At the opening of the session the Prince Regent had congratulated the country upon the prosperity of the revenue and of all branches of trade and manufacture.[719] As a matter of fact both the commercial and agricultural interests of the country were in a very bad way. The high prices produced during the latter part of the war by the continental system, which virtually excluded foreign competition, had been most disastrous to agriculture by encouraging a bad system of farming, whilst they inflicted the greatest hardship upon all but the wealthiest class. In 1811 the price of a quartern loaf—as set from time to time by the Court of Aldermen, according to the custom of the city,[720] "within the city and the liberties thereof, and the weekly Bills of mortality, and within ten miles of the Royal Exchange"—had risen to such a height that the Common Council presented an address to the Regent (18 Dec.) praying him to take measures for re-opening commercial intercourse with foreign, and especially neutral, nations. To this the Regent replied that nothing should be wanting on his part towards restoring commercial intercourse between this country and other nations "to the footing on which it has been usually conducted, even in the midst of war."[721] The average price of the quartern loaf, from this period until the autumn of 1813, when the country was blessed with a rich harvest, may be set down at 1s. 6d. It then began to fall rapidly. Flour, however, kept up in price for some time owing to the dryness of the summer, which prevented many mills near London from working, whilst several of the mills which could work "were engaged in answering the demands of government for the army abroad, and the prisoners of war confined in this country."[722]
The City and the first Corn Law, March, 1815.
No sooner had the price of wheat fallen than a Corn Law Bill was introduced into Parliament, in the interests of the landed gentry, to raise it again. The Bill was brought in on the 1st March (1815), and rapidly passed the Commons, in spite of protests from the Common Council, as well as the livery of London, who objected to the landowner, who had benefited by the war, being made richer at the expense of the tradesman and merchant, whose burdens the war had so much increased.[723] On the 21st the Bill passed the Lords, and only awaited the Regent's assent to become law. Determined to make one more effort the Common Council presented an address to his royal highness begging him to withhold his assent.[724] They complained of the "precipitancy" with which the Bill had been passed, and of the utter disregard of public feeling and opinion which both Houses—composed as they were of landed proprietors, to whom the war had been a source of emolument—had throughout displayed. The Bill had been passed (they repeated) in the interest of landowners, who already enjoyed sufficient immunities, whereas the manufacturer and the merchant, who had done so much to make England what she was, had to suffer from foreign competition and the recent introduction of machinery. The Bill, if passed, would keep up the price of food, and so drive the manufacturer and artisan to foreign parts, and transfer the skill, industry and capital of the kingdom to other nations. They prayed his highness, therefore, to exercise his prerogative of refusing his assent to the Bill. This he refused, however, to do, and the Bill became law. As to the merits or demerits of free-trade, opinions are still divided; but for thirty years after the passing of the first Corn Law the City never lost an opportunity of declaring its opposition to the principle involved,[725] and never rested until in 1846 the first steps were taken for the abolition of all corn duties. However much others have benefited by their repeal, one cannot shut one's eyes to the fact that to the agricultural class the result has been little short of disastrous.
A year of general depression, 1816.
Unfortunately the depression was not confined to agriculture, as the Common Council took an early opportunity of pointing out to Parliament in their petition against the renewal of the income tax (8 Feb.): "Your petitioners are deeply sensible"—they told the House of Commons—"of the depressed state of the agricultural interests and of the ruinous effect of such a burthen thereon, they nevertheless beg to state that the manufacturing and trading interests are equally depressed and equally borne down with the weight of taxation."[726]
Address of the livery to Regent, 21 Aug., 1816.
As time went on matters became worse, and in August the livery resolved to present another address to the Regent, calling his attention to the prevalent distress, which they characterised as "unparalleled in the history of our country," and which they declared to be "the natural result of a corrupt system of administration," as well as of the profligate waste of public money during the late war. An address was accordingly drawn up (21 Aug.) praying his highness to lose no time in recommending to the serious consideration of Parliament (1) the distressed state of the country; (2) the prompt abolition of all useless places and pensions; (3) the immediate and effectual reduction of the standing army; (4) a system of the most rigid economy in every public department, and last, but not least, (5) such a reform of Parliament as should restore and secure to the people their ancient constitutional rights. This address they ordered to be presented to the Prince Regent "seated on his throne." The address was never presented, for the reason that the Regent refused to receive it in any other way than at a levée or through the medium of his secretary of state. The livery therefore had once more to console themselves with passing a number of resolutions after the usual manner.[727]
The city flooded with vagrants.
The streets of the city, meanwhile, swarmed not only with artisans out of work, but, what was worse, with discharged soldiers and sailors. A large proportion of the last mentioned class were foreign seamen. At the close of the war the government had taken steps to send to their respective countries all foreign seamen who had served on British vessels. Many of them, however, had either declined the government offer, or, having accepted it and obtained a passage home, had come to England with the view of entering the English merchant service or obtaining some other employment in this country. It was in vain that the lord mayor (Matthew Wood)[728] applied to the foreign consuls to send them home. The answer was that they had "forfeited all claim on their native country and violated the allegiance they owed to it by entering the service of Great Britain." The consequence was that great numbers of these unfortunate men wandered about the city in an utterly destitute condition. Oftentimes when opportunity offered for sending some of them to their own country their consuls could not find them. The lord mayor, who was in communication both with Lord Sidmouth and Lord Melville, suggested the advisability of mooring an old vessel in the Thames for the reception of foreign seamen until they could be sent home. Lord Melville, as first lord of the admiralty, signified his approval of the plan and promised to supply a suitable vessel. In the meanwhile, matters daily grew worse. The lord mayor complained to Lord Sidmouth (16 Nov.) that he had frequently been engaged from nine in the morning until six in the evening attending to destitute cases:—"I have had before me two hundred in a day, of whom the greater number have come from Wapping and the out parishes, and not one in twenty has slept in London." If only the magistrates (he declared) would examine into the cases of their own districts, "it would divide the labour and prevent the daily assemblage of from one to two hundred of these poor creatures around the Mansion House, some of whom linger about it all night." In conclusion he begged to draw his lordship's attention once more to the situation of the foreign seamen who were found on the bridges and in the streets "literally starving," and to ask that the government should do something to relieve the City of the heavy expense which their presence entailed. The only reply which the secretary of state vouchsafed to this appeal was a non possumus. The government had done all they could do, and relief could only be looked for at the hands of the foreign consuls, whose duty it was to provide for their own poor.[729]
Resolutions of the livery, 29 Nov., 1816.