insolvency, from the losses they have sustained, by the im provident employment of their capital in shipping." The of her extract which I shall insert here, is selected from * a memorial presented in June 1801, to the Privy Council, by a great number of respectable ship-owners, whose names were subscribed. "By an order of his Majesty in Council, dated the 21st of May 1801, and issued, ostensibly, in consequence of the Nothern Confederacy, it was rendered lawful, from and after the date of the said order, and until six weeks after the commencement of the then next session of Parliament, to import into any port of the united kingdom, in foreign ships belonging to the subjects of any kingdom, or state, not then at war with his Majesty, any hemp, flax, iron, tallow, masts, timber, square or otherwise, deals, oak-staves, linens, isinglass, bristles, ashes, hides, masts, tar, pitch, linseed, and rosin, &c., upon payment of such duties (if any) as were by law payable upon such articles, when imported in any foreign built ships." Not long, however, after this order had been issued, the Nothern Confederacy was dissolved. It was natural, therefore, to expect that the order should be withdrawn: but the council were of opinion, that it could not be rescinded without an act of parliament; and it was, therefore, left to expire by efflux of time, six weeks after the commencement of the ensuing session t In consequence of the injurious operation of this order, the memorial of which I have spoken was laid before the council, and represented, amongst others, the following ¡ grievances. "Your petitioners also beg leave to state, that neutral hips are daily arriving in great numbers, at all the ports in the Baltic, in order to bring into Great Britain and Ireland, Inerchandise, &c. which would have been brought in British bottoms, but for the order before recited, and that the trade to and from Hamburgh is at present almost wholly carried on in neutral vessels, to the manifest prejudice of your petitioners, and the shipping interest of Great Britain; so that * Vide ante, p. liii. The usual words "or until further order" had been omitted in order; and no remedy, therefore, was left. a very great number of British vessels are now unemployed from the circumstances before stated." This statement is abundantly confirmed by particular facts. Scarcely had the order of council been heard of on the continent, when multitudes of neutral vessels were employed to supply the demands of Great Britain; and the following copy of a letter from the port of Riga, addressed to a very eminent merchant in London, may serve to show how much of the carrying trade of England was, at that period, assumed by foreigners. "Riga, {19th June, July, } 1801." "The ships which were under embargo here are daily leaving us, but none are yet arrived from England. About 440 neutral vessels, however, are already arrived here, some of which begin now to be at a loss for freights, owing to the high prices of most of our articles*." These vessels were in search of freights for this country; and similar efforts were made, at the same period, in the other ports of the Baltic. But, if the order of council, already recited, was thus injurious in its direct, it was no less mis'chievous in its reflex, operation. For, in proportion to the number of vessels which it encouraged to enter into the trade, the demand for produce and stores was quickened, and the price, therefore, as above stated, enhanced; and the British ships, which had been detained in Russia, during the embargo, and which, in consequence of the order, had not been chartered in sufficient time, were precluded, not to say more, from all the advantages of speedy freight. When these circumstances are considered, and when it is considered also, that, at this very period, the unemployed tonnage of Great Britain was thought to exceed one fourth of the whole tonnage of the empire, it will not be denied that the ship-owners of England had some cause to complain. But let me be understood: I do not mean to condemn the order, nor do I presume to censure the wisdom' from which it flowed. Lord Glenbervie especially appears to have considered the memorial already said to have been presented on the occasion with all that coolness and candour The substance of this letter was stated at the time to the Committee of Council for Trade. [Ff] which he is known to possess; and his answer to the memorialists evinces a sound judgment, and a perfect knowledge of the subject. I see, therefore, in that nobleman, too decided an attachment to the genuine maritime interests of this country, to impute to him a wish unnecessarily to enforce or multiply orders hostile to the navigation laws, which he so well understands; and my only design, in alluding to these circumstances, is to show how easily the suspending powers of privy councils may divert the shipping and carrying trade of Britain into foreign channels; and how necessary it is to maintain, firmly and inviolably, that proud and ancient system which has so long protected and encouraged, in every national view, the commerce and navigation of the empire.