threatened by France. In justice, however, Great Britain ought to have retained possession of the American market. Notwithstanding the system which she had adopted towards France—a system which, he admitted, was not justifiable on principles of commercial policy, but which was most completely justifiable on the principle in which it originated: namely, the principle of coercing France, and driving her from the system of misrule which she had so extensively exercised. As directed against France, this system had obtained its object. Never was a country more commercially depressed than France. By the official documents of the French government, it appeared, that the whole extent of the manufactures and produce of that country with her population of 36 millions, consumed internally, as well as exported, did not equal the simple exports of other nations. In the year before last, they did not exceed 54,000,000l. sterling, while ours amounted to 66,000,000l. Never therefore would he cease to contend, that the system of his late right hon. friend did not originate as much in wisdom as in justice, Even with the loss of the American market (which he maintained we ought not to have lost) let the House compare the situation in which the British empire was, with that in which it might have been, but for the Orders in Council. This country (with the exception of the last year, the deficiency of which was occasioned by temporary causes) exhibited to the world a spectacle of a nation successfully struggling amidst the efforts of war, and rising in wealth and commercial prosperity. Indeed a great part of the deficiency of the last year was occasioned by the preceding extraordinary and even unnatural prosperity. With that exception, the commerce of the country, all but that which related to America, had increased in an accumulating ratio beyond what it ever had been in times of peace. And even in continental Europe, our commerce, notwithstanding the efforts of the scourge of the continent, had grown to a considerable extent, particularly since the issuing of the Orders in Council. The average of our annual exports to the continent during the three years preceding the Orders in Council was 17,500,000l. The annual average of the 3 years subsequent to the Orders in Council was 23,000,000l. being an increase of near 6 millions. Even the exports to America, prior to the last year, so far from decaying, had considerably increased. The average of the annual exports to America and the West Indies during the three years immediately preceding the last year, was 22,000,000l. the annual average during the three years preceding those three years, was only 19,500,000l. The present distress of those manufacturing districts most connected with America was, in a great degree, attributable to the benevolent feelings of the master manufacturers, who had expended their capitals in keeping their men employed on the same scale during the last year as they had done during the three years preceding. He had always denied, that the present system was adopted from any unworthy motive of national gain. It rested on the firm ground of national defence. It rested on the principle, that as the enemy wielded their utmost extent of power against the prosperity of the British empire, we had a right to wield the utmost extent of our power against the prosperity of France. He stated it in vindication of the character of the country, and of the government, that he believed no councils had ever been more honourably and faithfully directed to apply the system of retaliation successfully to the enemy, but in a way as little obnoxious as possible to the neutral. Various modifications had been resorted to for this latter purpose, and particularly the Order of 1809, limiting the blockade to France and the countries immediately under the power of her arms. Adverting to the system of licences, he maintained that the hon. and learned gentleman had fallen under a great error on the subject. The licences connected with the system of blockade did not form a fifth of the whole licence system of the country. We had a right by our licences to avail ourselves of the relief which the enemy required; and we had never done this to the injury of neutrals,, who had enjoyed as much facility in sailing from our ports as our own merchant vessels. But it was not with the licence system that America quarrelled. We had expressed our readiness to return, if America wished it, to the strict measure of 1807, provided she rescinded the act prohibitory of our commerce. He was anxious to call the attention of the House to some circumstances which had occurred since the last discussion on the subject, and since the issuing of the Regent's Declaration in April. It had been asked in that House, in what way he understood the operation of the French Decree recently communicated to government by the American minister? He had no hesitation in replying, that in his opinion it by no means satisfied the Regent's Declaration, which required the unqualified and unconditional repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, as the condition of rescinding the Orders in Council. The day on which he had received that Decree, was the very day on which the House of Commons had been pleased by its vote, virtually to dissolve the administration; and therefore it was not until the last three or four days that the present government, considering themselves as a government, had deliberated on the subject. On the face of this instrument, however, he had no difficulty in repeating that it appeared insufficient, and was accompanied with circumstances of great distrust and suspicion. It was difficult also to say, whether this Decree had not been completely revoked by the sweeping declaration of the duke of Bassano, that the Berlin and Milan Decrees would remain in full force, until the maritime assumptions of this country should be abandoned. There, therefore, must exist considerable doubts on the subject. Nevertheless, it might not be unwise to put the country in a situation to receive explanations upon it. If the American government should be found disposed to make representations to France, to induce her to satisfy the just expectations contained in his royal highness the Prince Regent's Declaration, Great Britain would be disposed to consent to the suspension, for a limited period, of the restrictive sys- tem of both countries; or, in other words, she would consent to suspend the Orders in Council, if America would consent to suspend her Non-Importation Act. The experiment might then be tried of the practicability of restoring things to their ancient system. If, by an act of temper and conciliation, not incompatible with the safety of the country, an inducement could be held out to France, in the paroxysm of her power, to return to that system, a departure from which had been destructive of her own commerce, it would be an act redounding to our honour. Should the event he favourable, the advantage would be great to all parties. Should it be unfavourable, we must return to our present retaliatory system.—If this effort on our part were not met with a correspondent feeling on the part of America, opportunities would be afforded, in the absence of irritation, of fairly considering those circumstances which might restore and cement that friendship which ought always to be maintained between the two countries, and which it was the curse of both had ever been interrupted. If, by the fatal perseverance of France, Great Britain should be driven to re-adopt her retaliatory system, means might be adopted, without endangering its efficacy against the enemy, of rendering it less obnoxious to America. He concurred with the hon. and learned gentleman, that it would be a must unworthy and unwise policy in this country to allow itself to be provoked by the irritation which America had evinced. Was it not the part of a great empire like England to adopt a conciliatory course of conduct towards America, even at the time when her tone, although he trusted it would not lead to absolute war, sufficiently marked the hostile disposition of her councils? Although he did not wish to be too sanguine as to the result of this experiment, yet, persuaded as he was, that there had been moments of such great inconvenience to France, that had she not cherished hopes of final success from the occurrence of certain circumstances in this country, she would willingly have abandoned her projects, he could not help entertaining an expectation that she might be induced to return to the ancient system. Under all these circumstances, he trusted the House would not consent to the Address. He would content himself with moving the order of the day. Were the documents illustrative of the negociation between this coun- try and America on the table, he should call for a distinct negative to the motion, but as they were not, so he did not wish to extract from the House any vote which might imply their approbation of the conduct of his Majesty's government in that negociation.

