The Sun.
London, England, 1826-10-11 00:00:00

Frome

TO THE KING'S MORT EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
Most Gracious Sovereign—We, your Majesty's dutiful
and loyal lieges of the town of Frame, in the county of
Somerset, emboldened by that enlightened liberality which
has uniformly marked the public actions of your reign,
and encouraged by the grace and urbanity so pre-enti-
mently conspicuous in every instance of your private mu-
nificence, most most humbly beg leave to lay at the foot
of your Majesty's throne, a plain and unvarnished state-
ment of our grievances.
'We approach your sacred person in a time of unprece-
dented distress—when ruin, with all its baleful attendants,
is making rapid and fearful tdvances on all the middle and
lower classes of your people. A number of untoward cir-
cumstances, over which they had no controul, have long
been in active operation, and have materially contributed
to increase the weight and to, aggravate the preasure sf
the present. unparalleled distress. But while We deprecate
the idea of soliciting your Majesty on certain consequences
which no human prudence could anticipate or preient,
and which, though, painful, are still remote, we feel it to
be our duty, and we rejoice in it as our privilege, that we
are permitted to call-your Majesty's attention to that most
fatal and prolified all evils, the universal application of
mechanical force, and the unlimited adoption of recent
hurtful inventions in the several branches and departments,
of the woollen trade. It is to these, Sire, that the ag-
gregate of siaffering and distress, now so alarmingly preva-
lent In all your manufacturing districts, may be prisuipally,
'if not entirely, attributed.
It is with feelings of the most poignant sorrow and
gret that we behold the melancholy depression -which the
excess of machinery has occasioned in all the middle and
lower classes. Formerly, an order for a greater or smaller
number of woollen cloths was esteemed as a general good
by the neighbourhood where the master manufacturer re-
sided, and all the honest and industrious persons employed
by him were benefitted thereby, and thus a reciprocity of
interests, a mutual and common concern; which tended to
the, advantage of master and man, was kept up. But now,
Sire, the natural and.proper order of timings is reversed :
the manufacturer receives his orders, and they are executed
without the intervention or concurrence of his discarded
workmen; and thus, in the woollen trade alone, there O
upwards of M
sixty thousand operatives, loyal and tome men,
thrown out of their customary. employment; and if two
thirds of these are fathers of families, imaging four chil-
dren each, the total of discarded, or only partially employ-
ed, will amount to two huhdred and sixty thousand cast
out and despised, a burden to themselves, and compara-
tively useless to society.
Your Majesty will be told, perhaps, " that every pos-
sible application of mechanical force is absolutely. necessary,
in order to enable us to compete with our foreign rivals"
Now we earnestly entreat your Majesty to consider the
true causes of that rivalry, if such there be; we also beg
leave to direct your Majesty's attention to the high rate of
per centage which our woollen goods are liable to, 'before
they can be admitted into foreign ports, and to the com-
paratively small amount of our export woollen trade, only
one-eighth of the cloths manufactured, including what is
sent to our own colonies and dependencies; and if the enor-
mous quantity of cotton wool, and of every. specie. of ma-
chinery exported, be taken into Account, it must be obvious
that our manufacturers have no foreign rivalry to dread,
inasmuch as it is plain that foreigners are now trianufactup-
ing for themselves. But even If it were not so, it com-
ports with true wisdom and sound policy, to.4lve up a
few points of hopeless andimprofitable competition, if by
so doing you find employment for your discarded and starv-
lug operatives. .

injudicious encouragement given to every species
of machinery, however hurtful, has an obvious tendency to
foster high and aristocratical feelings in a certain order of
men : while it manifestly tends to degrade and pauperize
the _great body of:your people ; it stands directly opposed
to, every principle of justice and humanity, is destructive to
manly independence, and subversive of individual and lita•
tional prosperity, and is alike inimical to true wisdom
and sound policy, as it goes to estrange, where it doe*
not wholly alienate the affection which Englishmen
were wont to cherish for their country, and will, if per.
sisted in, most assuredly lead to the subversion of order,
or ultimately end in a total obliteration of the national
diameter.

For these urgent and plain reasons, which we dating,*
from
' Practical and expetimental acquaintance with the
evils of which we sk. we, ITur Majesty's loyal and
afflicted lieges, implore
m your majesty to impose such
,
wholesome and net ro.trictions on all recent and
injurious invention,:' generally, and in particular on gigs,
shearing frames,
nod the whole dressing apparatus, on
power
smirje„bouled spring broad looms and mules, as
shall seem mot to your Princely and Royal wisdom to
direct.

An your Petitioners will ever pray.
d

Dtie LIN CASTL , cr °. 3, 1826.--His Majesty's
E
Letters Patent have passed the Great Seal of Ireland,
for promoting the Rev. John Brinkley, Doctor in Di-
vinity, to the Bishopric of Cloyne, vacant by the death
of Dcletor Charles M. Warburton,--Dubliti Patriot,