A bill intitled "An Act for enabling his majesty in council, to permit the Importation and Exportation into and from his majesty's territories in the West-Indies, and Continent of South America, of certain Goods and Commodities in Neutral Ships in time of War. Dissent.—1st, Because no proof whatever has been adduced to show either the expediency or necessity of a measure which facilitates and systematically establishes the suspension of our Navigation and Colonial Laws; and thereby sacrifices to Foreigners, the Supply Trade of the British West India Settlements, to which the United Kingdom and its dependencies are rightfully entitled in return for the monopoly they afford at their own market to the produce of those Settlements, 2dly, Because the bill will transfer responsibility from the West India Governors to his majesty's ministers at home; that is, it will take responsibility from those who alone can be judges of the necessity, and will give it to his majesty's ministers at a great distance, who cannot possibily have any information in due time to enable them to act on emergency; therefore the power of suspending the laws must be ultimately delegated to the persons from whom the responsibility will be removed, to persons who actually derive great emolument from the frequency of the abuse. 3dly, Because it will ultimately render our West India settlements dependent on the American States. 4thly, Because the British Colonies in North America will be ruined, or greatly prejudiced, in consequence of the admission of foreign American Shipping to the Supply Trade to the British West Indies. 5thly, Because Ireland in particular will be dependent on the discretion or caprice of Ministers or Governors for the Provision trade to the West Indies. 6thly, Because, through the relaxations and suspensions of the navigation-laws, our carrying trade and commerce are transferred to foreigners, the value of British shipping greatly depreciated, and the increase of foreign shipping employed in our trade, compared with the increase of British shipping being in the proportion of 12 to 1, ship-building is so alarmingly discouraged in this kingdom, that only two ships for the merchant service have been built in the 117 River Thames since December 1802, a period of nearly three years and a half, and only two more are now building there, and ship-building in general in the several ports of this kingdom has decreased nearly in the same proportion. 7thly, Because if the United Kingdom and its dependencies cannot, at all times, furnish the necessary articles to the British West Indies (the contrary of which, however, may be proved) the intercourse with the American States for supplies may and can be most surely and steadily carried on as heretofore in British Shipping, navigated according to law, of which there is and has been a large number unemployed since neutral vessels have been permitted to enter the ports of the British West India settlements. 8thly, Because, if the Ships of the American States are permitted to enter the ports of the British West Indies, they will at the same time introduce, as they do at present, all East India and European goods, to the detriment of the British East India Company, and to the shipping, the manufactures, and commerce of the United Kingdom and its dependencies. Lastly, Because the Petitioners against this bill, who prayed that they might be allowed to state how they shall be aggrieved thereby, have been refused to be heard, notwithstanding the strong allegations stated in their petitions which they offered to prove by the most respectable evidence at the Bar of the House.
§ (Signed) SHEFFIELD