Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/420

 It was hopeless to expect that the Legislature would attempt to do anything, even if they could, for a body of men who, representing a great national interest, delivered such sentiments as these, and had, evidently, assembled for the purpose of obliging other people to make good any losses they might have sustained, if any there were, during the two previous years, while pocketing in silence, for their own special benefit, the large profits they had secured during the Crimean war. What had Government to do with the profits and losses of Shipowners any more than it had to do with those of any other branch of trade? Invited, as I had been, to take part in these deliberations, I felt that I should do wrong were I not, regardless of any insults to myself, to step forward and attempt to expose the fallacy of the course pursued by the meeting, especially, as the Shipowners had grievances which really ought to be redressed, and to which the Legislature, I felt sure, would readily listen, if properly appealed to. Shipowners were then, unquestionably, subjected to various burdens which would never have been imposed upon them had they not been a protected class, and, as such, supposed to derive advantages from which other classes of the community were excluded; burdens, too, I am bound and willing to add, from which they ought to have been relieved when the Navigation Laws were repealed.

Feeling, therefore, that the time of this large and important meeting would be wasted in vain and useless resolutions, I stepped forward to the front of the platform, resolved, at all hazards, to endure every contumely, and, if I could not carry an amendment,