beam, or saw a plank, or bore a hole, or in short be of any use in building a ship, unless he has served seven years apprenticeship to that particular branch-they may just as well assert that a Norfolk farmer can neither plough, nor mow, nor reap, and that as a husbandman, he is utterly helpless, without a Norfolk plough, or scythe or sickle. Now it does so happen, in the king's dock-yards, that an apprentice who is not able to perform man's work, and obtain man's earnings, in the fourth year of his apprenticeship, is considered as a very stupid fellow: but the Thames builders themselves, or their imprudent advocates, find no difficulty in supposing the native Indians to spring up into shipwrights with the rapidity of mushrooms; nay, the writer of the 'Remarks' assures us, whether truly or falsely we stop not to inquire, that the fleets of the French (100 sail of the line at least) were built by men who could not handle the tools they were commanded to work with'it is the stupid Englishman only who requires seven years to perform the work of a shipwright. We could tell him, however, that the superior class of apprentices in the dock-yard at Portsmouth, who study mathematics and the principles of naval architecture one half of the day, and work with their tools the other half, laid down a sloop of war in March, 1813, and with the assistance of a very few shipwrights, had her ready for launching in June, 1814, being the fourth year from the first entry of those apprentices. To sum up the 'deplorable case,' as the builder's agent terms it, of the shipwright, we are told that 'his only resource is going to sea, and thereby subjecting himself all the rest of his life to be impressed as a seafaring man:'-this is not only false, but mischievous. The shipwright be taking himself to sea, is not impressible for two years, and if appointed carpenter of a merchant vessel of 150 tons, or upwards, is not impressible at all. If he serves in a king's ship, he is not only eligible to, but by good conduct almost sure of obtaining, the situation of a warranted carpenter. The case of the shipwrights and others, employed in the building and repairing of shipping, is in fact summed up in a very few words. The war, which threw out of employ so many thousands of families in Birmingham, Manchester, and other great manufacturing towns, created an increased demand for every species of labour connected with the dock-yards, whether public or private; the return of peace has reversed this state of things, and the shipwright is now the temporary sufferer; and on this event, we cannot help thinking that the private builders of the Thames would have been entitled to the meed of higher praise than that bestowed on them by their incompetent agent, if, following the meritorious example of the Birmingham manufacturers, they had be en in less haste to discharge their workmen, and had kept them employed on a reduced scale of work till the return of the repairing season, or till they should gradually fall back into their usual occupations. Could not the wealthy house of Wigram, for instance, afford to keep in employ more than eighteen of their numerous gangs of shipwrights for two little months, when nearly four hundred sail of West-Indian ships were expected home, many of which would necessarily require large repairs? Is the character of Thamesbuilt ships so depreciated in the eye of the mercantile world, that they could not venture, out of the profits of the ten large frigates that fell to their share to build in the year 1813, to lay down the keel of one ship on speculation, to keep some hundred of their shipwrights from starving, instead of contenting themselves with bestowing empty commiseration on paper, or in lawyers' speeches before a Committee of the House of Commons? 6 When Mr. Adolphus affects to doubt the fact of many of the discharged shipwrights having gone into the king's yards, because "it is not in evidence,' he is professionally right, though his doubts are groundless; but when he talks of its being open to inquiry, whether it is not changing the poor-box for another sort of charity, and making the men dependent on the overseers of the dockyard instead of the overseers of their parishes,' and that this is all the change in their situation,' his jargon would be excusable, were its tendency not dangerous, though we fully acquit him of any such intention. To talk of the meritorious exertions of the Thames ship-builders. in laying out large sums of money on their establishments is almost as ridiculous as the agent's ascription of Admiral Byng's disaster 'when sent against the French at Toulon,' (for Toulon read Minorca,) the blockade of Lord Cornwallis in the Chesapeake, and of the mutiny at the Nore,' to the want of those exertions. For what they have done for the public they have been well paid; and this, as we conceive, is all they have a right to expect. It is preposterous to suppose that the public should go on building ships, which they do not want, merely to accommodate them, especially at a time when the establishments of the king's dock-yards are, as we are informed they are, fully adequate to the building and keeping in repair of one hundred sail of the line, and twice the number of frigates. The measure of confining the building of ships of the line to the king's yards will produce an effective fleet, reduce its expense, and economize oak timber. There will still be left sufficient employment for the merchant builders, provided they build as well and as cheaply as at the outperts. Their alarm, if they really feel. alarmed, at the introduction of India-built ships, is unnecessary. We do mot suppose that the united exertions of all India will produce three large ships, exclusive of a line-of-battle ship and a frigate, to be launched annually at Bombay. Mr. James Walker's correspondent holds out no great encouragement for building ships at Calcutta. There are so many difficulties and troubles to encounter here, that I am really indifferent about building at all, but on very handsome terms which I fancy would not be given. Large ships would, I suppose, be the principal object; and as the whole of the materials must be expressly laid in for the purpose, the trouble, vexation, and responsibility in getting them, is beyond comprehension, and sets at defiance all calculation as to time or cost.'