from manifesting that ability, that to the amount of 7,000,000l. had been imported in the course of last year. The stock was well known at present, and it could scarcely be said to afford a proper opportunity for adopting any step which would have the effect of making bread dear, as the rejection of the present measure inevitably would. It had been said, that the measure would make meat dear. How that could be, he was unable to discover; for it would make the food of cattle cheaper. The West India planters contributed much to support the expences of the country, and if they were reduced to a situation in which they could do so no longer, the expence must fall on the landholders. He therefore cautioned the landed interest how they resisted such measures as the present, and recommended that they might bear their fair share of the burdens of the country, without shewing such an invincible repugnance to sacrifice, their interest to the public good."

It was well remarked by Mr Perceval, that agriculture and commerce depended one on the other, and that to neglect either was to injure both. "It might be a question," he said, "whether or not the measure ought in policy to be adopted. But there was nothing in it which could reasonably excite alarm. Three years ago, when the distilling from corn was prohibited, it was predicted that its consequences must be ruinous; that the spirit of agriculture must be instantly annihilated, and a period put at once to the cultivation of barley. What was the fact? Why, the prophecy was completely falsified; and it was now said there was so much barley wherever they turned their eyes, that it would fetch no price whatever. But it was well known that the produce of the island, for many years, had not been equal to its consumption; and this was

clearly made manifest from the imports. of grain during those periods. The price at which it was proposed to distil from sugar, would leave a fair competition between the two interests. Within the last two years, while the prohibition was going on, agriculture had materially increased. Last year not less than 153 inclosure bills were passed. In the present year, 168 bills of the same nature were passed for England alone, of which number 24 were for the county which gentlemen opposite wished the house to believe as the most depressed, namely, Norfolk. In Wales, nineteen also were passed. To talk of danger, therefore, to the agricultural interests, was a mere phantom, for no danger was to be apprehended. Notwithstanding the passing of the bill, it was a fact that barley rose in price in the market."

The bill past tlie Commons, but was thrown out by the Lords, notwithstandingthe unanswerable arguments of Lord Holland in its support. "The object of the bill," he said, " was simply this, not that the West India colonist should be let into competition with the grower of barley, but that when barley had reached a price to let in the foreign farmer, that then the West India colonist should be let into the market for the distilleries, instead of the farmers of France; and surely, when the enormous sum we had paid during the last year to our enemies for our corn, was for a moment considered, it must be deemed an object of sound policy to give that advantage to our own distressed colonists, instead of giving it to the farmers of France. This was the ground upon which the bill was founded. When the barley here had reached 38s. per quarter, it was known that, by the existing laws, importation was permitted, and the foreign farmer was let into the market. Surely, then, it was not too much to ask for our own West India colonist to be let into the mar

ket with sugar for the distilleries when barley had reached the price of 38s. per quarter."

Lord Grenville, however, insisted, "that from the nature of the provisions of the bill, a bounty was in fact given on the use of sugar in the distilleries, to the exclusion of our own barley, and to the vital injury of the real interests of the country, by lessening the demand, and consequently diminishing the supply of food at a time when it was more than ever necessary to increase our internal resources. He could not conceive any thing more injurious than this intermeddling species of policy, interfering with and diverting the regular course of nature, and affecting to regulate by an imaginary rule the prices of articles which ought to be left to find their own level."

These arguments, or rather the unlucky prejudices whereon they were founded, prevailed; and a bill, which would have relieved the West India proprietors, preserved in the country the enormous sums of money which France drew from it in payment for corn, and lessened the evils of impend ing scarcity, was rejected by the voices of 56 peers to 36.

Early in the session, a select committee was appointed to enquire into the state of commercial creMarch 1. dit. They reported that 66 great embarrassment and distress were felt among the manufac turers in the cotton trade, principally arising out of excessive speculations to South America. The exporters failing in their adventure, could not pay the manufacturers when their bills became due. Many of them became bank rupts; and thus the manufacturers had their property lying dead in bankrupts estates. In the course of nine, twelve, or fifteen months, a considerable part of their capital would, no doubt, return; but while they were deprived of it, many of the weaker were broken

