shire, was also presented and read; setting forth,

terests were deeply implicated, to endeavour to learn whether important objections were entertained, and where these were communicated, he always exercised his own judgment how far such constituted a fit ground for objection or argument in parliamentary discussion.

The motion was then withdrawn.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.

Tuesday, April 14.

PETITIONS FROM PERTH, SHROPSHIRE, MANCHESTER, AND BLACKBURN RESPECTING THE RENEWAL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S CHARTER.] A Petition of several merchants, manufacturers, and other inhabitants of the city of Perth, was presented and read; setting forth,

"That the Petitioners, in common with the rest of their fellow subjects, conceive that they have a right to a free trade with all parts of the British empire, under such regulations as justice and sound policy may require; and that they forbear entering into the discussion of the territorial rights of the East India Company, or the internal government of its possessions, but they humbly confide in the wisdom of the House that, on the expiry of the present Charter, the important interests of the Company will be settled on liberal and fair principles, compatible with the sanction of a free trade to India, under equitable regulations, for the general benefit of the subjects of the United Kingdom; and that the Petitioners humbly apprehend, that the natural effect of throwing open the trade to all the countries beyond the Cape of Good Hope will enable the manufacturers to exert their skill and industry with increased energy and advantage, and not only tend to relieve them under their present hardships, but also the numerous class of suffering operatives, who are, by the calamities of the times, and the tyrannical restrictions of the enemy, deprived of their ordinary means of support; and praying the House to adopt such measures on the expiry of the present Charter as may establish and confirm the sanction of a free trade to the British merchant, under suitable regulations, to the eastern parts of the world, neither cramped by unnecessary restrictions, nor fettered by exclusive monopolies, as at present, nor injured by preferences granted to neutral nations."

A Petition of the iron masters, proprietors of the principal iron works in Shrop

That the Petitioners beg leave to represent to the House, that though they are fully sensible that it is a duty incumbent upon every subject of these realms to submit, and the Petitioners are willing cheerfully to submit, to every commercial regu lation and restriction by which the welfare of the state is essentially promoted, yet they apprehend, and beg leave to state, that the principle of restraining the subjects of these realms from trading with foreign nations and our distant possessions, by granting an exclusive exercise of that right to a chartered company, is so far from being essential to the welfare of the state, that it in itself is an obstacle to the increase of our commercial intercourse with those foreign nations and distant possessions; and that the principle of conducting trade with foreign nations and distant possessions, by means of a chartered company, tends to increase the price paid by them for the transport of our manufactures, and to enhance that which the Petitioners pay for their produce, and thereby, instead of being a benefit to this country, is an injury, and consequently an injustice, to both; and therefore praying, that, if possible, the exclusive Charter of the East India Company may be abolished, or that, if, from circumstances not within the knowledge of the Petitioners, it should appear to the House necessary to concede to the East India Company the exclusive privilege of trading to some particular nation situated beyond the Cape of Good Hope, such concession may be as limited as the nature of the case will admit; and the Petitioners earnestly intreat of the House so in its wisdom to protect the rights of his majesty's subjects, as that they may not be restricted from a free intercourse with our Indian possessions, nor, without absolute necessity, from trading with any of those nations which are situated beyond the Cape of Good Hope."

from representing to the House the distress which they feel as a body, in a much severer degree than most of their fellow subjects, occasioned, as it appears to the Petitioners, by a perseverance in that system of commercial regulations known under the name of the British Orders in Council, adopted and pursued ever since the year 1807, and at the same time expressing to the House a doubt, which the Petitioners very sensibly feel, how those measures can tend to promote the national security, which, after so long a trial, produce nothing but ruin to the national commerce; and that their houses and warehouses are stored with goods prepared for foreign markets to which they have no access; when the ports of Europe were shut to our manufactures, they consoled themselves with the fruits of their trade to America, and since the interruptions that have happened to the extensive commerce previously carried on between that country and this, they have endeadeavoured to find markets for their goods elsewhere; but collectively their endeavours and their enterprizes prove vain and fruitless, large stocks of manufactured goods remain on hand, their capitals are locked up in commodities, for the sale of which the proper markets are shut against them, and their industry is paralized; and that the number of bankruptcies and insolvencies that have recently taken place in old commercial houses of well-established credit and extensive dealings, as well as those of lesser note, are the effect, and the evidence also, of the ruinous consequences of the British Orders in Council, for, until they were acted upon, the commercial Decrees of the French government were harmless to the Petitioners; if other evidence be needful, they appeal to the fact of the great reduction within the last four years in the number of master manufacturers in the said riding, a class of men whose active employment of a small capital, aided by their own personal skill and industry, has essentially contributed to raise and establish a competition, and a spirit of enterprize and exertion in the whole body of merchants and manufacturers which has so long secured the preference to British woollens in every foreign market, and that the distress and ruin of so many master manufacturers, added to the general stagnation of trade, have thrown out of employ great numbers of the labouring class of manufacturers, many of whom are thereby driven to seek

parochial relief, or to worse and more unjustifiable courses, and instead of contributing by their usual labours to the wealth of the nation, only multiply the heavy burdens and distresses to which those of the Petitioners are subjected who are not yet reduced to the same deplorable condition; and praying the House to take these facts into their most serious consideration, and adopt such measures, tending either to rescind or modify the aforesaid Orders in Council or otherwise, as the House in their wisdom shall deem best calculated to restore and preserve the trade of the United Kingdom, and in particular to open and establish our commerce with the whole continent of America."