* That part of the question which relates to ships' stores procurable in India, as the produce of India, would be unworthy a moment's consideration, did it not form a part of that illiberal and selfish system which would confine all mercantile transactions to the banks of the Thames. To prove how much the several artificers, manufacturers, and tradespeople of the lower parts of the metropolis are affected by the supplies of India in this respect, several persons immediately and directly concerned with what is called the shipping interest,' were called before the committee and all of them without exception, without ever having been in India, without any knowledge of India or its produce, without personal knowledge of any one fact they asserted, gave the most positive and confident evidence of the existence of things that never did exist. Instead of India supplying every thing it appeared, on cross-examination, that full two-thirds of every article of ships' stores, furniture, and even provisions, were sent out from this country, to enable the ships built there to put to sea. Copper sheets, copper bolts, anchors, cables, tar, nay even blocks, masts, and sails, are sent out from England; and purchased at two and three hundred per cent. dearer than the same articles of Indian production. The repairs too which these ships require on their arrival in the Thames, are by no means inconsiderable, if we may credit the evidence of Mr. Larkins, who speaks from his own experience. He states that the General Hewitt of 1000 tons, would have cost in repairs and refit for a China voyage 20.000. that the Larkins, of 637 tons, built in Bengal and purchased for 23,7001. cost in repairing and refitting for sea in the Thames 19,850.-and he states generally that there is scarce an Indiabuilt ship that comes home to this country, that does not want a great deal of iron fastenings and a great deal of other repairs before the East India Company's surveyors will receive them into their service.'t 6 But the question has a far more extensive bearing than the nar * Minutes of Evidence, p. 106. 6 row limits within which Mr. Harrison, in his opening speech, has confined it, namely, as a question of comparison between those interested in the building of ships here and those interested in the building of ships in India.' It is not the mere building in India that the learned Counsel is now instructed to oppose; it is not the refusal of admitting ships so built into the general trade of the country-he now contends for the absolute necessity that the Navigation Acts should be so altered as to exclude from the trade between India and Great Britain any ships built in India, as British registered ships.' To shew the impolicy of Mr. Harrison's new ideas as they regard Great Britain, and their injustice as they apply to India, a very few words will suffice. By the late act, all extra ships are done away, and the Company is released from the unwelcome duty of providing tonnage for the private merchants and for the remittance of private fortunes in the produce of India. This tonnage we maintain can only be supplied by the ships that are built in the country. The trade, it is true, has been thrown open, and it is possible, though not very probable, that a superabundance of tonnage may, in the first instance, be sent on speculation to India, and if so, the loss and disappointment will most assuredly prevent a second speculation; but the fact is, that notwithstanding the renewal of former restrictions, two ships only, as far as we can learn, have ventured upon this long and uncertain. voyage. The Company's ships, we may be quite sure, will return. empty rather than bring home a bale of goods on private account; how then is the tonnage to be supplied if Mr. Harrison's ideas are to be embodied into a law? We will tell him. The Danes, the Swedes, the Portugueze, the Dutch, will be too happy to avail themselves of our egregious folly, and purchase those very teak ships, which, in spite of our Acts of Parliament, will continue to be built in India; and the Americans, as heretofore, will flock to every part of India, and undersell us, in Indian produce, in every market of Europe; for we maintain, without fear of contradiction that the raw produce and Gruff goods of India cannot be imported by English merchants residing in London, and in Thamesbuilt ships. The persons who carry on this trade must reside upon the spot, and have ships of their own built on the spot, and employed and navigated in the coasting trade by the natives of the country; without this and a free intercourse between the two countries in India-built ships, the trade of India must pass into the hands of foreign nations; but allow this, and we shall be borne out in saying that raw cotton from Surat and Guzzerat will be brought to England, equal in quality to, and lower in price than, the best bowed Georgias, for which we have been in the habit of paying such large sums of money to our loving brethren' the Americans. With regard to India, the prohibition of sending their produce to market in their own ships would be an act of the greatest inhumanity and injustice. What right, we would ask, have we to say to our fellow-subjects in India, you may build as many ships as you please, but you shall not send them to Great Britain, because Wells and Wigram, and Brent and Barnard can build ships as large, though not so good as yours? But if, as a special favour, we permit your ships now and then to carry food for our use, when we can get it no where else, you shall not make use of your own canvass and cordage, though you have a profusion of plants whose fibrous bark is admirably adapted for the purpose, because Mr. Charles Turner manufactures canvass and cordage on the banks of the Thames. We admit that you are very quick and ingenious in learning all manual operations and useful arts; that you are a docile, harmless and industrious people; we know that you inhabit a country which feeds and clothes sixty millions of people, and affords generally a superfluous produce of every necessary and luxury of life; but we shall not allow you the means of sending this produce to a market. One article indeed you make superior to all the world besides, in which we do not pretend to rival you, and that we will compel you to furnish us with in such quantities and at such prices as we shall fix.' Such is pretty nearly the condition to which we would reduce sixty millions of our fellow subjects. Well might they complain that we have conquered not to enlighten, but to barbarize; not to set free but to rivet their chains more firmly; to cramp those faculties and restrain those resources which God and nature have bestowed upon them. The late India bill has done very little to better the condition of the natives, and of a great part of that little, the rejection of the present bill would still further deprive them. To effect this no pains are spared, no expense grudged, no measures left untried by the ardent and indefatigable agents of the shipbuilders. During the sitting of the committee, a pamphlet of forty pages under the title of Interesting Extracts, illustrative of the Improvements, &c. in various manufactures by the Hindoos,' was thrust upon the public. In this pamphlet we have the evidence of half a dozen gentlemen dug out of that immense mass which was taken before the Committee of the whole House on the renewal of the charter, to prove, what was well known nearly two centuries ago, that the island of Banca produced tin, and that the Chinese prefer it on account of its superior malleability. It will probably be asked, what has Banca, or its tin, or the Chinese, to do with India ship-building? We dare say the Thames shipbuilders have asked the same thing; and herein is exemplified the utility of a sagacious agent. Every thing beyond the Cape of Good Hope is India; the sovereignty of Leadenhall-street ex |