Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/246

 Tooke at that time hinted anything about navigation, or the abrogation of the existing Navigation Laws, he would have exposed himself almost to personal danger. The success, however, of the Free-trade measures which had been adopted since 1842 had totally changed the current of public opinion, and it was now only the shipowners, and the still powerful Protectionist party in Parliament, which resisted this last crowning measure of Free-trade. The opposition of the shipowners arose from a deep-seated conviction that utter and inevitable ruin to their class would result from the abrogation of the Navigation Laws.

Parliament assembled on the 2nd of February, 1849. The commercial and manufacturing interests were rallying, but had not as yet effectually revived from the prostration occasioned by the commercial crisis of 1847, and the general want of confidence resulting from the shock of the foreign revolutions in 1848. The shipping trade was in a state of transition, as it was not until some time later that the gold discoveries in Australia gave a fresh impulse to the "long voyage" trade, and that towards a region of the globe which promised but a slow, however certain, future development of wealth and navigation. The shipowners were, in fact, still suffering a periodical depression of trade after two or three very prosperous years.

In the Speech from the Throne delivered by her Majesty in person, she said: "I again commend to your attention the restrictions imposed on commerce by the Navigation Laws. If you shall find that these laws are, in whole or in part, unnecessary for the maintenance of our maritime power while they