Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/392

 as we have seen, entirely coincided with their brethren of the outports as to the cause of the depression: and, while it was resolved to continue pouring in the petitions to Parliament expressive of their views and praying for relief, and, also, to stir up an agitation through the medium of pamphlets and that portion of the press which entertained similar opinions to their own, it was likewise considered desirable to make a combined effort by the means of a public meeting to be held in London, so that their sufferings and their wrongs might become generally known among all classes of the community.

This meeting was consequently held at the London Tavern on the 15th December, 1858. The chairman, however, Mr. Duncan Dunbar, then one of the greatest individual shipowners in the kingdom, in opening the proceedings, declared that no idea was entertained of asking for a reversal of recent legislation, the delegates from the outports having previously come to the resolution to limit their demands to the consideration of the question of reciprocity, praying the Crown at the same time to put in motion the clauses of the Navigation Repeal Act, which authorize the Queen to retaliate on such foreign Powers as should refuse reciprocity, and to place the ships of these countries on, as nearly as possible, the same footing as that in which British ships are placed in the ports of such country.

Volumes of statistics were brought forward by Mr. George Frederick Young, who appeared as chief spokesman, and, as heretofore, the undaunted champion of his party, to show that, though British shipping had increased since the repeal of the Navigation