The Sun.
London, England, 1823-09-24 00:00:00

COURT OF ALDERMEN.

A Court of Aldermen was held yesterday at
Guildhall, which being the first after the recess, was attended
by a considerable number of persons.
The inquest of the Ward of Bishopsgate made a present-
ment of .several• parties, for carrying on trade there without
being free of the City which was referred to the Chamberlain,
to give the requisite directions.
'he Inquest of Sr. Dunstan's precinct, in Farr
rred ref ingdon Witheth.
ant, also presented non.freemen, which wilt eto
Chamberlain.
Another presentment of non-freemen was made from St. Se-
pulchre% Inquest, togetherwith the inconvenience sustained by
ltopping up the thoroughfare in Wheatsheaflard to Seacoal-
lane, which latter was referred to the Aldermen of the Ward ;
and the non-freemen to the Chamberlain.
Tower Ward Inquest delivered in a presentment of some
ruinous premises, upon which the Court ordered boare
ds to be c
immediately put up, to guard the premises from tare to
streets ; and directed the city solicitor to put the act of
Parlia-
tnent into execution respecting the same.
Commissioners of the Court of Requests for the month of
October next were appointed. •
Several persons were sworn, and others allowed to be admit-
ted brokers, and some persons upon their petitions were dis-
charged from that office.
Licenses were granted to coal-whippers against any reductien
being made in their wages for delivering coals in the port of
London, as applied for by some of the Ship-owners in the north,
was prosentea, and referred to the Committee to whom the peti-
tion of the Ship-owners was originally referred.
A Petition from the Fellowship of Carmen was
car prtsese within
nted,
praying that certain stands might be appointed for
the city, agreeably to the directions of the late Act of Parlia-
ment, and that the owners of unlicensed carts, wains, and
waggons, may he restrained from placing them on those stands,
and working for hire, and prevented from creating' the con-
fusion and irregularity in blocking up the streets, lanes, and.
passages, within' the city, which have been eQ loag complained
of, which Petition was referred to a Committee of the whole
Court.
The Rulers of the Fellowship Porters presented a Petition,
complaining of the conduct of the Ticket Porters, which was
referred to a Committee. with directions that all parties should
be summoned before them to be heard.
Another Petition was presented from the Fellowship Porters
on their former petitions respecting the employment of foreign
porters, which was referred to the Committee.
A Petition from a person indicted for an assault on a pri-
soner in the -street prison, praying for the proceed-
ins against himWhitecross to be stayed, was ordered to lie on the table.

In. former letters it has been shown that the
Navigation Laws of England were not Only consistent with-the
Laws of Nations, but that all Nations have acted upon such
principles whenever they found it beneficial to their interests,
and 'that they are at this tune making the, greatest efforts to
carry en those principles as far as they can extend,therne And
likewise that the alterations which the late enactments have
made'are likely to prove highly detrimental to the most vital
interest of Britain. And we again pursue the same subject to
shew more dearly that they, are made conformable to those
which the enemies of this country have long been promulgating,
and which they are now endeavouring to enforce by 'every
stratagem in their power, with perfect conviction, on their
minds that if they succeed in that object thet Great Britain has
then run her full career of glory—has passed her meridian
Altitude, and will fast sink into the rank of a subordinate
state—not by conquest, as they have found that impracticable
under thenld system —not for want'of energy in that improvi-
dent yet valuable and daring race of men, on which the country
in times of need always looks for protection ; but by itnpro- •
videat acts of Legislation, and that under a Tory Administra-
tion in which the country has placed great confidence, under
an Administation that have often professed themselves friendly
to the principles of our Navigation Laws as they stood before
the alterations were made, and held them in the highest respect
and veneration-rand it would be highly gratifying to those who
still entertain those old fashioned opinions to hear clearly and
explicitly on what grounds and for what purposes they were al-
tered--whether as a benefit to Great Britain generally, or as
measures totally speculative to ext end the sale of our menu.'
factures at the expellee of our N avigation—or whether this
change was forced upon us by Foreign Powers, and to which
we have tamely submitted, for as it is totally at variance with
every thin heretofore understood as British interests, nothing'
can reconcile us to this measure which lessens the number of
our Ships and Seamen but a clear explanation on those points.
There-certainly have been in this country, as in all others, those
who continually find fault with all fundamental principles, and
our. Navigation Laws hove not escaped their censure--but this
.wasconsidered in no otherway than as the visions and vapours of
radical reform, nor would it have found credit twenty year+ ago
that any man of. sound mind could have been finind --to have
ventured his reputation in proposing the abrogation of the Na-
vigation Laws.
