there is but too much reason to apprehend, there is some tendency at present in the shipping of the country to advance less rapidly than our trade; let us avoid aggravating this evil. The necessity for relaxation of the law on the score of commercial convenience must, if this defect in our system continues, be increased, whilst the danger of yielding them will be augmented also. Our trade undera moderate restraint may, and will speedily, relieve itself by forcing capital into the means of its own accommodation; but if the want of shipping is once suffered to prevail beyond a certain extent, the demand can no longer without great national loss await the supply. The barrier will then be thrown down which now protects our commercial marine, and from that moment America and other coun'tries that can build and equip cheaper than we do, will possess themselves largely of our carrying trade; shipbuilding in this country will cease to be a profitable application of capital; our seamen will decline in number; and many even of those we have will pass, particularly in war, into the service of America.

I know doubts have been entertained whether our ship. ping can be equal in time of war, when so large a propor tion of our seamen are withdrawn from the merchants' and employed in the King's service, to accommodate us in peace; the trade of the country, I am inclined to think, considering the proportion of landsmen in the navy, and the powers of re-production we possess, whilst the demand for seamen is kept up, that little difficulty will occur in this respect; but I am persuaded our means must always be abundant, for at least supplying our own colonial trade. in all its branches, into which no foreign ships ought to be admitted, no more than into our coasting trade, or transport service. Whatever temporary deficiency there may exist of British shipping, it will adjust itself in the increased share of the carrying trade other nations will for the time enjoy in our intercourse with them respectively, as authorized by the navigation act itself. But so far from encouraging imaginary cases of exigency, we ought to recollect that some degree of pressure is the first and most active principle of encouragement to the augmentation of our ships and seamen, upon whose concurrent growth with our general trade must ultimately depend the station we are to occupy in the scale of nations.

I cannot omit also observing that the continuance of this

system of taking our supplies from America without affording to the produce of our North American colonies the protection even of duties, must not only operate to repress their growth and improvement, but must rapidly tend to make our West India islands permanently dependant for these important articles on the government of the United States. In the absence of all discriminating duties, such as our commercial policy has always led to the adoption of at home, between British and foreign produce, the local situation of the United States must give the Americans great advantages in the market of the West Indies over our more northern fellow-subjects, and we accordingly find, whilst the British American provinces were rapidly advancing to a state that would have enabled them to supply our islands with most of the articles of which they stand in need, yet, from want of due encouragement, the quantity actually imported from thence since 1792 has latterly diminished not less than two-thirds.

Such is the extent and nature of the measure which we are now called upon to pass wiihout enquiry, in this most exceptionable shape. It goes materially to affect the interests of the ship-owners throughout the empire, of the British continental colonists, of the fisheries of the empire-of Ireland, as largely dependant on the provision trade-of various classes of British manufacturers, and of the East India company, all of whom begin seriously to feel the destructive effects of the smuggling competition which grows out of this intercourse, as against them in the West India islands. Yet although the utmost alarm has been expressed by the parties interested, and they have come forward to the House with petitions desiring to be heard, and prepared to disprove the main facts upon which the expediency of the bill has been maintained, they have been refused, contrary to all precedent, even a committee above stairs; though my right honourable friend (Mr. Rose) pledged himself that four days would suffice for bringing forward all the material information, and that the progress of the bill need not be thereby delayed. The petitioners under these circumstances thought it in vain to appear by counsel at the bar, if they were denied the opportunity of previously establishing their case by evidence; and they have now to complain, in addition to the injurious effects of the measure itself upon their fortunes, of a very different re. ception from that which persons of their weight and respectability

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spectability have ever been formerly accustomed to receive from this House.

I have little further to add to what I have already stated. I cannot, however, conclude without saying, that any objections to the measure now under consideration are much increased, and indeed my apprehensions augmented, when I advert not only to the time, but to the circumstances. under which it has been brought forward: the proposing to Parliament so idle and so nugatory a measure as this indisput ably is, if its proposers truly describe it, at a moment when we have a point of such great importance to settle with America, does appear to me, to say the least of it, a great oversight. But I cannot forget, that this bill, or one of similar import, first made its appearance in another House of Parliament, immediately after the publication of an Enquiry into the. State of the Nation; a pamphlet which it is understood was circulated under the particular countenance and protection of the noble lord (Lord Holland) who first brought in this bill. Much of the pamphlet in question is occupied in considering the pending question with America, and in counselling the unqualified surrender to that country of every thing she is supposed to have laid claim to. This, together with a most desponding estimate of the power and resources of the country, concluding with a pretty distinct intima-, tion that our only chance of holding even a secondary place in the scale of Europe, is our concluding an immediate peace with France on the best terms we can, are the only two practical conclusions to be found in a work of some talent, which is principally engrossed in a general mistatement of the measures, and consequently of the conduct of. the former government. If such is to be taken as in any degree the standard of the noble lord's own opinions, and if it is in the spirit of such doctrine, that he was induced to offer, this bill to Parliament, those who differ with him in sentiment have ample grounds for apprehension at the present moment. The noble lord does not certainly hold a seat in his Majesty's councils, but that is not sufficient to relieve my mind from the anxiety of observing a bill of this nature proceed from a person so high in confidence, entitled to great personal weight and respect, and whom we have reason to presume entertains sentiments of the description above stated. I wish, if ministers do not mean to use this bill for the unwise and mischievous purposes to which its powers may be applied, that they would, at least for the present,:

calm

calm the public apprehensions, by relinquishing it, and suf fer matters to proceed as they have done for years, without any inconvenience or danger. It cannot be requisite to enable them to administer a limited and temporary aid to the islands. If it is meant to be pushed further, which the extent of its provisions justifies us in apprehending, it is a fraud on Parliament thus covertly to effect it. Without a more visible necessity, so much power ought not to be surrendered to his Majesty's ministers, nor so many great interests be alarmed with respect to their nearest concerns. I certainly cannot justify to myself, (venerating as I have been taught to do, the navigation laws of the country) unnecessarily placing such vital interests at the mercy of any government whatever; and I least of all am disposed so to place them, at the present moment, after the sentiments that have been expressed, and the opinions it is to be presumed are entertained. I trust the House will retain those laws under its own immediate protection, as the source of our greatness, the surest preservation of our power, and the best bulwark of the British empire.

Lord Henry Petty said, the noble lord complained that ministers had not informed the House of the nature and object of this bill; but he had scarcely proceeded to a second sentence before he admitted that a right honourable friend of his (Mr. Fox) had disclosed the grounds and principles of that measure. The truth was, that his right honourable friend bad opened the subject so completely, as was often his practice, as to render little further explanation necessary. The bill proposed by Mr. Pitt in 1783, on the intercourse with America, was much more directly opposed to the navigation law than the present, so that if this be absurd, novel, and monstrous, it at least must be rauch lessabsurd, novel, and monstrous, than that which was supported by that right honourable gentleman. The fact was, that the ship-owners were not prejudiced but benefited by this act, as the power was transferred from a situation in which they had no interest, and where they could not be heard, to a place where they were not only heard with patience, but listened to with pleasure. If the bill had been precisely the reverse, the objection would not have been at all surprising; but in the present circumstances the opposition from that quirter was most unreasonable and extraordinary. Then it was said the power should not be entrusted to the privy council. What was there peculiar in

this case? Could the privy council exercise no sound dis cretion upon it? Was not nearly the same sort of power given to this body under the 34th of the King, and was not precisely the same authority conceded in the 35th of this reign? Whence then all this parade of innovation? On what did the naval superiority of the country essentially depend? On the prosperity of the West India islands. This plan was most conducive to their advantage, and therefore must contribute to support that maritime strength, which could not be too highly estimated, and could not be too zealously maintained. Then it was objected that a secret would be discovered by America, that the existence of our colonies depended on her aid. It was no secret that the assistance of America was useful to our colonies, after thirteen years experience afforded to that 'continent; and if pro moting this intercourse could receive from America any conciliatory construction, this was not an objection, but a motive for the bill.

The Master of the Rolls rose and said-One of the obser vations of the noble lord (Petty) who spoke last, is the most. extraordiuary I ever knew to be used in a debate, namely, that what has passed, on former occasions, has rendered unnecessary all argument in support of this bill, and, as he thinks, has rendered unavailing all arguments against it. Objections have, indeed, he says, been urged, which might, have had some force, but a satisfactory explanation has been given to them, and these the noble lord has left untouched. In his very outset, the noble lord has left untouched one-half of the argument urged against him, by which he has left untouched one-half of his own bill. All the argument against one whole clause has entirely escaped the noble lord's observation, and he proceeded just as if the provisions of that clause were not in the bill at all.

Sir, when I compare the very limited purpose which the bill professes on the face of its preamble, with the extensive powers which the bill creates, I am utterly at a loss to guess at the object of its framers. It would be an affront to their understanding to say they had no object, and yet to say that the granting such power to any government is proper, is what I am not prepared to do, and what I am sure the noble lord has not enabled me to do, and what, therefore, I cannot consent to do. Sir, the bill professes, in its pream ble, to be intended, and states itself to be calculated, to meet a necessity of the most limited kind; and the noble

lord