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Our readers are tired of this stuff, and so are we. We have waded through the text with weariness, and through the notes with contempt for the author's powers, and indignation at his principles: he is the libeller of every thing in America that is not mean and wicked; and we regret that we cannot ascertain distinctly the objects of his abuse, as we should be satisfied by this evidence, that they were worthy men and good citizens.

ART. IX. 1. Resolutions of a General Meeting of the Committee of Ship-Owners for the Port of London, held the 9th April,

1812.

2. Various Returns of Thames and Indian-built Shipping, PrizeShips, &c. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed in the Session 1813.

WE anticipated the extension of a few months which has been given by parliament to the indulgence of admitting Indianbuilt ships to a registry in Great Britain, in order to allow time for fixing finally, in the present session, the future fate of those ships. Meanwhile the London ship-builders have not been idle. By the circulation of papers among the members of the House of Commons, by tavern resolutions, and by various other means which wealth can command, they have endeavoured to excite alarm, and to prejudice the public against building ships in our Indian territories, or admitting those already built to any share of the commerce of the United Kingdom. We have heard, with very sincere regret, that some of those to whom commerce owes many benefits, are about to become advocates for this exclusion; for we are persuaded that this measure, if carried into effect, will give to one of its most valuable branches, a cruel, perhaps a mortal blow. Be this as it may, we would entreat a moment's attention to a brief and plain statement of the question at issue.

It will hardly be denied, we conceive, that all Indian-built ships (but we shall at present confine our observations chiefly to those built at Bombay) are entitled to all the rights and privileges of British-built ships, without further interference of the legislature. The principle of our navigation laws, as set forth in the 12th Charles II. chap. 18, and 7th and 8th William III. chap. 22, extends certain rights and privileges to ships built in Great Britain, or in lands, islands, colonies, plantations or territories belonging to his Majesty, or in his possession; and grants to foreign nations the right of importing the produce of their respective territories into Great Britain

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in their own ships: a subsequent act (26th Geo. III, chap. 69,) specifies the terms on which such ships may be registered.

In the 12th Charles II, our eastern possessions were confined to Bantam, Amboyna, and a few factories on the continent of India; those in America were in their infancy, and peopled chiefly with men not well affected to the restoration of the monarchy; yet still it was deemed but just to secure to them, in this act, the rights of fellow-subjects.

In the reign of William III, when the navigation act was amend ed, we had acquired from the crown of Portugal the island of Bombay, which was then, as it still is, held by the East India Company immediately of the crown, as part of the manor of East Greenwich in the county of Kent, on the payment of £10 per aunum, in gold, which sum continues to be regularly so paid. Ships built at Bombay, therefore, are indisputably entitled by law to all the rights and privileges which attach to ships launched from the banks of the Thames, whether at East Greenwich in the county of Kent, or Blackwall in the county of Middlesex. But these rights are not confined to Bombay; as all the provinces and islands since obtained in India, whether by cession or conquest, are included in the description of territories belonging to or in his Majesty's possession.' These were in fact expressly declared to be so, in the act of last session, which granted them to the East India Company for a limited time, (a twenty years lease,) to be held without prejudice to the undoubted sovereignty of the crown of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; and we think it will hardly be contended that the British born subjects resident in those territories were meant to be included in that lease, and turned over like the serfs on a Russian estate, or the live-stock on one of our farms. On the contrary, with these facts before us, we shall be borne out in asserting that the native inhabitants of those territories have thus become our fellow-subjects, acknowledging the same sovereign, protected and governed by the same parliament, and submitting to the same laws, except in those cases where parliament has thought it wise and just to leave them subject to their own actions, laws and customs. Those laws are administered in the principal settlements by British courts of justice, under judges appointed by the King; the revenues of the country are applied to defray the charges of those courts, and the defence of the country, under the management of the East India Company and the controul of parliament for a limited time, when the surplus revenue, if any, will be accounted for with the British government.

It is not indeed denied that, under the navigation acts of Charles and William, India-built ships have the right of importing into this country the produce and manufactures of the country in which they were actually built; but by an omission in the act of 26th Geo. III,

chap.

chap. 69, which regulates the registry of ships, or rather we should say by a quibble in the interpretation of this act, they are debarred from the enjoyment of those privileges which were unquestionably intended to them in common with those granted to other foreign possessions of his Majesty. By this act it is provided that the governors and principal officers of his Majesty's revenues or customs, in places abroad, should register and grant the certificates of registry; but as the governors and principal officers of customs in India are under the East India Company and not officers of the crown, and therefore not described in the register act, such certificates have been withheld. To us, at least, this appears to be somewhat absurd. These governors must be approved by the king, and may be recalled by him; and the officers of the customs are remotely officers of the British revenue, the surplus revenues being applicable to the state after certain expenses have been discharged. These opinions are not merely ours, they are those of our ablest statesmen of the late Mr. Pitt, Lord Melville and Lord Dartmouth; the Marquis of Wellesley and Lord Grenville.

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Let us examine the grounds then on which the ship-builders or, which is nearly the same thing, the ship-owners, of the port of London, petition parliament, that in future East India-built ships may be prohibited by statute from being admitted to registry, and to the privileges of British-built ships.' We shall find them all set forth in the Resolutions of their committee of the 9th April, 1812.

