principle that what could not have been foreseen should be provided for, as far as could be, upon principles of justice; but generosity was one of those duties of imperfect obligation which many men would be satisfied not to perform; a truth which the court had too much reason to believe was well founded, in the conduct and the speech of the hon. gentleman who made this motion. Certainly upon the motion it. self, it could not be now necessary to say one word. The hon. gentleman's attack upon the report of a committee, and the conduct of the directors, was not founded in any thing that had taken place in the course of the transaction, nor was it warranted by any evidence which the hon. gentleman had in his possession, whether obtained from public or private resources : and he (Mr. F.) doubted not the hon. gentleman's motion would meet with the ready and conspicuous opposition of this court; for certainly there never was a proposition so introduced into this court more entitled to its unanimous reprobation.

The hon. Douglass Kinnaird said, he should not trouble the court many minutes; but he must say, that the attack made by the hon. gentleman who spoke last, upon his hon. friend and his motion, was not a very virulent one, nor of that momentous description from which his hon. friend had much reason to feel apprehension. His (Mr. K.'s) hon. friend's attention was arrested by the enormous amount of the sum proposed to be given to the ship-owners. Under the present circumstances of the country, he had naturally felt an anxiety, in the proper discharge of his duty, to arrest the attention of this court to that course of proceeding into which their executive body was about to hurry them. His hon. friend's attention was naturally rivetted to this subject, when the sum in question was to be discharged at the expense of the Company's purse; when it was recollected that this sum was to be given to persons who had no right to expect remuneration in consequence of any undertaking given, or any hope held out, that they would be so remunerated: and his hon. friend became the more interested in the question, because there really appeared to be no distinct principle upon which the directors were proceeding. To him (Mr. K.) the whole of their system appeared to be anomalous: for at one moment, when their attention was called to the danger that existed to their trade from the competition of private merchants, they seemed all anxiety and alarm: yet at another, namely, the present moment, they were determined to resolve upon a measure which went to aggravate the danger apprehended, and give it greater vigour and effect. It was not at all surprising, then, that

his hon. friend's attention was drawn to the whole of that subject; and it seemed to him that his hon. friend had, in a most able and forcible manuer, brought under the consideration of the court the true bearings of the measure proposed to be adopted, and the objections to which it was liable; and he (Mr K.) must say, that the report of the committee of the House of Commons did not appear to be an object which justified his hou. friend in being very spring in any observations which he might think it necessary to make upon the conduct of that committee, when reference was had to their report. He (Mr. K.) knew nothing of the members who composed that committee, except that he happened to hear that an hon. director at the head of the affairs of that house sat upon that committee, and was a party to their proceedings; but he (Mr. K.) must presume, from the experience which the court had had of that hou. director's conduct, that the course of proceedings adopted by that committee had not originated with him, nor had met with his entire concurrence. If the right hon. member at present at the head of the board of control wished to rest his future claims to the gratitude of this Company, and wished to rest his public character as a statesman, upon this act under his direction, he (Mr. K.) did not think that the public or the Company would have much more reason to reflect with pleasure upon his appointment as head of the board of controul, than upon his recent appointment as minister to Lisbon. In the latter situation, that hon. minister would certainly have been more innocently employed, than in interfering with the Company's affairs. It appeared to him that this report of the committee was most inefficient, and very unsatisfactory to those persons who were supposed to be the objects of relief, who, however much they may have been disappointed in their expectation of profit, could not be supposed to receive with much satisfaction the boon which had been held out to them. He (Mr. K.) regretted this measure the more, because it was an attempt to tax this court for the relief of persons who did not seem to require relief, as might be fairly inferred from their own conduct; for it really appeared, that the very persons who had claimed relief, protested against the bill as inefficient for the purposes it professed to attain. Upon what principle were the proprietors called upon to be just as well as generous to the ship-owners? The hon. gentleman who spoke last, and who had a very fair conception of what were the moral duties which a man ought to perform, even where the law did not compel the execution of them, did not seem to have commented with much can