• -The Illuminati of Pratte. and Germany, in their grand career
of reform, were the first to ridse such an idea, and this was re.
echoed by our Reformers; but 'who then. in his senses, could
have imagined, that, in thirty years, this, their visionary
scheme, would have found its way imperceptibly, and taken
root in our schools, and spread the mania from thence into the.
I.egislatere and 4cecutive _Government of Great Britain.
The British reader will keep in view that Ilauteriee,
De Pradt, Schlegel, and others wrote to servethe revolutionaty
plans of the Intimated on the formation of a continental sys-
tem of Maritime Laws; and that when they promulgated the idea
of circumscribing or terminating the maritime preponderance of
England, by their two regulations which was to form the Mari-
time Law of the nineteenth century, in which they,endeavourcel
to point out the means by.which Great Britain might. -by the
chance of force or bad rule, become a subordinate state in the'
scale of nations—this was the project by which they were to
accomplish the downfall of this country, in order to share our
wealth and destroy our power; and considering them as our
enemies, and that their writingstand their labours were to effect
such a purpose, we have no serious charge against them ; they
owed Britain no allegiance; they broke no faith nor any
pledge ; they only sought to subdue that maritime power
which they all dreaded, and unless they could annihilate that,
all their other schemes were rendered abortive. On • the con-
trary, under the
,all-protecting influence of that Maritime
Power, " the Navigation Laws had become objects of attach-
ment and veneration to every British subject," and they were
most carefully cherished by every British statesman ; they
knew the value of their protecting power, and under their in-
fluence they had long found a safe protection from the horrors
of invasion ;—they found protection from that dreadful anarchy
under which the greater part of Europe, was made to . tremble,
to crouch, and to bleed—from the practical effects of modern
philosophy. gngland„ under her old laws, was blest with this
security : neither a Spencean mania,nor the radical jacobinical
faction, could receive the necessary aid to plunder, nor
could a foreign banditti cross the Channel to support their
phut of pillage and reform, while England's wooden walls
floated in all their pride to'guard our coasts eL-thene sentiments
may now be considered as old exploded notions by the Illumi-
nati, by the liberals, or by the economists, in their view,
perhaps, quite unsuitable for this most enlightened, age e and
such sentiments are' said to come from a high autho-
rity, that new and more liberal principles arc to be
acted ,upon. ,But notwithstanding these illtuninated ideas we
still Claim the privilege of using our senses, and of con-
sidering as a fact that our commercial marine has
been the main spring from whence our resources have been
most abundantly ttpVlied; and the foundation' upon' which has
been erected that stupendous fabric of wealth and power which
the world has gazed on with wonder. Anti we caution our new
lights not , wantonly to undermine the magnificent structure,
not to tamper with the foundation, or the first storm may bury
its grandeur in its ruins.
If those arg old prejudices, tbcy Are the .prejudices of edu-
cation; the prejudices under which we have lived and
the prejudices which have been advocated by the wisest States-
men, and defended by the bravest men the country has pro-
duced t and it is much to' be regretted that the • most unfortu.
nate feature in this new era is, that those prejudices, if.preju-
dices they are, which rendered our forefathers so consptcnous,
as ltiVers of their country are now magi, if not altogether, ex-
tinct in their descendants.
'Whatever has been the cause of this dereliction, or however
little of it may-remain, those -who yet feel and cherish those
principles, may feel an honest pride; they need not to shrink
from the severest scrutiny into the actual benefits which have
been derived from them, if contrasted with the inflated
visionary air blown bubbles of the new school; let us again re-
peat that the old prineiples have had the merit of raising a com-
mercial and a naval marine that have become the dread and
envy and the astonishment of the world; and if these are er-
roneous prejudices, they are most wonderfully strong in clear
circumstantial facts, attested and sanctioned by the expe-
rience of many ages ; and before we give up prejudices so
sanctioned, we at least should be allowed to inquire on what
sort of a foundation the advocates of the new system rest
their claim to perfection, or what they please to tern
sounder principles ! Every one .knows that it is easier to
demolish a fabric than to raise one, On what foundation
does thiS sound principle • rest-Lhave they as yet • given
substantial proof
,of any one benefit which we arelo derive
from the change—we hear of none—we see none—in short we
need expect none; for if the economists could have produced
-the semblance of any thing like a benefit, we ahould have heard
of it a thousand times repeated.
We find nothing tangible—liberal in words—in sentiments—
in conciliation—but if those sentiments and conciliations
are to be extended to the employing of foreign seamen
to the prejudice of the British, we take leave to question
the policy and justice of such liberal sentiments as a worse-
, than a frigid cosmopolite sensibility--a feeling. for Fo-
i reigners, and forgetting or passing over the superior claims
.of our countrymen, their brave defenders. An able writer has
informed us that the characteristic traits oi'modern philoso-
phers and economists, are temerity and whimsicality, a dispo-
sition to reason from falseprinciples, and not trout the true ns-.
tare of. mankind ; that they found all their measures on certain
abstract theories formed in the recesses of their cabinets, and
not from the existing state of things and circumstances
thus for Med their schemes Ore generally impracticable, specula-
tive, visionary.
