The Statesman.
London, England, 1822-05-31 00:00:00

yTATLSa,AN

The tonnage of the commercial marine of the United
States, by recent returns to Congress, is stated a'
1,300,000 tons, or nearly so, for the sake of round nuessi
hers : that of Great Britain, by parliameotary returns, I
at 2.400.000. Now, in this return of our own country,
an immense mass of river craft is included, which Anie-1
rice coonot have. As this statement contains every re-
gistered vessel in the kingdom, an idea of the number
of very small vessels included in this return may be
conceived, when it is known that the average of oar
tonnage is only 116 tons for 20,148 ships, the entire
of the British commercial marine.
Now, when these two statements are before the eyes"(
the British legislator; when he reflects how short a pe-
r dad has created this alarming approximation to navel
I quality; when he reflects on the amazing march in the
mak of nations, which these people are making, he will
sorely pause before he sanctions measures calculated to
give increased acceleration to their rapid progression.
The previous arguments have been founded on a state
of Woe, when freights are extremely low; but what
will be the effect when Britain shall be again involved
In a war? The necessary rise in insurance, wages, aid
equipments, will occasion such a rise in the rate of
freights, that the forests of the continent will, by the
magic of pecuniary inducement, be rapidly transformed
into additional fleets of merchants ships, which will,
from the security of their neutrality, engross the entire
of the maritiose trade. This is no flight of fancy, it is
the inevitable result. It was verified to a great degree
by the license system, which called into existence in the
ports of the North of Europe, numerous fleets of vessels,
and created hosts of seamen, who would never have ex-
isted bad it not been for the operation of that baneful
unitise.
This contemplated change is making perpetual what.
under the license system, was only temporary. An ex-
pedient, au experiment, which paid upwards of eighteen
million pounds of foreign freight in the year 1811;
which at the expense of the best interests of firitain, en-
riched the sea ports of the North, in a manner that to
he believed must have been seen ; but still the measure'
was but a temporary one. Hope still remained. Ito.
peal the navigation laws, and that too is fled. The dia.
tress of the present generation, and the execration of the
future will be the result.
I would now. Sir Matthew, ask yon for what are these,
concessions made ; where is the equivalent ? What are I
we to receive in return ; from what quarter is this " et
dorado" to arise? 1 am aware the conclusion of the
lords' report tells us it will arise from sources which the'
human imagination cannot conceive; and that Mr. Ro-
binson tells us no calculation can be made of what the
soul yeomnserce is capable of effecting. Now this may
be very fine, and very conclusive, to men with that poe-
tical cast of imagination which he and his followers seem
to possess; but to those nnendowed with this intuitive
preconception, men who only know their fellow men
And nations as they really are; to men of thisstamp, who
can only argue of the future from their knowledge of the
past, it is totally incomprehensible. Surely some tan-
gible benefit might be shewn us ; something worth
risking the destruction of our maritime power for, ought
to be demonstrated; but no, nothing of the kind is
thought necessary, the assurances of these illuminati
are sufficient; accordieg to them the lion and the lamb
are to lie down together, the cupidity of nations is to
cease, and a species of commercial millenium to take
place. If this is not folly; if this is not fanaticism, 1
know not what is. I can forgive the religious dope of
his disordered imagination ; but I know not how to de-
signate this spirit, or to express my detestation of it.
Human patience becomes exhausted when the magni-
tude of the sacrifice vibrates on the brain; when we see
the sagacity of our ancestors, (illustrated as it is by the
unrivalled power and prosperity of this peculiar island)
set at nought by men whose names, should they reach
posterity, will only be known by the mighty ruin they
have effected. This, Sir Matthew, is not a question as
affecting a body of ship-owners alone ; their loss forms
but a small part of the injury to be sustained by British,
interests; they are only a prominent link in the general
chain of destruction.
Do thou, Wheat Dispenser of good and evil, grant
me patience, when I reflect that it has become necessary
in England to implore consideration for English in-
terests; necessary to implore the natural guardians of
my country's rights, to stay the hand of ruin, uplifted
over her best ascendancy. Shades of the wise and good
who have gone before us untainted with this general-
ising spirit; and ye living luminaries, for such there
are, whose eloquence has heretofore so ably advocated
the interests of Britain, if ye have still the power, again
assist to inspire the Legislators of England with a sense
of what they owe their country—teach them to aypre-
elate justly the causes of the power and prosperity of
that country—teach them them the way, the truth, and
the light, not as derived from the sickening schools of a
fanatical philanthropy, which directs its disciples to ad-
vocate whatever is not, and to despise whatever is, be-
cause it is;
has merited the chastisements of justice, for his insults
which produces friends for every villain who
to his God, or his disaffection to the law ; which would
convert our gaols into palaces, and our ships into sepal-
, chres ; which would transfer to our enemies (for such
they ire and will be in spite of all this stupid cant) the
sceptre of the sea, by which eune we are what we are.
1 call upon you, Sir M. to endeavour to arrest the
progress of this baneful spirit. I call upon you as the
immediate representative of a great (of what ii ith but
one exception is the greatest, sea port in the universe);
I call upon you to exert some portion of that activity,
which you have displayed so recently on a matter, I had
almost said, of dubious import. I equally call upon the
other representatives of the maritime counties to assist
you. It is their and your interest much more than
mine, inasmuch as the magnitude of your stake and
mine will hear no comparison; you may not be 33 osten-
sibly nor so immediately liable to the operation of the
change; but not the less certainly will you feel the ef-
recta. The labours of this committee is ill, in all proba-
bility, till one of the first dark pages in the future histo-
rian's Decline and Fall of Britain, for no measure by
the united powerantlingentity of the concentrated world
could possibly be devised to effect our destruction so
rapidly and so certainly as these relaxations. Had the
speculative notions 01 these men been confined to ab-
stract matters, agitation might have been effected and
notoriety obtained, yet still the wheels of the great nil-
chine would have revolved in p-ace and prosperity.—
Now that these political Plia.mas are to take the
practical reins, the result is inecitaide destruction.
'file earliest pages of history, indeed all her pages,
have told us, that power add pre-eminence were the na-
tural attendants upon the possessors of the carrying
trade. It would be an insult to your knowledge and un-
derstanding to attempt to illustrate this, you know it
well ; and, Sir Matthew, you must further know, that
the man who devised the hum:Us:ion of the Dutch by
what is erroneously called the 12th of Charles 11, &C.
&c , I mean Crou.iwell, was one, (though his means
were such as l will not attempt entirely to instifv) %host
ends were—the security and prosperity of his 'country
I can fancy to myself how his homely and orate spirit
would expose and reject the ingenious nonsense which is
now so greedily received where it ought to be rejected.
as ruinous to the best interests of his country. He ivdulit
have replied to the tariff of Russia, not by abject anti
dangerous concessions, but by forty sail of the tine ; lit
would hare considered that tariff tantamount to a de
claration of war.
Before I close this letter, I would, if I might Wi 11011
offence, name a race now so abject and despised,
bit
once the pride and boast of Britain, the theme of thi
poet's praise, and the legislator's eulogy, the hardy, th.