by the honourable gentleman, who had thought proper to challenge him to rife, at a time when he not only had not intended to mention, but expected that no other perfon in that houfe would have mentioned any other matter than that which was mentioned in the fpeech from the throne. Mr. Dundas then fet about fhewing, by an enumeration of various circumftances, that the war was fuccefsful, that we had made many and great conquefts, fully co-operated with our allies, and prevented an addition to the naval force of our enemies.

Mr. T. Jones, among various obfervations, characterized by an air of naiveté or fimplicity, made one, which appeared to make a very general impreffion on the houfe. After wifhing, in the moft folemn manner, that his majesty's minifters had as fincere a regard to the welfare of the people, as our good and gracious, humane, benevolent, and religious fovereign, he faid, "The fact is, his majefty's minifters now ride on the popularity of the king; and, I fear, they will rifk that popularity." He owned, that it had been his practice, however difagreeing with them, to look up with refpect to the political talents of the chancellor of the exchequer, the right honourable fecretary, and others of his majefty's minifters; "but they are not," faid Mr. Jones, "the men that we imagined them to be: I begin to think they are not above the common level of men; I think many of the gentlemen I occafionally act with equally fit for the truft they enjoy; and I do not think I overrate myfelf in faying, that, for my country's caufe, I would enter into office, on a conviction that I might do as well; I could not well

do worfe, God knows." On the whole, as to the former part of the addrefs concerning the poor, and his majefty's paternal regard for their welfare and comfort, Mr. Jones voted for it fincerely. As to the latter, breathing war, he totally deprecated it.

The amendment being negatived without a divifion, the original addrefs, with very few diffenting voices, was carried. No time was loft by the legislature in its endeavours to provide remedies for the public diftrefs. The commons, on the following day, voted bounties on the importation of various kinds of grain. Three feveral bills were brought forward: the, firft, to prohibit the ufe of grain in the diftillation of fpirits, and the manufacture of ftarch; the fecond, to prohibit the exporta tion of rice; and the third, to enable his majesty to prohibit, for a limited time, the exportation of provifions. A felect committee was appointed to inquire into the caufes of the high price and beft remedies for the fcarcity of provifions: the reports of which might, from time to time, fuggeft hints for falutary laws, or ufeful regulations. A felect committee, for taking into confideration and making their reports, on fo much of his majefty's fpeech as related to the dearth of provifions, was alfo appointed by the house of lords. Befides the three bills juft mentioned, a bill was introduced into the houfe of commons, granting a bounty on the importation of all forts of grain: a bill for permitting herrings or other fish, the pro duce of the fishery carried on in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and on the coaft of Labrador, to be imported in any Britifh fhip, without payment of duty,"

for

for a time to be limited: a bill for making a better provifion for the fabfiftence of the poor, and for enabling the overfeers to employ a certain portion of fubftitutes in the diftribution of parochial relief: a bill for permitting the importation of Swedish herrings duty free. The motive affigned for the introduction of this bill, was, the fcanty fupply and high price of the produce of the Scotch fisheries in the prefent year, in the article of herrings. In former years, when this fpecies of fith was cheap, and not unfrequently fo low as 4s. 6d. per barrel, upwards of 150,000 barrels were an nually exported-to the colonies in the West Indies: but now, when the fish was not fo plentiful, the neceffities of the country requiring the whole produce of the home fithery as fupplementary provifion for the poor; and the price fo high as 15s. per barrel, the country could not afford the neceffary fupply of this article, at an eligible price, to our West India colonies. It therefore became necessary to permit the importation of Swedish herrings, duty free, for that purpose. This could not at all operate to the difcouragement of our home fisheries in this article, as the price of their produce was now fo extremely high, as to hold out the moft ample encouragement for the most extenfive exertions of thofe employed in the fithery. A bill was alfo introduced, allowing the ufe of falt, duty free, for the purpose of preferving herrings and other fish, in bulk, for a time limited, extending the allow ance on pilchards cured and export ed, to all pilchards now cured, whether exported or fold for home confamption; and for the protection, for a time limited, of perfons enVOL. XLIII,

gaged in the herring fifhery, or in going to,or returning from, the fishery, from being impreffed into his majefty's fervice: a bill for granting to his majefty the fum of 50,000%. for the purchase of ftores of herrings, and diftributing them for the ufe of the different parts of the kingdom: a bill, prohibiting the manufacture of flour or meal from wheat, or any other grain, finer than a specified ftandard, commonly called the brown-bread bill: and another bill, for continuing an act made in the laft feffion of parliament, entituled, "An act to prohibit, until the expiration of fix weeks, after the commencement of the next feffion of parliament, any perfon or perfons from felling any bread which fhould not have been baked a certain time, namely, fourand-twenty hours."

