Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/395

 to it through the exercise of those powers which were vested by law in the Crown."

The petition was signed by the chairman, Mr. Dunbar, as representative of the meeting; by Mr. George Marshall, as chairman of the General Shipowners' Society; and by deputies from most of the leading seaports of the kingdom. From the weight and high character of the persons who had signed this petition, Government could not do otherwise than attach considerable importance to it, however much they may have differed from the mode of relief the memorialists prayed Her Majesty to adopt. Indeed, the time had arrived when it was desirable for Government to review the effects really produced by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and to inquire into the burdens and restrictions to which British Shipowners were still subjected. Nor was it less necessary to direct attention to the state of foreign legislation with regard to British shipping, since the removal by us of all restrictions on the vessels of foreign nations engaged in the trade of the United Kingdom and her possessions. As the exposition of the bearing of these questions, necessarily, furnishes a complete insight into the Merchant Shipping of the country at that period, it is my duty to furnish the report of Government, if not in detail, at least at greater length than I might otherwise have done.

In this carefully considered document, it was, authoritatively, announced that France, Spain, and Por-*