Ordered to lie upon the table.

MOTION RESPECTING COLONEL M.MAHON'S BEING APPOINTED PRIVATE SECRETARY TO THE PRINCE REGENT.] Mr. C. W. Wynn rose, pursuant to notice, to move for the production of the Appointment of colonel M'Mahon to the new office of Private Secretary to his royal highness the Prince Regent. When he first gave notice of his intention to make this motion, he little thought that he should have been called upon to go into the subject in detail. He had imagined, that it was as much a motion of course as that which he had a few minutes ago submitted to the House; but he now found that it was to be resisted; on what ground it was impossible for him to conceive. He should have thought, that this was a case, which of all others rendered it necessary that the subject should be regularly before the House, that it might receive a formal and deliberate consideration. The office was a new one. There was no precedent for it in the history of the public acts of this country. Such an office might, indeed, have privately existed for a few years back, from the necessity of the case; but in the constitutional history of this country there had never been any thing like it. Under these circumstances, when such an appointment had for the first time been publicly avowed, surely it was but just and reasonable that the House of Commons should have that appointment formally before them, that they might perform their duty in examining into the matter, and expressing their opinion whether it was fitting or not that such an office should exist. He never recollected that such a motion under such circumstances

had been resisted. Nothing more was at present required than the production of the appointment in question. Was it becoming that this should be refused?-that they should be prevented from discussing a subject which most peculiarly called for attention in the regular and proper manner, because a minister chose to deny them the regular document? Yet certain it was, that notwithstanding the novelty of this appointment,-the uncertainty as to its exact nature and duties,-and the propriety of an examination into the matter by the House of Commons, they knew nothing more about it than what they learned from the Gazette, namely, "That colonel McMahon had been appointed private secretary to his royal highness the Prince Regent" and what they heard from the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely, "That the duties of the office in question were those of a private secretary." From a suggestion across the table, he understood it was to be said, that no regular appointment to this office had been made out,-that there was nothing but a Minute of Treasury for the payment of the salary. If that was really the case, it was an additional objection to the proceeding. If the office was to be constituted at all, it ought to be done in an open and public manner, that the country might at any rate have some person to whose responsibility they might look. Here, again, he might be met with the appointment of colonel Taylor: but his answer was, that the appointment of colonel Taylor was only justified by the necessity of the case. This was an entirely different matter. It could not surely be pretended that the circumstances were at all similar. But what really was this office? What was the nature of the holder's situation? Was he to be a cabinet-minister,'or a mere clerk or amanuensis? From any information that had been given on the subject, he was totally at a loss to know which of them. But where was the use of such an appointment? Did the circumstances of the present times render it peculiarly necessary? Let the House only look at the history of the country. King William the third was the soul-the prime manager and mover of the confederacy existing in his reign for the preservation of the liberty of Europe. He, besides, sat in his own cabinet; scrutinized every department of the state; brought every transaction under his own eye; yet king William had no private

secretary of this kind. When the house of Brunswick came to the throne,-when George the 1st came to this country, a stranger to our language, if at any time the appointment of such a secretary was reasonable, surely it was at that time: yet George the 1st had no such secretary. But it was hardly necessary to go farther back than the reign of his present Majesty. They all knew how he had attended to public business till the period of his unfortunate illness. He had probably

paid a more rigid attention to business than any of his predecessors. No appointment, however trifling, was made without taking his pleasure upon it. From the expiration of the American war to the commencement of the present one, he had acted not only as a king but as a commander in chief; his pleasure having been always previously taken by the secretary at war upon every commission granted in the army. From the situation which he once officially held, he knew that there were in the home department several notes of his Majesty, proving how much attention he had paid to the public business; every act and appointment having been submitted to him, not nominally, but really for the purpose of his exercising a judgment upon it. Yet, amidst all this multiplicity of business, no one had ever thought of appointing a secretary of this kind to his Majesty, till the unfortunate complaint which led to the appointment of colonel Taylor. At last, then came the appointment of colonel Taylor; and they had to consider whether that formed any precedent for the present office conferred upon colonel M'Mahon. Were the circumstances the same? Every one knew they were totally different. The appointment of colonel Taylor was the consequence of, and arose from the deprivation of sight to, which his Majesty was subjected. He was so blind as not to be able to read the communications of his ministers. It became necessary to provide some remedy for this inconvenience, and the appointment in question had been consequently adopted, as the most expedient plan. But it never had been imagined that this office was to be made a precedent for others of the kind, under circumstances altogether different. If ever this could have been believed, the appointment of Col. Taylor would unquestionably have been more particularly noticed: and, indeed, when the appoint ment was known to have been made, and