HC Deb 27 April 1812 vol 22 cc1058-64
General Gascoyne

said, that he was instructed by his constituents to present to the House a Petition, signed by 6,500 most respectable individuals of the town of Liverpool, who in the space of only four days, had stepped forward to affix their signatures, for the purpose of praying the repeal of the Orders in Council as the cause of the commercial distress which affected not that place merely, but the country in general. The majority of the persons whose names now appeared at the fool of the Petition, were those who had signed a Petition against the Orders in Council when those measures first originated, and had then foretold the calamities which the trade of Liverpool had since suffered from the effects of those Orders, and from the closing of the ports of America. The melancholy statement of the actual condition of Liver pool, which was inserted in the Petition, was unwillingly obtruded upon the feel- ings of the House, in consequence of the contradiction given upon this subject to the information which an hon. member (Mr. Creevey) had deemed it right to afford. Upon the general question he would now say nothing, but merely move that the Petition be brought up.—The question having been put,

Mr. Creevey

referred to the 6,560 witnesses who in this Petition bore ample testimony of the perfect truth of the assertions he had made regarding the real miseries of the inhabitants of Liverpool.

General Tarleton

observed, that the accounts he had obtained, and which he had communicated to parliament on a former occasion, in opposition to the allegations of the hon. gentleman, were derived from the most respectable authority.

Mr. Wharton

bore witness to the deference due to the quarter to which the hon. general was indebted for his intelligence, and stated that he had himself received letters corroborating the facts formerly brought before the House.

The Petition was then brought up and read; setting forth,

"That the petitioners are compelled, by the most urgent necessity, to lay their distresses and their grievances before the House; and that the general depression of the commerce and manufactures of the country has been particularly felt by the town and port of Liverpool; that the trade has rapidly declined; and that the more laborious part of the inhabitants, consisting of shipwrights, ropemakers, sail-makers, carpenters, porters, carters, and labourers, with their numerous families, are reduced to a state of unexampled suffering and distress; and that the petitioners have heard, with surprize and indignation, that statements have been made tending to keep the House, and the country at large, in ignorance of the real state of that populous town, and denying facts which are but too grievously notorious to every inhabitant of the place; and that it is not true, as the petitioners understand it has been publicly represented, that there were not more than from 3,000 to 4,000 persons whose necessities entitled them to support and assistance from a public subscription of the inhabitants, entered into for that purpose; and that it is not true that not a single shipwright is out of employ in Liverpool, who is willing to work; and that the fact is, that the distresses of the labouring part of the community and their families having rendered relief indis- pensably necessary, a public subscription was entered into for that object in the month of December last, by which nearly 16,000 persons were in one week relieved and that the petitioners compute the number of persons so receiving relief to have been at least one-sixth part of the present population of the town; and that the falshood of the assertion, that there is no want of employ for those who are willing to work, is apparent through the whole town of Liverpool, amidst all its docks, on all its quays, and in every street, where numbers of industrious mechanics, many of whom are free burgesses of the town, are seen without employment, whilst others are compelled by their necessities to solicit in the vicinity of the town for charitable aid; and that, in addition to the want of employ, the distressed situation of the town is aggravated by the present high and rapidly increasing price of all the necessaries of life, from which evils, if some relief cannot be obtained, by the speedy interference of the House, the petitioners cannot but apprehend the most alarming and fatal consequences; and that it appears to the petitioners to be as impious as it is unjust, to attribute the distresses which affect the country principally to the dispensations of Providence, as to the productions of the soil, or to any other cause which the interference of the House, in conjunction with the other branches of the legislature, may not in a great degree remove; and that the petitioners have heard, with real alarm, that a high and confidential servant of the crow did, in the presence of his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer, and of a respectable deputation from the inhabitants of a large manufacturing town, lately make use of language which appears to the petitioners, from the time and occasion on which it was introduced, to develope the views and intentions of ministers more decisively than thousands of state papers and public documents; and shews that they are prepared to risk the very existence of the country on the further prosecution of measures which have already reduced it to its present unexampled state of suffering; and that the petitioners cannot but avow to the House, their most solemn conviction that the distresses of the country are primarily occasioned by the present ruinous and long protracted war, by the sacrifice of the manufacturing and commercial interests of the country to war, measures injurious only to ourselves, thereby destroying and drying up the very sources of revenue, and, in particular, by the Orders in Council affecting in their operation our trade with neutral states; and that the consequences of these Orders are more particularly felt in the port of Liverpool, where, during the year 1807, being immediately prior to the operation of the Orders in Council, 489 American vessels, independently of other neutral ships, were cleared out, and where, in the course of six months, in the year 1809, when the effect of such Orders was understood to be suspended by negociation, 336 American vessels were cleared out, which ships were laden almost entirely with British manufactures, having afforded in their outfit profitable employment to great numbers of merchants, tradesmen, mechanics, and labourers of the town of Liverpool; and that, in consequence of the Orders in Council of November, 1807, continued in certain of their provisions by another Order in Council of the 2Gth of April, 1809, the shipments from neutral states to that port are become very inconsiderable; and that, in particular, the merchants of the American states, being by local regulations of their own government prevented, during the continuance of the Orders in Council, from importing, in return for their cargoes, the manufactures of this country, are compelled to draw bills of exchange for the proceeds of their shipments, which bills have been for some months last past at a discount in the united States of 15 to 20 percent., and are now nearly unsaleable at any price; a circumstance felt at the present time with particular pressure by this country, from its enhancing the price and greatly diminishing the quantity of grain and flour imported from America; and that, whilst the direct effect of the Orders in Council has been to diminish and injure the revenues, commerce, and manufactures of these kingdoms, they have also compelled neutrals to rely upon their own efforts for those articles which were before supplied by this country, and notoriously to establish manufactories of various kinds, which must eventually lead to an exclusion of British manufactures, and thereby render permanent those evils which are at present experienced; and that the petitioners cannot but contemplate with the most pointed sentiments of disapprobation, the system of a licensed trade with the enemy, by which a power of dispensing with the laws is vested in the minister for the time being, and has been exercised, as the petitioners humbly apprehend, to a most dangerous and alarming extent: that the direct and immediate effect of such measures is the increase of the naval power of our enemies, the transferring the commerce of this country to hostile and foreign traders, and the encouragement of crimes which destroy all confidence amongst civilized states, and which, when limited in their effects to these realms, are punished with the most exemplary severity; the petitioners therefore most humbly, but confidently, call upon the House to vindicate the national character, and to mark with due reprobation a system of intercourse involving the breach of all moral obligation, highly dangerous to the ultimate safety of the country, and supported by perjury, forgery, and fraud; and that the petitioners humbly conceive that these and many other evils would be done away by withdrawing the Orders in Council, that such a measure, by restoring a free intercourse between this country and neutral states, would relieve the nation in general, and the town of Liverpool in particular, from great and increasing distress, would open and restore to our manufacturers the most valuable markets which our country ever possessed, would encourage the shipments and importation of grain and flour, now so indispensably necessary to the supply of these islands, would again afford employment to the laborious part of the community, and would, as the petitioners are fully convinced, be found a speedy and substantial remedy for a great part of our present evils, and a security against those much greater calamines which appear to be rapidly approaching, and which the petitioners cannot contemplate without sentiments too alarming to be expressed; and praying, that the House will take this subject into their immediate consideration, and will afford the petitioners such relief as the House may in its wisdom think fit."

