would be the consequence of this? Many of the owners must be broken down-perhaps a few of them might sustain the shock, so as not to be absolutely overset by it; generally speaking however, the consequences must be fatal to their inte rests part of them might be affluent men, but very few of them could well bear a loss of six or eight pounds per ton for four or five voyages: that would be such a crash as would deter men from coming forward with any new offers that were not sufficiently high to protect them in all events, which in other words, would be to raise the standard of peace freight, and thus to check the operation of the principle of free competition, which had so much influence in keeping down the freights. After such an example it could not be expected that men would be fond of venturing upon a permanent rate of peace freight. But still the objection was

systemi. The court of directors were actuated by no motives but those of an independent impartial consideration of the interests of the company, and a reasonable attention to the interest of those connected with them. This was in one plain sentence the short and long of the case. The ed the hon. gentleman might have detaincourt two hours longer upon the same subject, and after the same manner : but he could not have altered the fair argument upon which this case was founded. He might have wasted his strength in the same pursuit, but he could bring forward no statement-no fact-and no argument, that could answer or solve the question now submitted to the court, in any other manner than had been proposed; and he entreated the proprietary, for their own sake, to consider well, the simple but important point to which the question was now reduced. One of these things they must chuse, whether to continue the ships which they now employed upon the reasonable terms that might be settled for them, or whether they would discard them, and resort to such imperfect and casual supplies as other shipping not calculated for their purpose could afford them, in the spur of the moment, and in the exigency of their affairs. Upon this point they ought to exercise a wise and sound judgment, and not suffer themselves to be carried away by erroneous statements ts and fallacious arguments. The hon. gentleman talked about the mischief that would be done to that system, and the abuses to which the proposed measure might lead; he seemed to view with distrust the delegation of any discretion to the directors. No man was more anxious than he (the Chairman) was to preserve the shipping system as it now stood; and nothing would give him greater uneasiness than to see that system'shaken. He had devoted too many days and years to support of the system, now to lend himself to the subversion of it. But without going into a detail of the merits of that system, the question was whether, after a long period of twenty years of war, in all which the system had been advantageous to the company, they would now resolve on a course of measures, which though they might be represented as only an adherence to justice, and to the system itself, would in reality, by the ruin it would bring on the owners, prove seriously injurious to that system; for he verily believed, that the system would be materially affected, if the company were to proceed with such severity against every 1 owner, as to say, you must sail with a gone-by rate of freight, and if you do not, we will prosecute you for your penalties, and proceed against you for such damages the company shall have sustained by your breach of contract. Why, what

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if you trench upon the system at all, you in effect break it down. Now the same objection might be made to any system founded upon the like principles. But was it because the system was not to be followed up into rigorous execution at all times, and under all circumstances, that therefore, it could not continue an useful system; and that those who by soften-. ing an experienced inconvenience in it, were to be held up as destroyers of it? The very maintenance of the system was connected with a reference to times and circumstances: for while at one time it might be salutary to enforce its execution; at another, it might be really detrimental to it, to carry the exaction of a hard condition to the utmost extremity. Hence it was necessary for the preservation the system, that the company should look to the wonderful alterations which had taken place in the course of the last twenty years. To go now to the utmost rigour which the system allows, without any respect to that great change, would be in effect to strike at the practicability of the system.

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Suppose the company granted the relief now, it would be a relief advantageous to the company itself and without endangering the system. It was not proposed to keep the door perpetually open; it was to be shut as soon as the given specific object was attained. This was merely a temporary, an experimental arrangement, to relieve the distresses of the ship owners in order to procure a permanent benefit to the company. As to the discretional power which it was objected this would throw into the hands of the directors, it was, as just mentioned, to be merely temporary, and would by no means equal that which they had exercised through the long period of the war, namely, the power granting allowances for war contingencies, or extraordinaries, 3 R 2010 wai»

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tion that was to be settled with the owners, confining it to those who fitted out between the peace of Amiens, and preparations for the renewal of the war; but the act of parliament of 1803, framed after the renewal was certain, made provision, not for war allowances, which former acts had done, but for the grant of an allowance beyond the peace rate of freight to the ships fitted out after the return of peace, and before the renewal of the war.

Amongst other observations made by the hon. gentleman in the course of his speech, one was, that the present shipping committee had not even read the report of the committee of 1803. Surprized at so strange an assertion, he (the Chairman) felt himself obliged to give it the most positive contradiction, as not having the shadow of foundation, Why, the present committee founded their report upon that of the committee of 1803. The report of 1803 was distinctly brought before them. It was distinctly read, parts of it more than once, with deliberate consideration, yet the hon. gentleman ventured to assume, that the committee had not read the report at all. He (the Chairman) only mentioned this, as one of the ways in which the hon. gentleman had chosen to reason before the court. No doubt the committee of 1803 laid it down decidedly, that a case of loss must be made out, before it would be expedient to interfere in behalf of the owners; and they added, that such loss must appear to be almost a ruinous loss; they admitted too, that it was certainly a subject of grave consideration. The observation to this effect in a passage of the report of 1803, was as follows:-" It is not every claim of this sort that could be entertained, but only a case of loss, which distinctly and fully made out, that the owners would be subjected by going on on the terms of their contracts to ruinous loss." He quoted this, and one or two other passages to shew, that the committee of 1803 looked exactly to all the things which were now looked to by the present committee. They looked to the preservation of the system, and the necessity of relieving the owners from the ruinous loss; they considered, that the ruin of the owners would materially affect the system, and injure the company. Upon these views it was, that the court of directors that day recommended an application to parliament to obtain their sanction for affording the relief required; and that the court of proprietors resolved on that application; what was then adopted, was all that the present general court were now advised to adopt. He knew of no difference in the circumstances, only in that which he had already mentioned, namely, that the country had now the