down, and others went on with great difficulty. A little aid from government would enable those who had ca. pital to retain a certain proportion of their workmen ; but without relief they must be broken down also, and their workmen, with their families, left without means of subsistence. The cotton manufactory had been carried to a prodigious extent. The value of cotton manufactures exported from Great Bri tain in 1807 was 9,846,8891.; it increased three millions in the ensuing year; in 1809 there was a farther increase, to the amount of six millions ; and the exports in the first three quar ters of the year 1810, when the distress began to be strongly felt, were 13,761,1361. The pressure was chiefly felt in Glasgow and the neighbourhood; and the Scotch banks, sharing in the distress, because they had their capital locked up in bills, the payment of which was suspended, were incapacitated from affording farther assistance. In the woollen trade, the difficulties were not felt to such an extent as would by any means justify a call upon parliament for relief: but they pressed heavily upon the importers of produce from the foreign West India islands and from South America ; for great part of the returns for the manufactures which were exported to those parts of the world came in sugar and coffee, which were not entitled to sale in the home market, and there were no immediate means of realizing their value. Other branches of trade also were affected, and the existing distress was aggravated by the extent to which the system of warehousing had been carried. Since the opening of the West India and London Docks, Great Bri tain, under the warehousing act, had become a free port, where foreign goods of almost every description were brought and deposited, to be exported again without payment of importation duties. Of this the merchants of other

countries, whether neutrals, enemies, or allies, had eagerly availed themselves. From the peninsula, for instance, such goods as had not been imported on British account, the native merchants had been anxious to send here for safety, and, in fact, at this time we were exporting Portugueze wines back to Portugal. While importations from Europe, not the result of a demand for them, had been thus occasioned, the produce of Spanish and Portugueze America, from which we formerly received little property direct, except bullion, came to fill the ware. houses, and for a time to exhaust the capitals of our merchants. Our conquests had the same tendency. We received the produce of the French, the Dutch, and the Danish colonies, and the greater part of the produce of St Domingo; and in Europe, immense importations had come from places where the British flag was excluded. Meantime the ships of the United States no longer introduced into the continent that large proportion of colonial produce, of which they used to be the carriers. There had been a severe commercial pressure," the committee remarked, " in 1793, and relief had then been afforded by an issue of Exchequer bills. There were undoubtedly many circumstances of difference between these times and that; yet they thought that parliamentary relief would now be highly expedient, for it would afford the manufacturers and merchants time gradually to contract their operations, to call in their means, to withhold from immediate sale articles which at present could fetch only most ruinous prices, and to keep up the em ployment of their machinery and workmen, though upon a very reduced scale: it would thus divide and spread the pressure of the distress over a larger space of time, and enable them to meet it with consequences less ruinous to themselves and less destructive to the

interests of the community. The committee, therefore, recommended an issue of Exchequer bilis for this pur pose, to the amount of 6,000,000l. ; and that, considering the probable date of the returns from South America, a greater interval should be allowed for repayment than had been fixed in 1793; that the time for payment of the first quarter's instalment should not be earlier than the middle of January next, and that the remainder of the sum advanced should be required in three equal payments; so that the whole should be discharged in nine months after the payment of the first instalment." An appendix was added to this report, containing the resolutions passed at a meeting of merchants in London upon this subject: they also attributed the pressure to the two causes which the committee had indica

ted,-speculation in the South American market, and the warehousing system, influenced as it had been by the effects of the war and by our own conquests. And thus," said they, "it has, from these simultaneous and co-operating causes, happened, that in a short space of time goods have been brought to this country, in amount beyond all precedent, and all calculation. The power, wealth, and high character of the nation, have in fact contributed to produce a most alarming evil. And the measures of the enemy having been especially directed to the preventing the exportation of the immense quantities of merchandize of all descriptions thus accumulated, the consequences are, that the goods are become a burthen, and the advan ces to the owners on account, and the payment of freight and insurance, have become grievous, in such a degree as to threaten the most solid and respectable houses with all the evils of insol vency. It has been the effect of this combination of circumstances, to pro duce a general distrust and want of

confidence, whereby the evil has been incalculably aggravated, and is daily extending; so that, unless some immediate and effectual remedy be provided, the consequences will certainly prove of a fatal description to the trade and manufactures of this city, and the king dom at large, and every interest dependent upon them."

When the house resolMarch 11. ved itself into a committee, to take the business into consideration, Mr Perceval said, "he had not made up his mind with out great reluctance, nor until after very serious consideration. For he was well aware that parliament ought not to be called upon for the purpose of providing against misfortunes to which incautious adventurers might have exposed themselves; inasmuch as such interference would tend to lessen the caution which was the best check to ill-advised adventurers. But to this general principle there might be many exceptions. The question must always be as to the merits of the particular case; and they who admitted that a similar interference of parliament in 1793 was wise and necessary, could not broadly and in toto deny its expediency now. With regard to those whose over-speculations had been one main cause of the present embarrassments, parliament, even if disposed to be vindictive, could not abstain from relieving them, upon the supposition that they had not suffered severely for their errors. But it was not to them that the proposed relief would extend; they had gone to bankruptcy long ago, and it was to the evil endured by those, whom these persons had involved, that the select committee recommended the application of a remedy.

