§ A Petition of the Merchants Traders and Inhabitants of, and carrying on business within, the port of Plymouth, was presented and read; setting forth,
§ "That the act 23 Geo. 3, c. 52, vesting the entire right of commerce and navigation in the seas and to the territories between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan in the East India Company, will expire on the 1st of March, 1814; and that, by the act 37 Geo. 3, c. 57, permission is given to foreign nations, in amity with Great Britain, to trade to those countries, though denied to other British subjects than the East India Company; and that the confining the East India trade from Great Britain to the port of London alone, must be considered unjust, unwise, and impolitic, inasmuch as it restrains a commerce in which the whole of his Majesty's subjects have a natural right to participate; and that the throwing open the trade of India, now confined to a single port, to the different ports of the United Kingdom, would unquestionably tend to excite emulation amongst its merchants, and increase the revenues, wealth, strength, and glory of the British empire; and that the port of Plymouth possesses every capacity and convenience of harbours, docks, stores, and warehouses for any trade whatever, and its situation in the British channel, admitting an easy ingress and egress of ships and vessels in alt winds and weather, makes it equal to any port of the British isles for carrying on an extensive commerce, and is particularly well adapted for trade" to the East India seas; and that the merchants and traders' of the port of Ply mouth have of late years considerably increased their property in shipping, which is still augmenting, and praying, that the House will not permit any further extension or renewal of the East India Company's charter, but that it may be suffered to expire on the 1st of March 1814; and that, from that time, the trade to the British East India settlements may be opened to all his Majesty's subjects, or if it should be thought proper to confine the trade to certain ports, that the port of Plymouth may be named and appointed as one of them."
§ Ordered to lie upon the table.