It seems to me to be of much more importance to defend the merchants than to hear them; and I shall, therefore, think no concessions at this time expedient, which may obstruct the great end of our endeavours, the equipment of the fleet.
Mr. PULTENEY then spoke as follows:—Sir, notwithstanding the art and eloquence with which this grant of the merchants' petition has been opposed, I am not yet able to discover that any thing is asked unreasonable, unprecedented, or inconvenient; and I am confident, that no real objection can have been overlooked by the gentlemen who have spoken against it.
I have spent, sir, thirty-five years of my life in the senate, and know that information has always, upon important questions, been willingly received; and it cannot surely be doubted that the petitioners are best able to inform us of naval business, and to judge what will be the right method of reconciling the sailors to the publick service, and of supplying our fleets without injuring our trade.
Their abilities and importance have been hitherto so generally acknowledged, that no senate has yet refused to attend to their opinion; and surely we ought not to be ambitious of being the first assembly of the representatives of the people, that has refused an audience to the merchants.
With regard to the expedience of delaying the bill at the present conjuncture, he must think very contemptuously of the petitioners, who imagines that they have nothing to offer that will counterbalance a delay of two days, and must entertain an elevated idea of the vigilance and activity of our enemies, enemies never before eminent for expedition, if he believes that they can gain great advantages in so short a time.
The chief reason of the opposition appears, indeed, not to be either the irregularity or inexpediency of hearing them, but the offence which some have received from an irreverent mention of the power of impressing, a power which never can be mentioned without complaint or detestation.
It is not, indeed, impossible that they may intend to represent to the house, how much the sailors are oppressed, how much our commerce is impeded, and how much the power of the nation is exhausted, by this cruel method. They may propose to show that sailors, not having the choice of their voyages, are often hurried through a sudden change of climates, from one extreme to another, and that nothing can be expected from such vicissitudes, but sickness, lameness, and death. They may propose, that to have just arrived from the south may be pleaded as an exemption from an immediate voyage to the north, and that the seaman may have some time to prepare himself for so great an alteration, by a residence of a few months in a temperate climate.
If this should be their intention, it cannot, in my opinion, sir, be called either unreasonable or disrespectful, nor will their allegations be easily disproved.
But it is insinuated, that their grievances are probably such as affect them only as distinct from the rest of the community, and that they have nothing to complain of but a temporary interruption of their private advantage.
I have, indeed, no idea of the private advantage of a legal trader: for unless, sir, we neglect our duty of providing that no commerce shall be carried on to the detriment of the publick, the merchant's profit must be the profit of the nation, and their interests inseparably combined.