If this is a true picture, those symptoms have long been at
work, sapping the foundation of our most valuable institutions,
and their endeavours seem always to aim where they can do
most mischief ; there have been insinuations made that the'
country was ruined, and it has been recommended to filch the

, . .
public creditor. They accused the Illessin of Providence for
sending a too great abundance, And from same school (fol-
lowing the precepts,i of die Illuminati) ii ' originated in this
Itt
country the dea of destroying the Navigation Laws—many
hints had. beep thrown out previously, but the first direct at-
tack made was under the Whig - Administration in, IBOfi,
by. introducing a Bill to ,allew the United States Shipping to
'1 with the British West India Islends. This
,portance
measure,
hewever alarming, was. of comparatively slight importance
to what has been undertaken and accorneltshed- under the Pro-
sent Tory Aditinistratien. But the 'Whig American Inter.
course Bill of 1806 met with a dided. opposition from ithe
Torienon that memorable debate, new memorable in shewing
the Conrisienck of- some Statesmen. Sir William Grant, then
Heater of the Rolls, emphatically exclaimed " what a triumph
to our enemies must it be if the Parliament of Great Britain
egrec to give up these Laws, which their enemies have so long
regarded es their bane; while they are the foundation of our
greatness;" and another Right Hon. Gentlemen exclaimed,
I fear a general relaxation of opieide, on the policy of our ,
Navigation System, and a relaxations mixed with ails
position at the expense of those fual Laws, unwisely
to court and conciliate Foreign Gorernments." These were the
opinions of the leading Tories in 10.06 '(and prophetic opinions
they were), and, on this very question, in the voetersaire to be
found the names of several who are now seated nix, the Trea-
sury Bench in the present Tory. Administration, The next
contest between the Whigs and. Tories was relative to our
Maritime Rights, Orders in Council, and Blockades, in all
which we find the same Gentlemen on the side of Maritime
Rights, and supporting the same system of Lews.—The
necessity of having ships manned with British seamen was
then too apparent to yield the principle e they were then
usefully employed either for defensive or offensive measures; it
was not then convenient to adopt the liberal system. The.
Treaty of Ghent was not then signed, and the Tory Adminis-
tration was still supposed to stand firm on the old principle—
but, alas ! no sooner was that Pandora's box of British diplo-
macy formed, than the evils began to appear—than it betaine
visible that the Tory Administration had ceded points and
given way on the old maritime laws—and that there was .a dan-
ger of still further concession to conciliate modern reformers
and Foreign Powers ; this spirit soon chewed itself, the Whigs
Timed for a Committee of Inquiry into the foreign trade of the
country, and the Reports of those Committees soon made ft
manifest that both parties had imbibed the principles of the
economists—that they concurred in the most sweeping altera-
tion or rather a total abrogation of the British Navigation Code
' —and whoever will take the trouble to look over the New Navi-
gation Bill, as first introduced into the House ,of Commons,
must be convinced that it went the full length of atotal abroga-
don of the system : it was afterwards a little modified, butatill
hailed by its advocates as an entire new system, anti as a proof
the greet oracle of all -Reform, the Edinburgh Review, has
undertaken to praise the act and to eulogize its supporters; what
n high gratification this must. be to a Tory Administration,
when they read the following words : " Had Messrs.. Wallace
and Huskisson been opposition-Alembers, it is not likely that
they would have escaped being stigmatized as inipracticable
and visionary theorists ! But the soundness of their Political
creed scored them against such imputations, and gave them
the power to give effect to the measures they proposed."—What
a cunning rogue is this writer in the Review, when using his
irony towards the Right Honourable Gentleman, " the sound-
ness of their Political creed secured them against such- imputa-
tion." When looking stedfastly on their former professions,
and seeing their sudden conversion to the creed so long enter-
tained by the Illuminati of France and Germany, and by the
friends and admirers of' the Edinburgh Review, " by a recur-
rence to those sound principles by which all commerce should
be regulated." There perhaps cannot he si more convincing
proof given of the sweeping and dangerous tendency towards
the humiliation of this country, which is contained in the New
Acta,thantogive them in the words of the Review: "These Bills
have effected a total, and we think, a most salutary and benefi-
cial change in this great branch of our Commercial Legislation,
but the prejudices in tiivour of the ohl. lairs were so strong
that the bare proposal of so extensive a change would have
been sufficient, twenty- years ago, to have thrown the Douse
and Country into a flame." And.for carrying this beneficial
measure a Tory Administration, the soundness of whose politi•
cal creed secured them against imputation, receives the praise
of the Edinburgh Review.
