Mr. Blackburnpresented a Petition from several inhabitants of the town and neighbourhood of Blackburn, in the county of Lancaster, setting forth, "That, in the exercise of those inestimable rights with which the constitution of the country has invested them, the Petitioners venture to lay before the House their sentiments and feelings on subjects of the highest importance to their national and individual welfare; and that in the institution of the authorities of the House, the Petitioners behold that link which unites them to the throne, and to the House, as the Representatives of the people, they direct their confidence and expectations; the immediate connection of the House with those whose suffrages have entrusted to them the preservation of the interests of the Petitioners, naturally emboldens them to look to their sympathy for commiseration, to their wisdom for direction, and to their measures for redress; they will therefore state, with respectful submission, the circumstances on which their claims to the attention of the House are founded, and, in making this appeal to them, they are persuaded, that not only are their own convictions expressed, but the known undisguised and avowed convictions of thousands in every part of the united empire; and that the Petitioners reside in the most populous of the manufacturing counties, and unhappily possess the means of accurately observing the effects of protracted war and restricted commerce; in ascertaining those effects, it will be sufficient for them to state the high price of all the necessaries of life, the unparalleled and long-continued reduction of wages, the frequent interruptions of labour, the consequent difficulty of obtaining a bare subsistence, the rapid advancement of parochial rates, the increasing deficiencies in. the collection of assessed taxes, the exhaustion of the little stores by which the more laborious and provident formerly hoped to obtain a trifling elevation above absolute poverty, the gradual disappearance of the middling classes, which are fast melting down into the lower orders of the community, and the certain prospect of evil still more injurious to the individual sufferers, and to the interests of the country at large; these are some of the consequences of that state of things which is so poignantly to be deplored, and the causes and removal of which, the Peti- 95 tioners pray that the House will take into immediate and dispassionate consideration; in thus adverting to the afflictive privations of the poor, the Petitioners by no means wish it to be inferred that they are the only sufferers; it must be obvious to the House, that the unprecedented number of failures and bankruptcies in the higher departments of commercial society, and in all its descending gradations, are immediately owing to those causes, which, in their ultimate but severest operation, affect the labouring and mechanical classes; they could easily amplify this general statement by a minute detail of painful events; but the members of the House are sufficiently acquainted with the numerous and increasing accumulation of facts in support of the account which has been presented; what those causes are to which evils of such enormity and magnitude may be traced, it is not difficult to ascertain; the Petitioners submit that they may be discovered in the impolicy which suggested, adopted, and still continues un-revoked, the Orders in Council, in the absence of conciliatory measures towards the United States, and in the want of clear, prompt, and satisfactory explanations in diplomatic negociations with that country; but they are imperiously compelled to specify what, in their apprehensions, is the primary cause of their sufferings; as natives of a country professing the Christian religion, they deplore the moral effects of war; as men, they lament the miseries of their fellow-creatures; as Britons, they feel convinced that war is inimical to their interests; that its continuance is more injurious to a commercial country, like our own, than to one which possesses, within itself, greater physical resources; that the subjugation of the enemy is more impracticable than ever; and that his power is more firmly compacted by the opposition he has encountered; supported by these facts, in the opinions they form of the consequences of the present war, the Petitioners fuel the most urgent solicitude, arising from convictions which are every day confirmed and increased, that the House should direct its attention to the revocation of those decrees, which, in imitation of an enemy's policy, have accomplished the object of that policy instead of their own, and which, by their continuance, present the main obstacle to the amicable adjustment of differences with America; they also submit, that the restrictions by which 96 the East India trade has been limited to an individual incorporation, in the metropolis of the kingdom, should be annihilated when the present period of its mono-poly shall expire, and that, on the principles of liberal economy, the advantages of that trade should be enjoyed without exclusion or limitation; but they especially entreat that measures towards the pacification of Europe may become the subjects of the immediate deliberation of the House, who will thus obtain a truly dignified elevation in being the first to sheathe the sword when no object of utility can be effected, when war can be no longer subservient to that which is its only legitimate object, the security of peace; the House will thus obtain at least a temporary cessation to the miseries and distractions of a bleeding world, they will excite afresh the powerful energies of a commercial people, they will furnish employment and subsistence lo an immense population at home, they will give stability and consolidation to our colonial dependencies abroad, they will raise the tone of national character in the estimation of surrounding countries, and connect the remembrance of our pacific achievements with the gratitude and attachment of millions for whose weal they legislate, and whose prosperity is inseparably combined with our own; the Petitioners are aware that an appeal to the feelings of sensibility, or the power of imagination, would be incongruous, but they humbly solicit the attention of the House to higher and more definite principles; and that before the evils which now press so severely on the various classes of society are extended and multiplied beyond the possibility of endurance, the Petitioners beseech the House to investigate their causes, to ascertain the effectual means of counteraction, and, from motives of policy, patriotism, and justice, to administer the appropriate remedies."
§ Ordered to lie upon the table.