declared himself to be, as on most other occasions, completely unable to understand the meaning of the noble lord. He begged the noble lord would say what it was he meant; and if he was better understood by any one else, he (Mr. Whitbread) should confess that he was truly dull of apprehension. The noble lord seemed to wish the House to believe that he proposed to do something conciliatory to America. But did he mean to act immediately on his proposition? Or was it his intention to send out to America, and tell her, that if she would relax in her late system of the Non-Intercourse Act, this country would suspend, or revoke, or abandon, or do what with the Orders in Council? Did he mean to give any immediate relief to the starving manufacturers and ruined capitalists, or did he mean to advise his royal highness the Prince Regent to withdraw the Orders in Council till this question should be determined?

in explanation said, he meant as he had stated, that a proposition should be made to the American government to suspend immediately the Orders in Council, on condition that they would suspend their Non-Intercourse Act; and that in the interval both parties should use their endeavours to prevail on Buonapartè to restore the rules of commerce to their ancient customary limits.

was of opinion that if this proposition was to be sent out to America, and it was expected that the House and the country should wait tlil they received an answer, it was the greatest delusion that had ever been attempted. Could he, after what had passed, suppose the House of Commons would wave the question any longer? The manufacturers had declared they could not wait longer. The general and deeply distressed state of the country loudly declared relief ought not any longer to be postponed. What had induced the House to interfere with the executive government? The answer was plain and obvious—it was the conduct of the executive itself. The state of the country was so alarming—the cries of the petitioners were so truly piercing, that interference could no longer be put off. It would depend on the decision of the House of Commons, whether they would have thousands and thousands not only destitute of bread, but in a state of absolute despair. If the House determined to rescind the Orders in Council, there could be no doubt but the looms would immediately and numerously be set a-going, and ships would be instantly freighted. If the noble lord's proposition be adopted, not a single loom would be seen to move—not the sail of one single ship would be unfurled for commercial concerns with America. That country had till to night been calumniated as a government, and had never been treated with the respect due to an independent power; and it was high time that we should awake to the real interests which belonged to the commerce and manufactures of the country. He did hope, the noble lord and his colleagues, after having witnessed for so long a time the distressed situation of the manufacturers, and after learning from the evidence what was the cause of it, would have come forward to have put an end to such crying evils by a determination to suspend the Orders in Council, with their concomitant mischievous attendants—licences, and their subordinate supporters—fraud and perjury. He had in his hand papers which had been left in the hand of a bankrupt, who had dealt in these simulated papers; and the clerks of that very bankrupt had since advertised, that all persons who were desirous of obtaining simulated papers might be immediately supplied by them. The question was, whether the noble lord would suffer thousands to remain without bread, or would go on with the system of simulated papers and licences. He would ask the right hon. gentleman whether the American minister, from the first moment of the Orders in Council being mentioned, did not protest against them—whether that minister did not warn him and his colleagues that if they were persisted in, they would involve the two countries in a war; and at last told both the belligerents, that if they did not relax in their several systems, America could not be on terms with either of them. France had been the first to relax, and thence the state of our starving manufacturers. And besides, that while it was pretended by ministers in this country, that they meant these Orders in Council as a measure of retaliation on the enemy, and negociations were carrying on by means and through the medium of an ambassador, sent expressly for the purpose from this country, a base and scandalous attempt had been made, which appeared to have been sanctioned by the person now at the head of the administration of this country, to separate the northern states from their union with the southern. It appeared from lord Liverpool's letters, that this man had been employed by government; and he had no doubt but when the papers were granted which had been called for and refused, the fact would