On the contrary, the Quarterly (or Tory) Review takes a
different course, and informs us, that " during the last Session
Of Parliament, in the ardour of relaxing all regulations, some
material alterations took place in this great rule of our foreign
intercourse, and the para Mount principle of the Navigation
Laws, though not altogether abrogated, was in some cases mo-
dified, in all treated with harshness,itmay be useful to the pub-
lic to recal to mind the prOgress of the system abandoned, and
to examine the extent of the innovation in laws, on- which it is
acknowledged in the preamble of the new Act, the strength
and safety .of the kingdom so much depend. We have en-
deavoured to chew, with reference to the great outline of the
measures, that much has been sacrificed, and little, if any thing,
gained !" These are Tory sentithents—but they are wanting
of the liberal ideas and conciliative' jargon of the day. " Call
you this backing your friends S" then how.nre we to, reconcile
this great anomaly, the Whig Review praising
.the acts of a
Tory administration, and a Tory 'lteview censuring the acts of
a Tory administration ;.—there surely is no way
to. reconcile
this but to suppose that in the alteration of the Navigation
Laws the principles of the Illuminati are triumphant, and that
the Tories have found it expedient to become converts to \l'llig
politics ;—then well may it be said that the age of chivalry is
gone, and that this is the age of economists, and it ought to be
remembered what the economists did for Feance.
We have gone into this Subject at Much greater length than
was first intended,to sinew in what quarter it originated, and the
dangerous progress it his macie,and is 'still making;—but there
is sonic consolation to find that there are still some who see and
can appreciate the consequences that may be expected to fol-
low such daring innovations to cramp our national defence ;
with great truth it is said, " that much has been sacrificed, and
little if any thing gained," and as true " that the bare pro-
posal of so extensive a change would have been sufficient
twenty years ago to have thrown the House and 'the country
into a flame."
And as a further proof of this, we need only again
refer to the speech of the Master of he Rolls in ltiefi, on a
bill of comparative insignificance to what has now passed
(without opposition from any quarter more than that made
by the shipping interests). is Sir, I have much to add, but
after having trespassed on the patience of tine House so lung I
must pass it over. I can only express a confident hope
that Parliament (a British Parliament) will not hold out
such a spectacle to the world as the recognition of such a
principle as this Bill contains, which would be only doing that,
by a law of your own, which your enemies, aiming at your
destruction, luive hitherto endeavoured in vain to accomplish,
1 who have, for upwlirds of a century, been endeavouring to im-
press upon the world a conviction that year Navigation Laws are
will not think that you will
at war with the rights, and hostile to the interests of other coun-
tries--I trust that you will not do for your enemies that which
they have never been able toaceomplish for themselves—l trust
of parliament into the hands of
that you will not deliver tip to the Ministers the whole townie-,
-don of your greamess_e ;test you
triumph by teaching foreign powers to say that the policy of Great
elm given up that systern!!!
INltalvtaiguaitiiosn cLhaaun,gsebdy, tahneyAhcatve given 'AP the system of their
to the away under the wisdom
the Minitters who now see it. will not do for them any longer
Itnoansitaeirniitoafintitiellaoct
coapnplreistsii,ve
'!'hey
under dice by which they were
not suffer that
and gradually it will be snared
in the wayof
oufataiottrluliy,aeun.sl,igthotesnteitdn:damnyiniiostitrgeration, will will
-terror and death to the hopes of other nations at sea, the Nevi.
sinuecnhtl
aw4iltlu
ungeev . enable 'the'
those great
Iliestruotatutrheaatt aßlirirtuitiinv
never
the world 1.
philosophical) y pacific arrangements which they have formed !
enemies
I tritet that a British Parliament will nut give up that guardiati
power it possesses over the interests of the British Empire, by.
passing a Bill which contains provisions that no man has yet.
been bold enough to say he will enforce to the full extent. I
trust you will not give up a systeni by which you have grown.
up to the present
power, a system on the preservation of widene
htoProlidi4
it is my entire conviction, that not only your proiperity, but
your very existence, entirely depends. This well digested
castigation from a Tory ateletber to.the Whig Administration,'
clearly *hews the high tone then held on the least breath being
attempted on that wise eyeteen of our ancestors. But the age
of political economy had nut then taken such deep root in our
schools, neither had the liberal ideas ditruied so many blessings
—nor the conciliation of foreigners then become a paramount
ditty in British statesmen—nor Was the Holy Alliance spread:,
, ing its protecting arm and influence over the destinies of rut.
tions—in short, the', Milleitium was .not yet corrin••••and the
British Lion still `retained his strength,

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