66

All thefe bills having paffed through the ufual ftages in both houfes, were, in the courfe of December, by the royal fanction, passed into laws. A refolution was allo agreed to by the houfe of com→→ mons, That, for the purpose of affording temporary relief to fuch parifhes within the bills of mortality, and the parishes adjacent thereto, as were unable to fupport their own poor, it was neceflary that a local fund fhould be railed by a general tax or rate on fuch parishes, under certain regulations and exceptions, as might be thought expedient; and an humble ad refs was prefented to the king, defiring that his majesty would be gracioufly pleafed to advance, out of the civil litt, fuch fum as his majefty might think neceffary for the immediate relief of the poor in the parishes of St. Matthew, Bethnal-green; Mile-end New-town; and Chrift-church, Spi-. [C]

tal

tal-fields with affurance to his majefty that the commons would make good the fame."

The diftrefs to which the poor of the three parishes juft mentioned, who were obliged to make application for parochial relief, were reduced, through the inadequacy of the funds provided for them, was very great. By the statements given in, by the parish officers, to the committee appointed to confider of the high price of provifions, it appeared that they were not able to grant pecuniary aid to fo much as one-tenth part of thofe perfons, who would be likely now to receive it, if they refided in their own parishes; and alfo that, to the few whom they relieved, on account of their being entirely out of work, they gave only about one-fifth or onefixth part of the fum commonly granted in London to perfons in like circumftances. It was alfo ftated, that the workhoufes were, at that time, exceedingly crowded. In Mile-end New-town, out of 860 houfes which were affeffed to the poor rates, no lefs than 529 were fuppofed to pay a yearly rent of only 11. and under; and, among thefe houfes, many which paid a rent of lefs than 31. per annum. The proportion of fmall houfes, or of houfes divided into fmall lodgings, in the two other parishes, was alfo very great. The rental of all thefe parishes charged to the poor rates, was about 60,000/ The rental of the metropolis, including the parishes of St. Pancras and Mary-le-bonue, was eftimated at about fifty times that fum, or about three millions. The number of perfons in the three parishes, who were of the poorer clafs, and were not now relieved, were computed at between

16 and 17,000, forming, unque tionably, a large portion of the poorer labourers and manufacturers of various kinds, who wrought both for the city, and for other parts of the country.

The legiflature, in providing a remedy for this evil, were not under the neceffity of having recourfe to any new law. By a clause in a law of the 43d year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, entituled, " An act for the relief of the poor," it was enacted, that, if the juftices, charged with the execution of that act, fhould perceive that the inhabitants of any parish were not able to levy among themfelves fufficient fums for the purposes of the act, " then two juftices might tax, vote, and affefs, any other of other parifhes, or out of any parifh within the hundred where the faid parish was fituated, to pay fuch fum and fums of money to the churchwardens and overfeers of the poor parifh, as the faid juftices fhould think fit." This claufe, which had, in feveral inftances, heen acted on, afforded a clear proof, that it was not the intention of the laws, that parifnes burdened in a particular manrer with poor, fhould be fo far infolated from all others, as never to call on them for relief; and that even whole counties are confidered as liable, if neceffary, to be charged with contributions, in order to eafe contiguous parishes.

Thus the paternal care of the legiflature was feen to extend to all claffes of men in all fituations; and thus the people of England were emphatically taught to confider the welfare of their neighbours as their own. The fum that might be wanted for the relief of the three poor. and populous parishes above men

toned, until the season of next harveft, was estimated at 20 or 30,000. At the fame time that the parliament laboured with great diligence, by all means, to provide, or point out means by which the deficiency in the crops of the prefent, and the laft year too, might be fupplied, they judged it to be very expedient that all claffes fhould be called on by the authority of him, whofe benignant character and exemplary conduct well entitled him to be con fidered and called the father of his people, to obferve the greatest economy in the ufe of all kinds of grain. A proclamation for this end was iffued by his majefty, on the 3d of December, 1800, in confequence of a joint addrefs from both houfes of parliament.