be proved that such person had been employed for no friendly or laudable purpose. This action had given into the hands of the American government the most powerful engine of war that could be devised. The noble lord had said, that the cause of the distress of the manufacturers was owing to their having made too many goods on speculation. He believed the noble lord had never read the evidence: for if he had, he would have found no such information there: he must have derived it from some other source, which was not to be depended on. The evidence told the direct contrary, and shewed that they had manufactured, not from speculation but to keep the men who had been long in their employ from actually starving. The noble lord, however, had put it on a different footing, and was for waiting till we could send a proposition to America for the acceptance of that government; while the manufacturing interests were at this moment waiting in breathless expectation, to know whether they were to be doomed to starve or not. He begged the House would not be caught by the delusion, but by their decision prevent the manufacturers from being driven to profound and absolute despair.

thought it had been said, that such was the feeling of America, that the moment our Orders in Council were done away, that moment their Non-Intercourse Act would cease: and the witnesses at the bar had even said, that on the knowledge of the Orders in Council having ceased to operate, they would immediately, without hearing from America, proceed to ship their goods.

contended, that the right hon. gentleman had figured a case perfectly wide of the proposition of the noble lord. To induce the House to pass to the orders of the day, the noble lord had stated it to be his intention to send to America, to know whether, on our suspend- ing our Orders in Council, America would abrogate her Non-Intercourse Act, and then would apply to France to rescind her Berlin and Milan Decrees; and this too for the purpose of deciding whether the retaliatory measures of this country should or should not be persisted in. Such a proceeding was calculated only to produce delay—for the American minister had already pledged himself; that on the Orders in Council being repealed, he was authorised to say that the Non-Intercourse Act was at an end. If the proposition was made to the American government to apply to France for the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, would not the American government immediately say to you she had no power to interfere with France, except in as far as her own commerce was concerned? As to America, France had already repealed the Berlin and Milan Decrees; and though she might be sorry this repeal did not extend to Britain, yet she had neither right nor power to interfere.

explained, that he never meant that there should be any delay in suspending the Orders in Council. He meant they should be suspended for a definite time, and that this circumstance should be communicated to the American government for the double purpose of ascertaining, whether she would in consequence abrogate her Non-Intercourse Act; and also that she might apply to France, to return to the ancient system of belligerents.

said, then the noble lord meant to suspend the Orders in Council at the moment? Was this so? (Lord Castlereagh assented.) The Orders in Council, then, he was to understand, were to be immediately suspended. Were our manufacturers, he asked, to act on this, and to ship goods, depending on the acceptance of this proposition by the American government? If they were to derive any advantage from this suspension, it must be by an immediate shipment, and in inducing our manufacturers to avail themselves of this permission, were we not telling them that they must depend not on the act of the government of this country, but on that of another government?—Would it not be more becoming at once to tell the Americans "the English government has revoked the Orders in Council, and it has done it on the faith of your declaration, that the moment it did so, you would repeal your Non-Intercourse Act?" Supposing both governments to act with good faith, the same ship that carried out the account of the revocation of the Orders in Council, might also carry out the goods of the manufacturers of this country, so far as it could contain them; but under this step implying a suspicion of the American government, that government was pledged to nothing. The proposition of the noble lord was full of hazard to our manufacturers, offering nothing good, and leaving them and their property completely at the pleasure of the American government. How America was to agree to such a proposition he could not say; but he knew what flowed from this mode of proceeding, namely, a confession both to France and America, that the English government had resorted to measures which bore so hard on herself, that she could not persevere in them.

