446 



Mr. Sadler's Speech. 



[Oct. 



laised against her own country, and which 

 has, therefore, a share iu all the laurels 

 Britain wears, as well as those bright and 

 unftiding ones which are exclusively her 

 own — the royal navy is put in jeopardy by 

 tliis anti-national policy — a worse conse- 

 quence even than all the personal and pri- 

 vate injuries which have been inflicted : as 

 defence (again to quote Adam Smith) is 

 ef much more importance than opulence, 

 tlie Act of Navigation is (was, he must 

 now have said), the wisest perhaps of all 

 the commercial regulations of England. 

 But that act, the same school so often 

 alluded to have torn asunder with as little 

 ceremony as they have destroyed that " Old 

 Almanack" of 1688 — the Protestant -con- 

 stitution of the empire. 



Gentlemen, I might easily enlarge upon 

 this important subject. But it is unneces- 

 sary. You, I conceive, are fully compe- 

 tent to judge of the present state of your 

 own business, and to compare its past and 

 present condition. This place I have always 

 understood to have been one of tlie most 

 noted sliip-buUding stations in the kingdom. 

 From A\'hitby, the celebrated Captain Cook 

 ■chose to have his vessels in which he cir- 

 cumnavigated the globe ; and from hence 

 another ornament of science, Scoresby, sailed. 

 A wish to visit so interesting a place brought 

 me once, for a few hours, here before ; but 

 1 saw it under the obsolete and rescinded 

 system, which gave protection to British 

 bottoms, and then the place was prosperous 

 in a high degree, and full of activity : now 

 it is evidently dechning and in decay. The 

 difference is, indeed, most striking. But 

 in making these observations, I do not sym- 

 pathize with you so deeply, gentlemen, as 

 with those who wovdd have been better em- 

 ployed, and more amply paid by you, had 

 the former system been allowed to remain. 

 The ship-builders and merchants of ^Vhitby 

 have lived in other and better times ; and 

 are, I understand, as a body, wealthy in an 

 unusual degree, and can therefore sustain 

 these reverses, or leave the business, though 

 at great sacrifices, which subjects them to 

 «uch loss. But the workmen — what is to 

 become of them ? Ar d here I will make 

 my last allusion to the new principle ; it is 

 at the lower and industrious classes tliat it 

 principally takes its aim, — in which the le- 

 gislature has long been too much its abettor. 

 Paley says expressly, that " the care of the 

 poor ought to be the principal object of all 

 laws, for this plain reason, that tlie rich are 

 -able to take care of themselves." But were 

 I to say that any of the late regulations have 

 been dictated by these feeUngs, I should 

 compUmcnt the benevolence of their projec- 

 tors at the expense of their intelligence. I 

 wUl compliment neither. The modern 

 system, which has been insinuating itself 

 -amongst us by degrees, I hold to be an attack 

 upon the few remaining privileges of labour- 

 ing poverty throughout. In agriailture, 

 this spirit, dictates what Lord Bacon calls 



the engrossment of great farms ; by which a 

 hundred little cultivators must be thrown 

 out of a decent occupation and replaced by 

 one, if the theorists can make it out that a 

 grain more of surplus produce, to use their 

 cant expression, can be so obtained. In 

 manufactures, it would, as the Edinburgh 

 Encyclopedia justly expresses • it, " turn 

 out of employment the entire population, if 

 the master manufacturer, by the employ- 

 ment of machinery, could save five per cent." 

 In commerce, it exhorts you to buy where 

 you can buy cheapest, though you leave the 

 multitude, who enable you to purchase at 

 all, without employment, raiment, and 

 bread. In shipping, it allows the native 

 mariner, whose life is a life of danger, and 

 wliose death is often one of glory, and who 

 may be called upon at any moment to fight 

 the battles of his country, to be ground 

 down or supplanted, as it may happen, by 

 the slaves of some foreign despot, who per- 

 haps victuals them upon black bread and 

 oil. Even in science, I am sorry to say, 

 this " infection works." If, for instance, 

 anatomy has to be promoted — but I recall 

 the idea ; here, at length, the poor are 

 allowed the privilege of monopolizing the 

 market. Subjects for the human shambles 

 are to be supplied by the friendless poor ex- 

 clu.sively ; — those legislators who have illu- 

 mination enough to laugh at their own ])reju- 

 dices, nevertheless refuse their own carcases to 

 the carding knives of the dissectors. These, 

 however, are not the most striking instances 

 which might and shall be adduced in proof 

 that the spirit of modern legislation — since 

 we have deserted the humane, benevolent, 

 aye, and politic principles of our Christian 

 forefathers, — is hostile to the real interests of 

 the working classes. These are, and have 

 long been, my settled feeUngs and sentiments, 

 and I utter them in no hostihty, open or dis- 

 guised, against the other and higher ranks of 

 society, which, on the contrary, I have always 

 attempted to support, in my humble sphere, 

 in their just rights and privileges. It is to 

 secure these, as well as to serve the lower 

 orders, tiiat I thus speak, and I shall act 

 conformably. But the present legislative 

 philosophy attempts to place the pyramid of 

 national philosophy upon its apex instead of 

 its base : its anxieties are about the summit, 

 when it should be attending to the founda- 

 tion. JMy preceding observations are not 

 levelled at any set of men in power, 

 individually considered ; on the contrary, it 

 has always been my wish to support the go- 

 vernment of the country as far as I con- 

 scientiously could ; and the present ministry 

 had more especially my good wishes. I 

 had diftered from their new policy, indeed, 

 ever since they introduced it, — the " thun-. 

 ders" of the opposite party, however, the 

 ownership is contended for; the lightning 

 attending v/hich has scorched and withered 

 ■all our vital interests : but I imagined that 

 they were supporting what I conceived was 

 of still more imjHwtapce to the. country cvcb 



