§ A Petition of several pressers of London, employed by the East India Company, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That the affairs of the East India Company are intended shortly to be brought before parliament, as signified by his royal highness the Prince Regent in his Speech from the throne; and the petitioners humbly presume to state to the House, that they, in common with a great number of other tradesmen employed by them, residing in and near the city of London, derive their support from the woollen trade which is there carried on by the East India Company; and that it is by the most strict attention to the various regulations which have been at different times made, and by the petitioners punctually attended to, that the East India Company's exports have secured the confidence with which they are received by the consumers in India; and that the petitioners being appointed pressers of woollen goods to the East India Company, have, in consequence, expended large sums of money in forming establishments suitable to those regulations in the different departments of the woollen trade which they respectively exercise, all which, in the event of the East India Company's trade being thrown open, would be the ruin of the petitioners, who would have no other means of employing their expensive implements, which would be rendered useless, and to them of no Value; and that the situation of the work- 338 men employed by the petitioners would be in the highest degree distressing, as they would be found incapable of adapting their habits to new modes of business, and consequently both themselves and their families would be deprived of the means of subsistence; and praying the House to take the circumstances into consideration, and prevent the dreadful consequences that must otherwise ensue."
§ Ordered to lie upon the table.