explained, that the American government had made the same pledge as to suspension as they had with respect to revocation.

objected to the mode proposed by the noble lord, because it shewed an unwillingness to do that which, in fact, he intended to do. He entertained doubts as to the propriety of abandoning the Orders in Council; but if it was thought that they might be suspended, he was of opinion the best mode of proceeding was to declare that this country would revoke them if America would revoke her Non-Intercourse Act. The government of this country ought to give to our manufacturers the best security they could that their goods would not be sequestrated. In asking the American government if it would do what it had said it would do, we in a manner asked her if she was serious in her declaration or not, and left her to answer as she pleased. This he did not approve of. If we were to depart from our present system, we should do it in the way best calculated to secure to us the advantages to be expected from the change. We ought not to steer a middle course, and thus deprive ourselves of the advantage which we might derive from acting with openness and candour. To our manufacturers the mode proposed was tantalizing, and as such, he thought, unbecoming.

said, all that was asked of the American government, was to require of France assurances as to the bona fides of the Decree as to America, which she had issued.

declared his inability to comprehend the precise intentions of ministers; or whether in the event of the French government re-inforcing the Berlin and Milan Decrees, it was proposed to reenact the Orders in Council.

entertained the same opinion of the Orders in Council as he had originally done, that they were a justifiable measure of retaliation on the enemy: but that retaliation he always considered as of a political and not a commercial nature. This view of them had that night been recognised both by the right hon. gent. and by the noble lord. It was becoming the character of this country to exert its strength in defence of its just and necessary rights; but it was also becoming its character to exercise its rights, so as to keep within the rules of strict justice to others. He did not approve, therefore, of some late attempts at converting a measure of political retaliation into a commercial monopoly for ourselves: but he was happy that such a principle had been disclaimed. Whether it was right or not to permit this enquiry to be commenced, he would not now consider: but be felt himself under some difficulty, for he had always considered this as a great political question, though certainly connected with commerce, which no British statesmen ought to lose sight of; and yet by consenting to try it on the ground of commercial pressure, the question was prejudged. There were, in truth, great political parties interested in this question, America, Great Britain and France: and yet, from our mode of trying the question, we precluded ourselves, in some measure, from the exercise of a due discretion in regard to our own Orders in Council, with a view to what might be done by the other parties. This was his opinion. But now, however, the enquiry had taken place, and the only remaining consideration was, how to turn it to the best advantage. He contended, that revocation was better than suspension. He had no hopes that concession would make any change in the measures of France: but he yielded to the hopes of a reconciliation with America, and relief to the distresses of this country. Adverting to the report of the French minister, where it was asserted that the treaty of Utrecht had settled the doctrine that free ships made free goods, as the law of nations: he characterized that report as conceived in fraud, and issued in delusion, and concluded by ex- pressing a wish that something should appear on the Journals, to mark the opinion of the House on the enquiry.

congratulated the House and the country on the prospect of speedily getting rid of these Orders in Council. He hoped they should never hear of them again; indeed, he was sure they would not, for he should like to see any one that would dare to re-animate them. He hailed the absence of his hon. and learned friend (Mr. Stephen), though he should have been sorry for it on any other occasion; for it was evident his hon. and learned friend had not been able to bring himself to witness the death of his darling offspring—the Orders in Council. The enquiry had been long and tedious, but it had not been in vain. He disclaimed all ideas of having considered the provisions of the treaty of Utrecht as part of the law of nations. The noble lord, he hoped, would withdraw his motion of proceeding to the orders of the day, and explain more distinctly what was the exact intention of government. He suggested that the debate might be adjourned till Friday, that they might understand each other more clearly before they came to a decision.

must oppose the orders of the day to the Address, which he considered as an unconstitutional interference with the executive government. Nevertheless the words of the Address included the proposition which he had suggested, for it recommended to his Royal Highness to repeal or suspend the Orders in Council.

Ultimately, Mr. Brougham and lord Castlereagh severally withdrew their motions, on the understanding that an official instrument on the subject should appear in the next Gazette.

Hansard

Volume 23: debated on Tuesday 16 June 1812

House of Commons

American Loyalists' Petition

American Seamen

Petitions From Prisoners in Lancaster Castle

Mr. Brougham's Motion on the Present State of Commerce and Manufactures—and for the Repeal of the Orders of the Council