dour upon the remarks of his (Mr. K.'s) hon. friend, who had remarked more upon this being an inefficient and inconsistent measure than an unjust one, as far as concerned the specific claims of the persons before the court. Those claims were certainly not new to the court. They had been heard of before, and he (Mr. K.) was ready himself to admit that the shipowners were very great sufferers by their contracts: but what he objected to, was the anomalous system upon which the directors appeared to be proceeding; for it seemed to him that at this particular moment the court of directors had not done their duty any more than the committee of the House of Commons had done their duty in taking this partial view of the subject, merely for the purpose of drawing so much money out of the pockets of the proprietors, without giving them the satisfaction of knowing that it was in the contemplation of the legislature to review the whole of the shipping system of the Company as a concomitant of the present measure, in order that it might be known how far the system was to extend, aud I when it was to meet with correction. It would have been satisfactory for the proprietors to know, that while they were paying for a bad system, it was in the contemplation of its authors to put an end to it, in order to prevent the recurrence of the like evils in future. It would be most fortunate for the proprietors and the public, if some light was thrown upon so important a point. It appeared, according to the report, that expectations of relief had been entertained by the ship. owners in the year 1803, which declaration seemed to have been founded upon the statement of the ship-owners, themselves, who declared that a specific relief had been promised them by the court of directors. Now, it was rather surprising that the committee should act upon such authority. They had an opportunity of examining the court of directors upon this point and if any specific relief had in fact been held out to the ship-owners, why should that be stated upon the authority of the persons directly interested? why not examine the directors themselves, whether that specific relief had been held out?-the more particularly as that relief must be taken from the pockets of the proprietors. The committee then proceeded to observe, that they had found really very great difficulty in forming an opinion as to whether the twenty-four out of the thirty-four ships should meet with the relief which the owners asked for. They decidedly approved it to be expedient and wise, to relieve the owners upon a computation of £26 per ton to ships that had performed three voyages. Now he (Mr. K.) was prepared to say, (dissenting as he did

from the opinion of the committee) that he would rather meet the whole loss in the first instance, by giving up the sum of money proposed to be distributed among the owners, than give the least encouragement to a system so injurious to the Company. He would encounter the loss without a murmur, provided the Company were allowed immediately to commence a fair competition with the private trader by entering into fresh contracts, if it was really an object with the Company to bring their goods to this country, with any hope of profit or advantage. He particularly objected to this temporising mode of getting out of the difficulty, because it only tended to involve the Company in still greater difficulties, which would in the end compel them to surrender all the advantages which they could hope to derive from the trade to India. Indeed it was quite absurd for any man to suppose that the Company could carry on an advantageous trade under the present system, and under the influence of that competition to which they were exposed; he therefore entreated the court to recollect the danger to which they now exposed themselves. He felt that he was not addressing a full court of disinterested proprietors upon this point; because it was impossible to disguise his persuasion that he was addressing a court of ship-owners and directors: but if he were addressing a court of proprietors of East-India stock he was quite sure that this consideration must weigh very strongly upon their mindsthat though the proposition for paying this money to the ship-owners was a matter of trifling importance compared with the great question, yet they were to consider the tendency of such a precedent, and that they were now going on from year to year, suffering a dead loss upon the trade carried on between this country and India. With this consideration in view, it was not unnatural that his hon. friend's mind should have been strongly impressed with that circumstance, and that he should wish to mix that question up with this debate, when it appeared that the object for which the Company were granting this sum of money to the ship-owners, was only to enable them to carry on this losing trade. It appeared therefore to him that this bill was a very inefficient measure with regard to the Company, and he could not see upon what principle of policy the members of the committee should have thought it fit that this sum should be taken from the pockets of the proprietors. He certainly did not mean to say, that the ship-owners had not a fair claim to compensation, in every point of view; but that was no reason why the Company should have entailed upon it a system so

honor. He (Mr. K.) did not know whether his hon. friend had ever been engaged in any commercial business; but certain

