§ A Petition of several merchants and manufacturers in the city of Glasgow, was presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That the petitioners havet he strongest reasons to complain of that line of policy which has so long confined the commerce of India, China, and the other countries to the Eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, by charters of monopoly granted to the honourable the united company of merchants of England trading to the East-Indies; and they are fully persuaded that every grant of this nature has retarded 724 the national improvement; and that, as the light of all British subjects to a free trade, on an equal footing, is undoubted, that the abandonment of that right in any degree, however small, or for any period, however short, can never be done without producing consequences highly prejudicial to the nation; and that the regulations which have hitherto given to the port of London the whole trade of the East, appear to the petitioners to be contrary to the rights of British subjects, and to those principles of liberal policy by which this nation is governed; and praying, that no exclusive grant may be given of the trade to the Eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, and that the commerce with those countries may not be confined to any particular port in the United Kingdom, but that the House will adopt such measures as will restore and secure to the petitioners that commercial freedom and those equal privileges to which, as British subjects, they have an undoubted right."
§ A Petition of the provost magistrates and town council of the royal burgh of Renfrew, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That in the present situation of the commercial and manufacturing interests of these kingdoms, the industrious mechanics and labourers are under great distress, which the petitioners humbly conceive would be greatly ameliorated by granting a free trade to India from all parts and ports of the nation; and that the abolition of the monopoly of the East-India Company would be an act of justice putting the trading part of the empire on an equal footing, and opening additional sources of wealth and prosperity to the empire at large; and praying the House to adopt such measures for abolishing the monopoly and opening a free trade, as to them shall seem expedient."
§ A Petition of the provost magistrates and town council of the royal burgh of Dumbarton, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That the petitioners beg leave respectfully to convey their wishes, in common with those of every part of the empire on the subject of the approaching expiration of the East India Company's Charter; and that the experience of ages evinces, that monopolies are hurtful to the general interests of commerce, and the circumstances of the times also call for the exercise 725 of a free trade to the East Indies as a measure which, in a peculiar degree, will counteract that war on our commerce, the effects whereof the British merchants have borne the more cheerfully, in the expectation of being allowed a participation in a traffic to a quarter out of the reach of the enemy; and that this new branch of trade the petitioners have no doubt would afford ample scope for the exertion of the skill and enterprize of merchants, and render the present restraints on commerce in a great degree unfelt; and praying the House to adopt such measures as may render it lawful for any of his Majesty's subjects, after the expiration of the East India Company's present charter, to carry on a free and unlimited trade from any of the ports of the United Kingdom to the British possessions in India, and from thence to such particular ports in the United Kingdom, as the wisdom of parliament may see proper."
§ A Petition of the provost magistrates town council and deacons of the incorporations of Lanark, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That, in consequence of the unfortunate state of the commercial and manufacturing interests of the country, thousands of industrious workmen have recently been thrown out of employment, and reduced from a life of labour and happiness to one of idleness and misery; and that, in the opinion of the petitioners, the granting a free trade to India, or the abolition of the exclusive privilege vested in the East-India Company, would be a measure not admirably adapted for removing those evils under which the empire at present labours, but also an act of justice, in so far as it would communicate to the British subject that permission to trade which, by 37 Geo. 3 c. 57, has alone been extended to the subjects of foreign nations in amity with his Majesty; and that, in the firm persuasion that the right to trade ought to be declared to belong alike to every subject of the British empire, and for that reason hostile to every species of monopoly, the petitioners are, if possible, still more decidedly inimical to that system of policy which, while it establishes an exclusive privilege in one body of merchants, gives room for the enterprize of the foreigner, but shuts the door against the exertions of the British trader, or at least, by means of numerous and complicated restrictions, leaves those exertions 726 almost, if not entirely, without their reward; and that, in these circumstances, the petitioners cannot contemplate the abolition of the exclusive privilege, and the permission of a free trade to India, otherwise than as a measure of the utmost importance and propriety, as admirably calculated at once to impart new life and animation to our trade and manufactories, to give employment to thousands of industrious and useful workmen, at present reduced to idleness and consequent poverty, to serve as an excellent nursery of seamen for our navy, and at the same time to augment the resources, and to increase and insure stability to the prosperity of the British empire; and praying the House to adopt such measures as to them may seem necessary for accomplishing the abolition."
§ A Petition of several inhabitants of the town of Wednesbury, in the county of Stafford, and its neighbourhood, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That the petitioners contemplate, with deep concern, the present slate of the manufactures of the United Kingdom, which requires the most proper and effectual measures for relief; and that, without shrinking from the burthens and privations necessary to support the state, and the arduous conflict in which this country is engaged, they hold it to be equally as just as it is expedient, that all honourable means, and principally the means which are within the power of this country, should be used to lessen those burthens and privations as much as may be, and at the same time to counteract that odious but darling policy of an inveterate enemy, which he has so long and steadily pursued, with the view of accomplishing the ruin of this kingdom, by distressing its manufactures and commerce; and they humbly represent, that British subjects have an undeniable right to trade to every part of the British dominions, and that this right, however obstructed, can never be destroyed; and that the charter granted to the East India Company has led to and established a fact as much at variance with reason as with justice; viz. that, whilst the subjects of a foreign power have been permitted to carry on trade with part of our possessions, subjects of this kingdom have been excluded; and they are of opinion, that it is impossible for any joint stock company to carry on trade to any thing like the extent 727 and advantage that private merchants might do; and that the example of individuals, subjects of the united States of America, has proved the practicability of carrying on a most extensive and lucrative trade to the East without the assistance of any joint stock company; and the petitioners humbly represent, that all monopolies are unjust in principle, and Injurious in practice, operating as restraints upon individual industry and enterprize; and that, in the present state of the world, it is necessary to abolish the commercial monopoly of the East India Company, in order to open to the manufactures of this kingdom those immense markets which it possesses beyond the power and influence of the enemy; and praying the House to take such measures for the total abolition of the injurious monopoly of the East-India Company, at the end of the present charter, as to them shall seem proper."
§ The said Petitions were ordered to lie upon the table.