Nor, indeed, can it be justly said, that such representations are without grounds, when we consider the important occasion on which this bill is drawn up, the bitterness of those calamities which it is intended to redress, and the authority by which it is recommended to us.
It may naturally be expected, my lords, that the title of a bill for the protection and security of trade, should raise an uncommon degree of ardour and attention; it might be conceived that every lord in this house would be ambitious of signalizing his zeal for the interest of his country, by proposing, on this occasion, every expedient which experience or information had suggested to him; and that instead of setting ourselves free from the labour of inquiry and the anxiety of deliberation, by raising objections to the bill and rejecting it, we should labour with unanimous endeavours, and incessant assiduity, to supply its defects, and correct its improprieties; to show that a design so beneficial can never be proposed to us without effect, and that whenever we find honest zeal, we shall be ready to assist it with judgment and experience.
Compassion might likewise concur to invigorate our endeavours on this occasion. For who, my lords, can reflect on families one day flourishing in affluence, and contributing to the general prosperity of their country, and on a sudden, without the crime of extravagance or negligence, reduced to penury and distress, harassed by creditors, and plundered by the vultures of the law, without wishing that such misfortunes might by some expedient be averted? But this, my lords, is not the only nor the greatest calamity, which this bill is intended to prevent. The loss of wealth, however grievous, is yet less to be dreaded than that of liberty, and indigence added to captivity is the highest degree of human misery. Yet even this, however dreadful, is now the lot of multitudes of our fellow-subjects, who are languishing with want in the prisons of Spain.
Surely, my lords, every proposal must be well received that intends the prevention or relief of calamities like these. Surely the ruin of its merchants must alarm every trading nation, nor can a British senate sit unconcerned at the captivity of those men by whom liberty is chiefly supported.
Of the importance of the merchants, by whom this bill is recommended to our consideration, and by whose influence it has already passed the other house, it is not necessary to remind your lordships, who know, that to this class of men our nation is indebted for all the advantages that it possesses above those which we behold with compassion or contempt, for its wealth and power, and perhaps for its liberty and civility. To the merchants, my lords, we owe that our name is known beyond our own coasts, and that our influence is not confined to the narrow limits of a single island.
Let us not, therefore, my lords, reject with contempt what is proposed and solicited by men of this class; men whose experience and knowledge cannot but have enabled them to offer something useful and important, though, perhaps, for want of acquaintance with former laws, they may have imagined those provisions now first suggested, which have only been forgotten, and petitioned for the enaction of a new law, when they needed only an enforcement of former statutes.
That our naval force has, in the present war, been misapplied; that our commerce has been exposed to petty spoilers, in a degree never known before; that our convoys have been far from adding security to our traders; and that with the most powerful fleet in the world, we have suffered all that can fall upon the most defenceless nation, cannot be denied.
Nor is it any degree of temerity, my lords, to affirm, that these misfortunes have been brought upon us by either negligence or treachery; for, besides that no other cause can be assigned for the losses which a powerful people suffer from an enemy of inferiour force, there is the strongest authority for asserting, that our maritime affairs have been ill conducted, and that, therefore, the regulation of them is very seasonably and properly solicited by the merchants.
For this assertion, my lords, we may produce the authority of the other house, by which a remonstrance was drawn up against the conduct of the commissioners of the admiralty. This alone ought to influence us to an accurate discussion of this affair. But when an authority yet more venerable is produced, when it appears that his majesty, by the dismission of the commissioners from their employments, admitted the justice of the representation of the commons, it surely can be of no use to evince, by arguments, the necessity of new regulations.
It is, indeed, certain, that men of integrity and prudence, men of ability to discern their duty, and of resolution to execute it, can receive very little assistance from rules and prescriptions; nor can I deny what the noble lord has affirmed, that they may be sometimes embarrassed in their measures, and hindered from snatching opportunities of success, and complying with emergent occasions; but, my lords, we are to consider mankind, not as we wish them, but as we find them, frequently corrupt, and always fallible.