-P. 11 to 20. From the right, then, of restriction and regulation, we turn to the policy of the question. It is contended, with an affected parade of commercial knowledge, that the Suspending Acts of 1795, &c. have actually enlarged, beyond all former experience, our means of trade; have increased more than ever the number of our mercantile seamen; have more than ever promoted our shipping interests; and, therefore, should be continued, even if the peace had been likely to be permanent, and sailors not wanted for the defence of the country*. These paradoxes of temerity are sufficiently bold. I presume to assert, nevertheless, that they are, in every instance, untenable and false; and I should scarcely insult the understanding of my reader by referring to them particularly, if they did not lead to discussions of national import. Various circumstances have obviously contributed, since the year 1795, to increase the exports and imports of Britain; and with those circumstances the suspension of the navigation laws had as obviously little to do. A revolution, in its nature and violence unprecedented, perhaps, in the annals of the world; a consequent war extending in its effects from one end of Europe to the other; and an utter derangement of the commerce of almost all the countries endangered by the contest, or engaged in it, eminently conspired to favour the mercantile pursuits of England +. There was no safety elsewhere to be found for assignment, and no market else * Answer to Lord Sheffield by Mr. Cock, p. 29, 30. + "We absorbed at this period," says Chalmers, "almost all the commerce of Europe." Estimate of comparative Strength, &c. p. 307. where, which was calculated to supply the demands of the countries disturbed. To Britain, accordingly, during a certain period, the wants of other nations looked for supply, and the fears of other nations brought their investments. Foreign capital was poured into the British funds; foreign speculation was directed to British ports; foreign wealth was remitted for British produce and manufacture; and, thus, the commercial prosperity of this country, whatever it was, resulted, not from the suspending acts, to which it has been attributed, but from the struggles, operations, and wants, of foreign necessity. It was not the monopoly of European trade alone that was thus secured, for a season, to Great Britain. We enjoyed, at the same time, almost the whole commerce of the East, together with the trade of most of the French and Dutch settlements, in the West Indies. Surinam, Berbice, Demerara, Essequibo, St. Lucia, Martinico, Tobago, Trinidad, St. Eustatia, and, at one period, St. Domingo, added, by their demands and their produce, in a degree which the annexed table will show, to the trade and affluence of England; and this country, whether the navigation laws had been suspended or not, would have alike been rendered the mart of all those great East and West India articles, which have become so connected with the enjoyments, and so es sential to the wants of Europe. An ACCOUNT of the Quantity of Sugar, Rum, Coffee, and Cotton, imported into Great Britain from the Colonies of Surinam, Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo; as also from the 1slands of Martinico, St. Lucia, Tobago, Trinidad, and St. Eustatia, for Three Years previous to January 1st, 1802, as far as the same can be made up, distinguishing each Year. 1800 465,043 0 16 295,885 232,105 0 13 10,740,620 1801 753,370 1 25 446,641 359,761 3 411,959,612 Inspector General's Office, Custom-house, London, 13 April, 1802. WILLIAM IRVING, Inspector-General of the The suspending acts, therefore, can, at best, be said to have afforded, amid all the evils which they produced, some facility of carriage from the nations with which we were at war. But, even in this contracted view, they were, probably, of little ultimate use. The commodities of the nations at war would, sooner or later, have found their way to the British ports, if the suspension had never been permitted to exist, because, I repeat it, in Britain alone were to be found safety for consignment, and a reasonable certainty of sale; and the suspension, consequently, it might be almost said, was effectual only in depriving England of a considerable portion of that very trade, which is most intimately connected with her best commercial and political interests*. The fact is, in a great degree, allowed, where we should expect it would be most earnestly resisted or denied. "I fully admit," says the writer lately quoted †," that a very considerable increase of American shipping in the British carrying trade" (and, consequently, a very considerable diminution in British shipping,)" resulted from the acts," and "I am by no means insensible that the shipping interests of England have a right to complain that cargoes which, under the acts in question, might be imported in a neutral vessel, could not be imported in a British ship; and that the former was excepted from a duty to which the latter was liable ‡." These admissions, uttered by a writer who is the most professed panegyrist of suspension, will be considered both as strong and strange. But what shall we say, when we find that his forgetfulness of what he had admitted is yet more curious than the admission itself; and when we hear him maintain, notwithstanding the mischiefs which he had taken pains to state, that "the alledged objections to the acts," the diminution of the carrying trade and the losses of the shipbuilders and ship-owners of the country," are totally groundless?" To fortify the last opinion against the first, he produces an immense table, which, as far as is necessary to this argument, is here annexed. |