In the first of these Resolutions it is stated, that while they contemplate the advantages which they expect to reap by a free intercourse with India, they look with the utmost alarm to the dangerous and destructive consequences from the great influx of East India-built ships.' From this dreadful shock it might be supposed that whole fleets of these black-ships' had been introduced into the general trade of the nation. Among the Returns laid before the House of Commons the last session, is one of all the ships built in India and admitted to registry from 1st January, 1794, to 5th April, 1813; from which it appears that the total number is 76, and the measurement 48,438 tons.

Of these ships

16 are now employed by the East India Company, trading with the country in which they were built,--their measurement

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34 have been taken, burnt, lost, or worn out 11 are now in India

1 in his Majesty's service

14 unaccounted for, being small ships, and supposed to have been sold in England

76 Ships.

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Tons.

12,928

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It appears from this authentic document, that in a period of 19 years, the great influx of India-built ships' consists of 14, measuring 5952 tons; these and no more have been sold into the general trade of the country; and eleven only, or 8234 tons, remain in the hands of the owners, employed generally in the country trade in India, and sometimes bringing home cargoes the produce of that country, which they have a right to do under the most unfavourable construction that can be put on the navigation laws: yet building ships in India for sale in this country, is represented as a serious grievance to the Thames ship-builder!

From another return laid before the House of the number of ships, not Indiamen, launched in the Thames from the year 1770 to the end of 1812, it appears that the total number was 913, of which 848 were of less burthen than 350 tons each, and consequently under the size of those which, by the new charter, are permitted to bring cargoes from India. With these 848 therefore, India-built ships cannot be brought into competition; and their only interference with the Thames builders would be in the remaining 65 ships, which in 27 years is on an average 2 ships and per year.

A third return consists of the ships launched in the river Thames for the service of the East India Company, from 1770 to 1812. From this return we collect the following statement:-that in 24 years previous to the period when complaint was first made of India-built ships being admitted to a registry, namely, from 1770 to 1793 inclusive, 132 ships were built, measuring 112,156 tons; and that in the 19 succeeding years (from 1794 to 1812 inclusive) 99 ships were launched, measuring 98,794 tons; the former period giving an average of 5 ships, measuring 4672 tons a year; the latter 5 ships, or 5194 tons a year. The conclusion to be drawn is obvious: that the clamour raised about the decrease of shipbuilding on the Thames is unfounded,-since it results from the above statement that although the decrease in number is one-fourth of a ship per year, there is an actual increase of tonnage equal to 522 tons a year, which arises from the Company employing a larger class of ships than formerly.

But we have yet a return to produce which the ship-builders on the Thames will contemplate perhaps with no peculiar pleasure. It is that made to the House of the number of prize-ships, with their tonnage, admitted to registry, and which were in existence and actually belonging to the British empire on the 30th of September in every year from 1792 to 1812. On the 30th of September, 1811, this number was 4,023 ships, measuring 536,240 tons; and on the 30th of September, 1812, 3,809 ships, measuring 513,044 tons. Now the smallest of these numbers exceeds four times the number of vessels built on the Thames for the merchant

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service, (exclusive of Indiamen,) in a period of twenty-seven years, and is equal to the average building for a whole century. This is, indeed, an interference with the employment and profits of the British ship-builders. The fourteen India-built ships, of 5952 tons, brought into the general trade in nineteen years, and which have created such alarm, compared with these prize ships, dwindle into nothing. We might ask how it happens that all mention of them has been avoided in the Resolutions?' It was not quite convenient perhaps to bring forward the question of right of these prize-ships to registry, because it involved another question of policy, which affected the interests of our brave seamen, and which would be universally scouted. The committee chose rather, therefore, to direct their attack against an object not worth their notice the fourteen ships in preference to the 4,000-though they could not be ignorant that the former were brought into the market by a few private traders, whose distant residence might not always allow them the opportunity of asserting their rights.

The third Resolution embraces matter of which a great part seems rather beyond the sphere of a ship-builder. It states,

That the consequences of continuing to admit ships built in India, which are navigated by natives of that country, to a participation in this trade, will prove ruinous to the various classes of the people interested and employed in the building, repairing, and equipment of British-built ships; thus sacrificing great national interests and establishments to support one of dubious utility, and of unquestionable danger in the East Indies, where the most confident politician cannot be secure that at no distant period it will not be made a powerful engine of annoyance to the mother country, which so imprudently admitted its establishment and since has raised it to its present dangerous state.'

If there were really any grounds for apprehending that the Indiabuilt shipping would materially affect the general interests of the ship-builders, and the employment of British ships, we should be the last to recommend a measure of such pernicious tendency; but when we consider that there has been a demand for 500,000 tons of prize ships for the general commerce of the country, a supply which, on the return of peace, must wholly cease; that these prize ships are some old, others ill built, and all of them fast wearing out; and that the ships now employed as transports are pretty much in the same predicament, we greatly doubt whether the Thames builders will be able to supply the demand for ships below the tonnage permitted by the new charter to double the Cape of Good Hope. Above that tonnage, the fewer they construct the better. We have long been of opinion that the Directors of the East India Company would best consult the interests of their constituents, and, what is of more importance, the general interest of

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