About the middle of March the commons ordered the proper officers to lay before them an account of the sums which had been subscribed, and these were taken into consideration by a committee of the whole house. It was then that Mr. Pelham, as chancellor of the exchequer, observed, that besides the debts due to the three great companies in their corporate capacity, all the rest, carrying four per centum interest, had been subscribed, except about eight or nine millions, the proprietors of which had forfeited the favour designed them by parliament; but as many of these had been misled by evil counsellors, who perhaps were more intent on distressing the government, than solicitous to serve their friends; and as many were foreigners, residing beyond sea, who had not time to take proper advice, and give the necessary instruction; and as these could not possibly be distinguished from such as refused to subscribe from mere obstinacy or disaffection, it might be thought cruel to take the most rigorous advantage of the forfeiture they had incurred. With respect to the proprietors of the stock or capital belonging to the three great companies, he asserted, that many of them would willingly have subscribed their properties within the time limited, but were necessarily excluded by the majority on the ballot; and as it was equally impossible to know those who were against the question on the ballot, he thought that some tenderness was due even to the proprietors of those three companies; his opinion therefore was, that they and the uncomplying annuitants should be indulged with further time to complete their subscription; but, in order to preserve the authority of parliament, and the respect due to that august assembly, they ought not to be gratified with such advantageous terms as were allowed to the annuitants who at first cheerfully complied with the proposals offered by the legislature. For these reasons he proposed, that although the term of subscribing should be protracted till the thirtieth day of May, the encouragement of three pounds ten shillings per centum per annum should not be continued to the second subscribers longer than till the fifth day of December, in the year one thousand seven hundred and fifty-five. The proposal being approved, a bill was framed for this purpose, as well as for redeeming such annuities as should not be subscribed, which passed through both houses, and was enacted into a law, after having received an additional clause, empowering the East India company, in case they should subscribe all their stock bearing an interest of four per centum, to borrow, with the consent of the treasury, any sums not exceeding four millions two hundred thousand pounds, after the several rates of interest before proposed to be paid by the public, and one million more at three per centum per annum. They were also vested with a power to raise money by bonds as formerly; yet so as the whole, including the annuities, should not exceed what they were by former acts empowered to borrow. The objections to the execution of this project, which by many were deemed insurmountable, entirely vanished before the fortitude, perseverance, and caution of the minister; who had secured, among the monied men of the nation, the promise of such sums as would have been sufficient to pay off the capital belonging to those creditors who might refuse to accept the interest thus reduced. The second subscription had the desired effect. The three great companies acquiesced, and their example was followed by the other scrupulous annuitants; the national burden was comfortably lightened, and the sinking fund considerably increased, without producing the least perplexity or disturbance in the commonwealth; a circumstance that could not fail to excite the admiration and envy of all Christendom.
1750
NEW MUTINY BILL.
The mutiny bill for the ensuing year was mitigated with an essential alteration, relating to the oath of secrecy imposed upon the members of every court-martial, who were now released from this reserve if required to give evidence, by due course of law, in any court of judicature; and whereas, by the former mutiny bill, a general was empowered to order the revival of any sentence by a court-martial as often as he pleased, and, on that pretence, to keep in confinement a man who had been acquitted upon a fair trial; it was now enacted, that no sentence pronounced by any court-martial, and signed by the president, should be more than once liable to revisal. Colonel George Townshend, son of lord viscount Townshend, who had equally distinguished himself by his civil and military accomplishments, proposed another clause, for preventing any noncommissioned officer’s being broke or reduced into the ranks; or any soldier’s being punished, but by the sentence of a court-martial. He gave the house to understand, that certain persons attended at the door, who from the station of non-commissioned officers had been broke, and reduced into the ranks, without trial, or any cause assigned; and he expatiated not only upon the iniquity of such proceedings, but also upon the danger of leaving such arbitrary power in the hands of any individual officer. A warm debate was the consequence of this motion, which, however, was overruled by the majority.
BILL FOR ENCOURAGING the IMPORTATION OF IRON FROM AMERICA.
Among other regulations made in the course of this session for the encouragement of the British manufactures, a large duty was laid upon Irish sail-cloth, which being sold at an under price, was found to interfere with the same species of commodity fabricated in the island of Great Britain; and, for the farther benefit of this last, the bounty upon the exportation of it, which had been deducted from a defective fund, was now made payable out of the customs. This measure, however, was not of such importance to the nation, as the act which they passed for encouraging the importation of pig and bar iron from the British colonies in North America. Every well-wisher to his country reflected with concern on the nature of the British trade with Sweden, from which kingdom the subjects of his Britannic majesty imported more iron and steel than all the other countries in Europe. For this article they paid a very great balance in ready money, which the Swedes again expended in purchasing from the French, and other mercantile powers, those necessaries and superfluities with which they might have been as cheaply furnished by Great Britain. In the meantime, the English colonies in America were restricted by severe duties from making advantage of their own produce, in exchanging their iron for such commodities as they were under the necessity of procuring from their mother country. Such restrictions was not only a cruel grievance upon our own settlements, but also attended with manifest prejudice to the interest of Great Britain, annually drained of great sums in favour of an ungrateful nation, from which no part of them returned; whereas the iron imported from America must of necessity come in exchange for our own manufactures. The commons having appointed a day for taking this affair into consideration, carefully examined into the state of the British commerce carried on with Sweden, as well as into the accounts of iron imported from the plantations of America; and a committee of the whole house having resolved, that the duties on American pig and bar iron should be removed, a bill [322] [See note 2 R, at the end of this Vol.] was brought in for that purpose, containing a clause, however, to prevent his majesty’s subjects from making steel, and establishing mills for slitting and rolling iron within the British colonies of America: this precaution being taken, that the colonists might not interfere with the manufactures of their mother country.