prospect of a permanent peace; whereas then, the peace proved unfortunately to be of short duration. But undoubtedly as he had already stated, the committee of 1803 proceeded entirely on the belief that a permanent state of peace was commenced; and on that principle they recommended their measure. The present committee acted upon the same principle, and they recommended a like measure; only with this additional circumstance, that there was now a more certain prospect of durable tranquility. The act of parliament now proposed, was of the same nature, in respect to allowances, as the one passed in 1803.

The honourable gentleman had chosen to animadvert upon the measure recently adopted of the company's becoming shipowners themselves-a measure which he was pleased to treat with great disapprobation. Now for his own part he (the Chairman) said he was thoroughly convinced no measure could have been taken more clearly salutary for the interests of the company, and it must be supposed that if the honourable gentleman were better acquainted with the nature and tendency of it, and in what manner the whole had been conducted, he would not have ventured on the censure he had dealt out. He (the Chairman) only desired that the measure might be examined with candour and intelligence, and he was contented to stand or fall by it. And he was free to confess that he took an active part in recommending that measure to the court of directors. It was very true that there were men who could not be expected to view it with approbation. Those who were, or thought of being own, ers of ships, were not likely to think it right that the company should become ship-owners themselves, and so interfere with shipping concerns. But with a view to economy the scheme would be found decidedly advantageous. By having ships of their own the company could so far have their freights cheaper than on hired ships, and they could thus also from their own experience have a standard by which to judge more accurately of the rates of freight proper to be given both in peace and war to ships engaged on contract, Nothing so effectually answered this end as to make the experiment themselves and what they had hitherto done in this way had answered the purpose most effectually and had been highly beneficial to the company. The court of directors had certainly in the course of the year thought it their duty to purchase two ships for the company, but they had been obtained on such favourable terms that in the course of their service they would more than clear themselves. The honourable gentleman had argued upon this subject particularly with reference

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to the India trade and had talked of the losses sustained by the company in that trade. He was not aware that the hon. gentleman's views upon that subject were supported by any just authority. He was not aware of any losses sustained by the company by their trade with India. He thought the fact was otherwise. At the time indeed of the charter it suited their opponents to represent their India trade as a losing one, and on this topic exagerations might have been made by gentlemen who had a particular purpose to serva; but whatever might be the result of the company's Indian trade it was however comparatively a small object when considered with reference to their trade to China, in which most of the company's own ships are to be employed, there being two of them only out of the seven which they will possess at all fit for the India trade; so that the honourable gentleman has been very unfortunate in his speculations on this subject.

The honourable gentleman spoke of the patronage which this new system of shipbuilding on the company's own account, would confer upon the directors themselves. He said that the chairman would have a captain; the deputy chairman would have a captain, that all the directors would have their captains; and that consequently, a wide door would be open to private if not to corrupt influence. Now he must contradict the honourable gentleman in the strongest and most direct terms that one gentleman could employ to another, and to assert, that there was no existence in point of fact for his statements. He could not imagine from what quarter the honourable gentleman could derive his information: but it was totally at variance with the open and known proceedings of the court of directors in selecting commanders and officers for the company's own ships. The court had formed a code of regulations determining and detailing the principles and rules by which the selection should be made. Those regulations were printed for general information; and so far from any thing being done, in the way assumed by the hon. gentleman, no appointment took place by private or individual nomination. The

names of the candidates, their services and their pretensions were all exhibited and contrasted, and their characters scrutinized, and then the appointment was made not by partitioning patronage, or individual nomination, but by general vote, which as far as consisted with other proper considerations had respect to seniority of rank. The interest of the company, in short, had been consulted both in the rules for selection and in the manner in which those rules had been followed up. An examination of the proceedings in this business would be the

best test of the conduct of the directors; and if the proprietors thought fit to enter into such examination and to inspect the general list of their naval commanders and officers, they would find that the come manders and principal officers chosen were considered with reference to character, experience, and distinction in the service, and the officers of inferior station, whose services could not have been distinguished, were taken with a general regard to their standing and character. Nothing therefore could be more unfounded than this charge of the hon. gentleman.