As there might possibly be some proprietors of East-India stock who took a disinterested view of this subject, he should make a remark upon one of the leading propositions stated in the course of this debate. It had been broadly stated that it was cheaper to give £26 per ton to the East-India ship-owner, than £14 per ton to the general ship-owner; and the hon. gentleman who spoke last roundly stated, that the Company derived greater advantage on the score of cheapness in employing the owners of East-India shipping and of private shipping and he added that the ship-owner did not gain any thing extraordinary by being paid £26 per ton, inasmuch as the expense of the outfit was greater to the East-India ship-owner than to the private owner. Now, it was very well worthy the attention of the East-India proprietors to consider whether the smallness of the profit of the ship-owner ought to be an argument with them for paying £26 per ton, truly because a great proportion of that was swallowed up in the expense of outfit. What had the gains of the owner to do with the interests of the proprietors, who were in the end to pay the whole amount of the tonnage? Was it because the outfit was expensive, that therefore the proprietors were to bear the burthen, and to be deprived of the advantage of employing shipping at a cheaper rate? It might be very true, that one of the ship-owners in fact gained no more by the payment of £26 per ton, in consequence of the expense of his outfit, than the other who received only £14, whose outfit was less expensive, but was it therefore to be said that the expense to the Company was as little in the one case as in the other? Would any man hold up his hand for so absurd a proposition? It required more ingenuity of argument than he had yet heard, to convince him that because of the expense of the outfit in the one case the shipping was no cheaper to the Company in the other; and that it was as cheap to pay £26 per ton for carrying home the Company's goods as if they paid only £14 for precisely the same advantage.

Why, then came his hon, and worthy friend (Mr. Lowndes) with his notions of Asiatic Journ.-No. 25.

was known in the commercial world was punctuality of payment in money matters; and that, in fact, men ceased to be merchants the moment they entered into the consideration of honorable feeling.

Mr. Lowndes interposed, and expressed his astonishment at such a doctrine.

Mr. Kinnaird. If the hon. gentleman, or any honorable proprietor, would shew him (Mr. K.) the honorable side of his ledger, or would even point out the word honor, or any thing but profit and loss in any commercial dealing, he (Mr. K.) would give up his creed. For his own part he had but two sides to his own book, namely, the profit and the loss; and he very much feared, that if there was an honorable account he should be obliged to shut up his book, because he was quite convinced that he must be undone in the result, if he acted upon principles of honor. The fact was, when people came to talk of mercantile transactions they must leave honor out of the question, as utterly inconsistent with matters which have only in their view the question of profit and loss. It was quite absurd therefore to treat this case as a question of honor. Undoubtedly those persons who had been long engaged in thé Company's service, had a strong claim upon their justice; but he only wished that this claim should be satisfied in a more open, direct, and manly manner. Let the Company only have the courage to look at the services of these persons; see that their claim was just, and if so, let it be satisfied; but do not satisfy them by keeping up an expensive establishment, when it would be much better at once to pay them off, or pension them as long as they lived. Sure he was that it was more advantageous and more honorable to the Company to come to a direct understanding upon the subject. If they conceived that these persons were really entitled to compensation, let them be satisfied; but let the system be changed. Let them be paid in money, or let them have some of the patronage of the East-India Company. Let the directors dispense with some of their patronage to satisfy these claims, rather than keep up a system of expensive commerce that served only for the purpose of depressing the exertions of the Company, and giving encouragement to its competitors; and here he begged leave to take this opportunity (as he certainly should again whenever the subject came before the court) of impressing upon the Company the orportunity that was now afforded them of making an effectual change in their system, by building ships of their own, and VOL. V.

