much more numerous than they are at present.

The navy

of Spain, once so powerful, has dwindled almost to nothing; her merchant ships have nearly disappeared from the ocean. The navy of France is less numerous and less formidable than it was at the breaking out of the revolution, and her commercial shipping, though reviving since the peace, is probably, at this moment, not more than one-half of its amount in 1792. On the other hand, whether we look to the number of ships of war, to the means of manning those ships, to the general spirit which pervades every branch of the service, or to any other element of naval power, what a contrast between our situation at the close of the last and of the American war! Can we forget the period when the combined fleet of the House of Bourbon was master of the British Channel,-when a West-India convoy was obliged to assemble at Leith, and go north about, in order to escape capture by an enemy's fleet, within sight of our principal sea-ports? Can we forget when Gibraltar, blockaded by the united naval forces of those same powers, was relieved, as it were, by stealth ?-when it was considered matter of just praise to the highly-distinguished officer who commanded the British fleet on that trying occasion, that in performing this service, he was able to elude the vigilance of a superior enemy, and to return to England, with out having risked a combat?

These are among the recollections which belong to the American war. How different from those which connect themselves with the war by which it was succeeded! That our sway on every part of the ocean was undisputed by the naval power, not of France and Spain only, but of all Europe, before the close of the last war, is matter of notoriety. In fact, the British navy was then occupied in the blockade of every naval arsenal of its enemies; and this, for the last years of the war, formed its principal employment in Europe.

When we began that war, in the course of which we achieved so many victories, our commercial marine was three-fifths of its present amount. Our seamen in the King's navy, 16,000, instead of 30,000, their present number. We had then no reserve of veteran seamen, receiving for former services an annual allowance from the State. We have now such a reserve, amounting to many thousands, all of whom are liable, upon an emergency, to be called upon by the Admiralty, and of whom a large proportion would, I have no doubt, be found as efficient as before their discharge. Our ships, likewise, are in a more complete state, and better prepared with all the means of speedy equipment, than at any former period of peace. Never, I will venture to affirm, was there a time when the country might rest with greater confidence and satisfaction on the sufficiency of its naval resources than at the present. But we are told, and I am ready to admit it, that if the naval resources of France and Spain have declined, a new and formidable power has grown up in the United States of America. I have already stated, that the maritime means of that country had, from peculiar circumstances, been considerably benefited during the late war, which lasted so long, and spread so generally through Europe. But, if the commercial marine of the United States increased during that period, our own advanced in a greater amount. Since the restoration of a general peace, the Shipping of both countries has rather decreased. The diminution in that of the United States has been stated at 168,000 tons, which I believe to be fully equal to any diminution that has occurred in this country. I am warranted, therefore, in concluding that, upon a comparison of our commercial marine with the commercial marine of other powers, we have no reason to apprehend any of the difficulties now which the Petitioners predict, and that our naval means are fully adequate to any possible

emergency which may compel us to call them into exertion.

If, Sir, I have trespassed too long upon the time of the House, my apology, I trust, will be found in the vital importance of the subject. The severe distress, under which the country now labours, is attributed, in some quarters, to the changes which have recently taken place in our Navigation System, and in our Commercial Policy. If any honourable members entertain that opinion, all that I ask of them is to come forward, and point out distinctly to the House the specific changes to which they ascribe these consequences. It is for them to show, if they can, by evidence, or by argument, the connexion of cause and effect between those changes and the difficulties in which the country is now, unhappily, involved. Let them give a notice, and appoint a day for that purpose. This would be the manly course to pursue,-it was the course taken by the honourable member for Coventry, on the question of the Trade in Foreign Silks. For having taken this course I return him my sincere acknowledgments. To follow his example is the only favour I ask of those who heap abuse upon the measures in question, or who excite clamour out of doors, against the individual, upon whom has been devolved the task, however imperfectly executed, of submitting those measures, on the part of his Majesty's Government, for the approbation and sanction of parlia

ment.

The right honourable gentleman concluded by moving for copies of the several Accounts and Returns to which he had referred in the course of his speech.

Mr. Baring said, there was hardly a single point in the elaborate detail of the right honourable the President of the Board of Trade, in which he did not concur; and he rose, not so much with the in

• Mr. Ellice.

tention of following the right honourable gentleman's remarks, as with that of thanking him for the able manner in which he had developed his views, and for the general System which he proposed to adopt, with respect to our Domestic and Foreign Shipping. Mr. Hume repelled the outcry which had been raised against the principles on which the right honourable gentleman had been recently acting. Nothing, he said, could be more unjust than such an outery: the evils under which the Shipping Interest now laboured, were not to be attributed to the change of system which the right honourable gentleman had introduced, but to the weight of taxation under which the country was labouring. Mr. Charles Grant said, that the great object which his right honourable friend wished to accomplish by his Statement of that night, was to prove to the nation, that the complaints made against him out of doors were utterly unfounded, and that the measures which he had introduced had not had any effect in diminishing the Commercial Marine of the country, but, on the contrary, had considerably increased it. The motion was agreed to.

CORN IMPORTATION ACTS-ORDER IN COUNCIL FOR OPENING THE PORTS.

November 24.

The House having resolved itself into a committee on the Corn Importation Acts, to which the Order in Council of the 1st of September, for allowing the Importation of certain sorts of Foreign Corn was referred,

Mr. HUSKISSON addressed the Committee. He began by observing, that as the Order in Council for the opening of the ports for the admission of oats, oatmeal, pease, beans, and rye, which had just been referred to the Committee, was issued, not only without the authority of law, but in direct contravention of existing statutes, and as his Majesty had called Parliament together at that early period, chiefly for the purpose of having that Order submitted for their consideration, he thus took the earliest opportunity of

submitting to the House the grounds on which his Majesty had been advised to issue that order. This was a duty which ministers owed to Parliament, to the country, and to themselves; and if it should be the pleasure of the legis lature to grant them the indemnity for which they sued, so far from its becoming a dangerous precedent, it would rather tend to strengthen and confirm those bounds by which the different authorities in the State were limited. They owed it also to themselves, as they would otherwise be subject to certain legal penalties, for having so advised the Crown; and they likewise owed it to those subordinate officers who acted under their orders in opening the ports.

The date of the Order in Council was the 1st of September. At that time, most of the members of Parliament were resident in the country, and had an opportunity, in their several districts, of observing the state of the harvest. That circumstance would render it the less necessary for him to go into any lengthened statement on the present occasion; for he was certain the recollection of those members would bear him out in the assertion, that never was there a period when the reports from the different parts of the country so entirely concurred as to the harvest, and he hoped that those reports would be sufficient to justify ministers in the course they had pursued.

With respect to the state of the crops at that time, he would say first, that wheat, taken as a whole, was deficient in quantity and quality, and the quality of course affected the value of the quantity. Barley, on the whole, would not make more than about two-thirds of an average crop. Oats were generally deficient, and beans and pease much more so; and such had been the appearance of those crops in the ground, that in the month of July the prices were rapidly rising. About the middle of June, when the price of oats ought to be at the highest, as the old stock would at that