The hon. gentleman had adverted to the case of ships which having been tendered at a higher peace freight were excluded by the lower tenders which brought in the ships that are now in the predicament of asking for relief. But the hon. gentleman here raised an argument upon his own mistake. The tenders which had been rejected were not tenders of ships already in existence, but tenders to build ; the general practice of the company being to engage ships to be built for them, not to take ships ready made. These tenders to build having been rejected because they were the higher, (the directors being obliged to take the lowest) the ships offered on those tenders were not built→→→ they therefore cannot come at all into question in the present argument. The persons tendering, were hence not in the situation described by the hon. gentleman of persons who had actually built ships for the exclusive service of the company, and had been disappointed of engaging them. This may be taken as another instance of the way in which the hon. gentleman represents the proceedings of the court of directors.

The hon. gentleman complained that the committee of shipping had given no estimate of what they meant to allow to the owners now in question. He (the Chairman) had given on the last day of the court's meeting, a very sufficient reason for that omission. It was not the business of the committee to make the owners privy to what they proposed to do, and what they thought the owners should have. If the committee were to announce that they meant to allow a cer tain given sum, why the owners would take that as a basis on which to try to raise a further superstructure-in short, being so far put at ease, they could without hasardding any thing, contend for more. It was the business of the company to make the best bargain they could: but how could this be effected, if as the hon. gentleman insisted, the views of the committee and their mode of calculation were to be previously laid open to the public? All that he (the Chairman) could say was, that the direc tors were determined to give as little as

possible, and would keep down the allowances as low as they could. Within the last few days, the company had received tenders for new ships to be built, and the lowest of those tenders was 261. per ton peace-freight. It was to be presumed that the persons proposing those tenders had made them as low as they could afford. Surely then, if 267. per ton was an equitable freight for ships to be employed next year, something must be necessary in the present year for ships which are engaged to sailat 177. 187. or 197. per ton peace freight. If 261. was a fair price in the present time, how could the ships in question afford to sail at their old freights?

The hon. gentleman found fault because different rates of allowance were given to different ships. This in the nature of things must be the case; and if the hon. gentleman had adverted to the reason of it, his observation must have been spared. Ships were paid different rates for different voyages, because the cost of outfit is greater in some voyages than in others. The amount of allowance for instance to a ship for repairs and other disbursements upon the second voyage, when she is still very new, must be far more than would be required for a ship upon her fourth voyage, when she needs a heavy repair. This was the whole of the history of the case, and it accounted for that difference in the rate of allowance to different ships, which excited the hon. gent's observation, and which after all could refer only to war allowances; the freight in peace being by contract one and the same for all the voyages.

The hon. gentleman complained that there were no dates given to shew when a ship's service commenced or the length of time for which she received the war allowances. The hon. gentleman was quite mistaken in his assumption. All these dates were to be found precisely stated in the company's records, and if the hon. gent. had read those records he would have found this to be the fact.

The hon. gent. had made a computation of what the company would pay if they adopted this proposal of the court of directors; and had said that it would amount to somewhere between four and five hundred thousand pounds. He (the chairman) must beg to demur to any calculation produced by the hon. gent. until Some satisfactory grounds were made out for his views upon the subject. To estimate the amount in the gross would lead to no certainty; but he (the chairman) could only say, that whatever the differ ence might be, the court might depend upon it, from the information which the directors had upon the subject, they would have to pay less in giving some additional allowance to the ships already in the

company's service than they must pay if they were obliged to take up other ships. This was a clear result from the whole of the case; upon that ground he would stand, and it was one of the grounds on which the measure was pressed on the consideration of the general court. If the hon. gent. supposed that there was any one member of the court of directors who wished to mislead the proprietors upon this subject, he was grossly mistaken. The directors had no wish whatever, of their own, upon the subject, unless that the company's interest might be consulted in the best manner. They were obliged to bring the measure forward, as in their view a matter of the most pressing urgency. They regretted the necessity of it in the year 1803; and they were actuated by the same feeling now. No member of the court, however active he might be, or however deeply interested in the welfare of the company, lamented the necessity of this measure more than he (the chairman) did: but there was in fact no other resource left than the expedient now proposed. Gentlemen might say a great deal about preserving the integrity of that system, and all that sort of argument, in which he agreed with them, as an abstract proposition but if they meant to follow up their doctrine practically to all the extent to which it would bear upon the present ship-owners, he could not go along with them, because that would, in another and a worse way, affect the system itself. For if those owners could not sail with any thing like the peace-rate of freight now claimable, the consequences were inevitable: the company could not have the ships. They would be exposed to considerable inconvenience on this account. They must have recourse to another class of ships, and if the company were to employ new ships, even upon the same system, they would cost more than the old ones. This was the short state of the case; and, without wishing to tire the court by going into other observations in answer to the hon. geutleman's statements, many of which really had no bearing upon the question, and which, without inquiry, he might not be prepared to go satisfactory into. Ashamed also of detaining the court so long upon a subject which might be fully discussed in half an hour, he would rather sit down and hear what others had to say on the subject; but before he did so, he would, upon recollection, just advert to one or two points. Of the necessity of preserving the present shippingsystem he had declared himself an advocate. Among the reasons which he had for being so, one was, the beneficial influence of it upon the finances of the company. This might be illustrated by a comparison of the rate of freight paid in

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