HL Deb 21 May 1819 vol 40 cc597-600
The Earl of Lauderdale

said, he had a petition to present, signed by between 4 and 500 of the most respectable merchants in the city of London, against the conclusions to which the Bank committees had come, as exem- plified in their plan for returning to a metallic circulation. If the petitioners aimed at having a permanent paper currency, he undoubtedly totally differed with them; but if, as he understood the petition, they objected to the plan of the Bank committees, as tending to produce a forced diminution of the circulating medium, and thereby to cause the greatest distress, he entirely agreed with them. His lordship having presented the petition, which was read and ordered to lie on the table, observed that the signatures were those of the most respectable persons in the city of London, and they would have been much more numerous had it not been for a circumstance that occurred at the general meeting which was summoned for the purpose of petitioning, namely the attendance there of Messrs. Hunt, Wooler, Pearson, and other persons of the same description, whose business it was to throw every thing into confusion. That these men went there in character, there could be no doubt, as they made no secret that they expected the greatest distress to be produced by the operation of the plan of the government; that half the taxes could not be paid in consequence; that commerce and agriculture would be nearly ruined; in short, that the greatest confusion would be the result: which was exactly what they wanted. The petition, had there been time, would, he was instructed to say, have been much more numerously signed.

The petition was as follows:

To the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, in Parliament assembled.

The humble petition of the undersigned Merchants, Bankers, Traders and others, of the city of London and its vicinity.

"Humbly sheweth;—That by an act passed in the 58th year of the reign of his present majesty, reciting that an act was passed in the 44th year of his present majesty's reign, intituled. 'An act to continue, until six months after the ratification of a definitive treaty of peace, the restrictions contained in several acts made in the 37th, 38th, 42nd, and 43rd years of the reign of his present majesty, on payments of cash by the Bank of England, which act had by several subsequent acts been continued until the 5th day of July 1818, and reciting that unforeseen circumstances which had oc- curred since the passing of the last of the said acts had rendered it expedient that the said restrictions should be farther continued, and that another period should be fixed for the termination thereof,' it is enacted that the said act should be, and the same was, thereby further continued until the 5th day of July, 1819.

"That the same circumstances which rendered it expedient that the said restrictions should be continued by the said act of the 58th year of the reign of his present majesty, until the 5th day of July, 1819, have not ceased to exist.

"That your petitioners have reason to apprehend, that measures are in contemplation with reference to the resumption of cash payments by the bank of England which in the opinion of your petitioners will, as they humbly submit to your lordships, tend to a forced, precipitate, and highly injurious contraction of the circulating medium of the country.

"That the consequences of such contraction will, as your petitioners humbly conceive, be to add to the burthen of the public debt; greatly to increase the pros-sure of the taxes; to lower the value of all landed and commercial property; seriously to affect both public and private credit; to embarrass and reduce all the operations of agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and to throw out of employment (as in the calamitous year of 1816) a great proportion of the industrious and labouring classes of the community.

"That your petitioners are fortified in the opinion which they have thus humbly submitted to your lordships, by the distresses experienced by the commercial, trading, manufacturing, and agricultural interests of the kingdom, from the partial reduction of the Bank issues, which it appears has recently taken place.

"That your petitioners humbly beg leave to represent to your lordships that they are fully convinced that neither the manner nor the time which your petitioners have reason to apprehend is intended to be proposed for the resumption of cash payment's, is suited to avoid the evils which they anticipate.

"Your petitioners therefore most humbly pray your lordships to take the premises into your serious consideration, and that the time, as at present fixed by law, for the termination of the restriction upon payments of cash by the Bank of Eng- land, may be extended to a period which shall not tend to a forced and precipitate contraction of the circulating medium of the country or, to embarrass trade, or to injure public credit, agriculture, manufactures and commerce, and that your lordships will be pleased to grant such farther or other relief in the premises as to your lordships shall seem meet."