"The markets in South America had been stopt by a glut; a glut, however, was but a temporary suspension of demand, and at no very distant period, he trusted, this difficulty would

be removed. The markets of Europe were closed against us by the most ri gorous edicts; but experience had uni versally shewn, that though such edicts might for a time be severely felt, yet a practical relaxation soon ensued; and he had no doubt that the ingenuity and exertions of the merchants, and the wants of the consumers, would ultimately find means to obviate in a great degree the existing obstacles. The present circumstances were not indeed like those of 1793; yet no man could say there was not a prospect that in twelve months commerce might experience some advantageous change; and as the proposed measure could not make the state of commerce worse, but might make it better, parliament were bound to try it. To meliorate its state, if not wholly to restore it, would be an advantage. The increas ing consumption of the domestic mar. kets would afford some relief, the mar kets of the western world might be expected again to open; and when to this was added, that farther opening which might result from the chances of war, the whole afforded a sufficient justification of the effort which he advised. In 1793, the commissioners were empowered to grant relief to the extent of five millions, but they did not actu ally issue more than 2,200,0001.; so, when he proposed to place six millions at the disposal of the commissioners, it was not on the supposition that that sum would be required; but that relief being open to such an extent, the cre dit of those who were suffering might be sustained, and themselves rendered able to go on with much less, per haps, than would otherwise be ne cessary. Recommending, therefore, the same regulation and restriction as had been enacted in 1793, he moved for an issue of Exchequer bills to the amount of six millions for this pur pose."

Mr Ponsonby then rose and said,

"that whatever blame had been attempt ed to be thrown on the speculators to South America, the evil might be traced to the misrepresentations, exaggerations, and falsehoods, which had been heard in that house. But the state of the European markets appeared to him to be more immediately the operating cause; and what prospect of a change in them, within any reasonable term, could the minister now hold out? The last time the French seriously directed their attention to the annihilation of our trade, they had been called from the borders of the ocean by the Austrian war. The Spanish contest had made a new diversion in favour of our commerce; but what likelihood was there that such events would again take place? Had the orders in council produced their intended effect, or were they likely to produce it? Our colonies were now become rather burdensome than profitable ; and our conquests tended to increase the distress, because while France had colonies, she did not interdict colonial produce altogether, and much from our own islands found its way to the continent under this cover." Mr Ponsonby proceeded to observe, "that when the house were called upon for six millions of Exchequer bills, just after they had funded twelve, and when they reflected that all the circulating medium at present in the country was paper, it was their duty to consider how far they ought to countenance such extensive issues of paper money. Whether or not they had now reached that period, at which it would be expedient to restore the proper circulating medium, was a question on which he would not venture to decide; but they ought to do something towards putting a stop to the extension, at least, of the paper circulation. Having made these few observations, which he had thought it his duty to make, he should abstain from further

VOL. IV. PART I.

opposition to the measure proposed. Doing this, he might not act strictly up to his duty, as he thought the principle of a tendency rather to do harm than good; but, under such circumstances as the present, he had not resolution enough to oppose that which afforded any thing like a chance of alleviating the distress of those who claimed their assistance."

Mr Huskisson said, "the difficulty which chiefly struck him was in discovering in what respect the present state of affairs bore any resemblance to that in 1793. There was then a rise in the value of money, and a fall in every other commodity; it affected every person equally, and was of short duration. There was no want of market, no glut or stagnation of trade, but there was a want of individual confidence, and a diminution of the circulating medium. The issues of the bank were 14 millions then, now they exceeded 23. There was at the present time a demand in the country for good paper; and the bank of England, so far from confining its discounts, had, in consequence of the want of good bills to discount, been purchasing largely of government securities. He must own, that he felt doubts as to the efficacy of the measure proposed; if they were more than doubts, he should oppose it: but he doubted whether the remedy which had been used in 1793 ought to be resorted to, when the situation of affairs was so different.

"Let it be considered," said he, "that in the present state of matters, the bank of England, or any persons who advanced money, were partners in every speculation, to the extent of five per cent., without risk. Under these circumstances, could it be surprising that there should be great readiness to give credit, and that it should be too greatly extended? The great evil arose from too great a faci