In the course of the parliamentary inquiries into the causes and beft means for the remedy of the fcarcity, or the dearth of provifions, the idea that first occurs to the people of all countries, of reftraining the very high exactions of the venders of grain, by compulfion, was adopted by a fenator certainly not deficient in intelligence, any more than in an active zeal for the profperity of his country, and the well being of his countrymen: though, on the prefent occafion, our praife must be limited to the purity of his benevolent intentions. It was to be expected, that in times of great diftrefs, fentiments of tender fympathy would be eminently difplayed among that order of men, whofe hereditary rank and poffeffions, by a thousand recollections and anticipations, connected them more ciofely with the whole family of Engliflimen, than thofe whole wealth is new, and acquired by means of a general commerce with all nations, and, in too many

inftances, at the expence of the great body of the people. There was, accordingly, in the concern that was fhewn for the fufferings of the poor, in this calamitous year, by the nobility and old gentry, fomething peculiarly anxious and parental; and which was difplayed both in their public appearances and private facrifices. The very found of a maximum is naturally and juftly an object of suspicion and alarm. Yet, in propofing a kind of modified maximum, the earl of Warwick clearly preferred the relief of the people to his own private interest. In the houfe of lords, November 14, on the fubject of the ftate of the laft crop,

The earl of Warwick faid, that from the ftri&teft obfervation, he could pofitively declare, that on his own lands, not only thofe which he occupied, but throughout the whole of his neighbourhood, the late harvest was remarkably abundant. He could alfo affure the house, that the farmers were making two hundred per cent. profit! He was aware of the right which every man had in the difpofal of his property, as well as the protection in that property to which he was entitled from parlia ment. Yet it would be admitted by all their lordships, that men employed as labourers, and particularly labourers in agriculture, had a right to receive as much wages as would maintain themfelves and families: but fo far from this being the cafe in his neighbourhood, he had known labourers to receive eight or nine fhillings a week from farmers: a fum fo infufficient for their fupport, that their families were actually ftarving. And yet thefe farmers were gaining twice more than they were, by their own acknowledgment, entitled to. [C2]

Thofe

Those who demanded and received upwards of twenty fhillings a bufhel for their corn, candidly owned that they would be contented with ten, provided that other farmers would bring down their prices to that ftandard. What then was to be done? If be might venture to give his opinion on fo delicate a fubject, he would certainly propofe an exception to the general rule of protecting men in the abfolute difpofal of their property. In short, he would recommend the adoption of a maximum, by which no wheat fhould be fold at a higher price than ten fhillings per bufhel. Although, under any other circumftances, he fhould be hoftile to a measure of this kind, yet, fituated as the country was at prefent, he conceived it abfolutely neceffary. Lord Grenville agreed with the earl of Warwick, that the price of labour was by no means fufficient for the fupport of the labourer and his family; and alfo that men ought to receive fo much wages as fhould fupply them with all the neceflaries of life. But how the diftreffes of thofe people were to be relieved, was a queftion of great difficulty. With refpect to what the noble earl had faid concerning the abundance of the harvest in the particular diftrict where he refided, no general conclufion, either as to abundance or fcarcity, could be drawn from that affertion. As to the maximum propofed, he should never hear that word mentioned in the fenfe in which it had been used that day, without expreffing the difapprobation he must feel at hearing that meature recommended, which of all others would have the moft injurious and dangerous tendency, and which was most of all likely to defeat its own object. In every country where it had ever been adopted, it was

found productive of the most dreadful mifchief and danger.

The houfe having again entered on the fubject of the fcarcity of corn, on the 17th of November, the earl of Warwick having apologized for the ufe he had inadvertently made on a former occafion, of the word maximum, took the liberty of faying a few words in juftification, not of the unfortunate word that he

had dropped, but of the principle on which he had grounded his argument. He fill contended that the gains of the farmers were enormous. He spoke from what he knew. The crops in his country, and for a diftrict of 400 miles that he had travelled, were apparently moft plentiful. He had fent his fteward among the farmers, his own tenants, to remonftrate with them, and inquire why corn could not be fold at a cheaper rate. He brought him no very fatisfactory anfwer. His lordhip then took his horfe, and, in or der to make the neceffary inquiry, rode among them himself: when the farmers admitted, that wheat might be fold at a much lower price, and yet afford them a competent profit; and that they would willingly fubfcribe their names to an affociation to fell their corn at a reduced price, if other farmers would do the fame. He, as a farmer, believed that there was corn enough in the country to meet its wants, if any means were taken to compel the corn growers to bring it to market, and difpofe of it at a reafonable profit: but as to corn-factors and great growers of corn, who would moft likely be the witneffes called before the com mittee, they were interested in mifleading them, and therefore their teftimony ought not to be implicitly relied on.

The idea of reforting at all to

the