Mr. Rose

said, that he felt it incumbent upon him to give the most positive contradiction to one paragraph in the Petition which referred immediately to himself, and which was founded on the grossest misrepresentation. It referred to a meeting between him and a committee of gentlemen from Birmingham, at which his right hon. friend (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) was present, and the member for the county of Warwick. Instead of using any language which could lead the gentlemen to think that ministers were insensible to the distresses represented to them, he appealed to all who had been present if the whole of the conversation lid not show that government gave full credit to the statement made; and he (Mr. Rose) expressly allowed, that the iron manufactories of Birmingham were peculiarly injured by the existing obstruction of trade with the United States; and deeply lamented that nothing could be done for their relief. He denied in the most positive manner, that any thing passed which could be construed into an insensibility on his part, and he appealed to any member that heard him, whether throughout his public life, his conduct had not been governed by an extreme anxiety, if possible, to alleviate distresses whenever they were represented to him. He referred with the utmost confidence to his right hon. friend, to state whether a single word had been uttered by him which could afford the slightest foundation for the expressions employed by the petitioners. If he had conducted himself as was represented, he should think that he was unworthy of filling any office in the public, service for the remainder of his existence.

Mr. Tierney

said, that the question was not whether the right hon. gent. was insensible to the miseries presented to his view, but whether he had employed the unfortunate expression referred to. He did not understand that the fact was denied that the right hon. gentleman had said that the two countries were in the situation of two men whose heads were in a bucket of water, and the struggle was, which of the two could remain longer in that situation without suffocation. This kind of metaphorical language might sufficiently express the nature of the mercantile contest produced by the Orders in Council, but it was rather unfortunate when addressed to those whose heads were under water, and suffering all the pains of strangulation.

Mr. Rose

.—I assert again that I have no recollection of having used such an expression, and I am certain that it was not addressed to any of the gentlemen who waited upon me. I do not undertake to deny it positively; it might have been said by me. All I can undertake to state positively is, that no such phrase was used by me to the deputation generally; but whether I said it to any individual I will not pretend to determine. I deny too that if I used it, it proceeded from any want of feeling on my part for the distresses complained of.

Lord Stanley

said, that a few days afterwards he met some of the gentlemen of the deputation, who repeated to him the words referred to in the Petition, and certainly it was considered by them as shewing a great degree of insensibility on the part of the right hon. gentleman.

Mr. J. W. Ward

remarked, that the expression had been repeated to him by a member of the House a day or two after it had been used.

The Petition was ordered to lie on the table.