§ A Petition of several Setters and Calenderers of London, employed by the East India Company, was also presented and read; setting forth,
§ That the petitioners are informed that numerous applications have been made from various parts of the kingdom, praying that the trade to the East Indies and China may be laid open to the public at large; and that the petitioners, in common with a great number of his Majesty's subjects residing in and near the city of London, derive their sole support from the 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 ensure the superior execution of the different operations on the 1137 East India Company's exports, that the confidence with which they are received by the consumers has been established and that the petitioners have 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 dispersion of the East India Company's trade, must be dismantled, to the great injury of the freehold proprietor, and to the ruin of the petitioner?, who would have no other means of employing their knowledge of that branch of the business to which they have been so long accustomed; and that the situation of the workmen employed by the petitioners, amounting to some hundreds, would be in the highest degree distressing, as they would be found equally incapable of adapting their habits to new modes of business, and consequently both they and their families would be deprived of the means of subsistence; and praying, that the House will take these circumstances into their most serious consideration, and by their wisdom prevent the dreadful consequences that are likely to ensue to the petitioners."
§ Ordered to lie upon the table.