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twenty-four owners; that as the hon. gentleman's resolution did not explain the footing upon which the relief was intended to be given, it was necessary that some explanation should be offered to the court upon a point not unlikely, from the statement that had been made, to produce error and misconception. His object in rising, therefore, was to explain away the supposition that so large a sum as £569,000 was to be divided amongst twenty-four owners. That certainly was not what was intended by the committee; the fact being, that that sum was to be divided amongst twenty-four ships named expressly, and not amongst twenty-four proprietors. He apprehended that the larger ships would not have occasion to apply for relief at all under this bill, if they had performed a certain number of voyages. If those ships had performed six voyages they would have a right, by the act of the 39th of the king, to be paid, according to the provisions of that act, at the same rate as ships of a smaller description as to their equipment. The act of parliament never contemplated that they should be ships of the same size, provided they were ships of a certain equipment; therefore those ships of twelve hundred tons would have a right to be paid under that act of parliament, in the same proportion as a ship of nine hundred and fifty tons. It was, of course, rather a fallacy to say that the whole of this sum of £569,000 would be divided amongst these twenty-four ships; for it might happen that the sum actually to be paid would not exceed £250,000, or something of that sort. He was only desirous of explaining to the court that so large a sum as had been mentioned would probably not be called for. Having said this much, he had only to remark, that the hon. mover, in speaking of the high rate of the Company's ships, as compared with the rate of private ships going to India, had rather confounded the ships employed in the India trade with the China ships, and consequently he had introduced a confusion into the statement, which was likely to produce error. It happened that, in the Company's India trade they had not contracted for any regular ship in that trade since 1802, when the Lord Castlereagh was launched. The Company had certainly allowed ships to be built since that time, but not for their regular India trade; in consequence of which, by Christmas next, the contracts for seven ships would expire, and then he had no doubt that the court of directors would be enabled, upon the principle of public tender, to take up as many ships as they wanted at a much cheaper rate than they had hitherto paid. This he understood to be the intention of the directors when that period arrived. It.

was to be observed further, that the India tounage was quite different from the China tonnage, the tonnage in one being of quite a different description from that in the other. For very wise reasons the Company never suffer a ship to come home from Bengal with so large a cargo as a China ship, which generally comes home fully laden; and this was the touchstone of the under-writers at Lloyd's, in calculating the risk between a ship of a small and a large size in the Bengal trade. He had often heard it remarked at Lloyd's coffee-house, that ships destined for the China trade were not so well fitted, in point of title, as those ships that go direct to India and back again, and heuce arose a difference in the rate of insurance. He did not know now what might be the fact, but formerly he knew it to be a matter of complaint that these ships were not properly fitted nor manned according to the act of parliament. He had reason to know that some ships had sailed from England without the number of men ou board required by the legislature. By the act of parliament to which he alluded, it was provided, that ships sailing from England to China should not have less than seven British sailors to every hundred tous. That was the law; but he believed it had never been complied with. In consequence of the neglect of this provision in the act, he had known that one ship was lost, and others had been in the greatest distress for want of men. The under writers knowing this, generally obliged the owners to have their full complement of men before they would underwrite; and, in default thereof, they would charge a higher rate of insurance. Begging pardon for having thus trespassed upon the attention of the court, he concluded by expressing his conviction that the proposed measure was absolutely necessary, and that, consequently, he could not agree in the motion proposed.

Mr. Grant said, he should not, on that occasion, take up the time of the court for many minutes. It was indeed quite unnecessary, for, in fact, the same subject had been discussed more than once before. All the difference on that day arose from the shape which the question had taken, in consequence of laying before the proprietors the report of the committee of the House of Commons, and the bill brought into parliament on the ground of that report. To meet what had been said, it was proper to look back to the origin of the question. The shipowners complained that they could not sail their vessels at the peace freight for which they had contracted, because the price of stores had by no means fallen after the termination of the war to any thing like a peace level; and it was not to be denied that this statement was