HC Deb 14 April 1812 vol 22 cc329-32
Lord Leveson Gower

presented a Petition from several manufacturers of china and earthenware in the Staffordshire potteries; setting forth,

"That the Staffordshire potteries, containing originally but few inhabitants, and possessing little except the rude productions of nature, have, by the skill and industry of the potters, become the seat of manufactories of national importance, giving support to a considerable population, and supplying tonnage to a great amount for the coasting trade and for inland navigation in the conveyance of raw materials, the products of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Kent, Derbyshire, and Wales, and in the transport of a bulky manufactured article; and that in time of peace, the productions of these manufactories found their way to all parts of the known world, but since the commencement of the present unexampled system of commercial warfare, they have experienced, in common with the others in the United Kingdom, the privations unavoidably produced by a total exclusion from the continent of Europe; and that restricted as the Petitioners were, by the severe prohibiting decrees of the enemy, from any participation in the continental trade of Europe, it became of the highest importance to preserve our extensive and valuable commerce with the United States of America, by every means consistent with our national honour and interest; and they humbly conceive that the Orders in Council issued in 1807, and continued in certain of their provisions in an Order of 1809, were intended to force a commercial communication with the continent of Europe from the pressure of its necessities, but instead of producing that effect, they are manifestly the cause of still further curtailing our trade, by depriving us of the market of the United States of America, the only one of importance which was left open to us; and that notwithstanding the Berlin Decree our trade with the United States was as flourishing as at any former period until the Orders in Council were issued, followed by the American embargo and Non-Importation laws; and, when the Petitioners consider the naval superiority of this country, they cannot suppose it would have been interrupted by that Decree, or by any other within the power of the enemy; and that it is with the most painful anxiety the Petitioners find themselves compelled to represent the present depressed and alarming state of their trade, the number of bankruptcies is unprecedented, more than one fifth of our manufactories are unoccupied and falling to decay, and the remainder, many of which are at work on the prospect of the opening of the American market, are employed on the average to little more than half their usual extent, great numbers of workmen are without employment, and they and their families are dependent upon our daily increasing poor rates for subsistence; and praying the House to take such measures as to them shall seem meet, to relieve the distresses of the country, and to prevent the still greater calamities which the Petitioners are persuaded would result from the continuance of the Order in Council of the 26th of April 1809."

Lord Milton

presented a Petition from several merchants and manufacturers interested in the woollen trade, and resident in the West Riding of Yorkshire; setting forth,

"That the Petitioners form a considerable portion of that description of his Majesty's subjects whose persevering industry has contributed to raise to a pre-eminent degree of wealth and greatness this their native country; and that the Petitioners are sensible of the existing national difficulties, and of the various and unjust means devised by the inveterate and subtle enemy of their country to injure and destroy their national independence, and have, therefore, borne without complaint a large portion, and are yet willing cheerfully to undergo their share, of the privations necessary to effect the national safety, but they cannot any longer refrain from representing to the House the distress which they feel as a body, in a much severer degree than most of their fellow subjects, occasioned, as it appears to the Petitioners, by a perseverance in that system of commercial regulations known under the name of the British Orders in Council, adopted and pursued ever since the year 1807, and at the same time expressing to the House a doubt, which the Petitioners very sensibly feel, how those measures can tend to promote the national security, which, after so long a trial, produce nothing but ruin to the national commerce; and that their houses and warehouses are stored with goods prepared for foreign markets to which they have no access; when the ports of Europe were shut to our manufactures, they consoled themselves with the fruits of their trade to America, and since the interruptions that have happened to the extensive commerce previously carried on between that country and this, they have endeadeavoured to find markets for their goods elsewhere; but collectively their endeavours and their enterprizes prove vain and fruitless, large stocks of manufactured goods remain on hand, their capitals are locked up in commodities, for the sale of which the proper markets are shut against them, and their industry is paralized; and that the number of bankruptcies and insolvencies that have recently taken place in old commercial houses of well-established credit and extensive dealings, as well as those of lesser note, are the effect, and the evidence also, of the ruinous consequences of the British Orders in Council, for, until they were acted upon, the commercial Decrees of the French government were harmless to the Petitioners; if other evidence be needful, they appeal to the fact of the great reduction within the last four years in the number of master manufacturers in the said riding, a class of men whose active employment of a small capital, aided by their own personal skill and industry, has essentially contributed to raise and establish a competition, and a spirit of enterprize and exertion in the whole body of merchants and manufacturers which has so long secured the preference to British woollens in every foreign market, and that the distress and ruin of so many master manufacturers, added to the general stagnation of trade, have thrown out of employ great numbers of the labouring class of manufacturers, many of whom are thereby driven to seek parochial relief, or to worse and more unjustifiable courses, and instead of contributing by their usual labours to the wealth of the nation, only multiply the heavy burdens and distresses to which those of the Petitioners are subjected who are not yet reduced to the same deplorable condition; and praying the House to take these facts into their most serious consideration, and adopt such measures, tending either to rescind or modify the aforesaid Orders in Council or otherwise, as the House in their wisdom shall deem best calculated to restore and preserve the trade of the United Kingdom, and in particular to open and establish our commerce with the whole continent of America."

Ordered to lie upon the table.