T 1/474/147 - Petition of the Merchants &c for Indulgence of Trade - 1769

To the Right Honble the Lords of his Majestys Treasury

The Petition of the principal Gentlemen & Merchants in behalf of Themselves & others the Inhabitants of this Island.

Most humbly sheweth That the Wisdom of the British Legislature having found it expedient to make a very great Alteration in the Circumstances of this Island and the experience of years having shewn that it is no longer the Source of Mischief to the Trade and Renue of Great Britain, Your Petitioners humbly beg Leave to lay before your Lordships our present unhappy conditions & to Supplicate some Relief.

That having no kind of Commerce allowed us which we can follow with any Degree of Profit or convenience and of course no circulating Cash to cultivate our Lands or give due Encouragement to our Linen & other Infant Manufactures, our Distress daily encrease. Our young & ablest People, desitute of Employment, are abandoning their Homes and seeking a Livelihood in foreign Parts, to the great detriment of our Herring & other Fisheries, upon which Numbers of the Inhabitants chiefly depend, and which may justly be esteemed a usefill Nursery for Seamen. The Nature of our Lands is decreas'd Our Houses are uninhabited & falling to ruin in all the Trading Towns of the Island, the Rents of which are sunk above Fifteen Thousand pounds a Year. Hence many Families unable to remove are daily going to decay and poverty. So that this Island from its Nature & Situation capable of affording many advantages to Great Britain, will, without some reasonable Relief, gradually become a Desart.

And we beg leave to represent to your Lordships that our Harbours the constant refuge of Ships in Distress Trading to and from Great Britain to Ireland & Foreign parts in which many Vessels and hundreds of Lives have been Yearly preserved are become so ruinous for want of timely reparations that they cannot long subsist. Large sums of Money which was advanced by way of Mortgage to build & improve them are still unpaid and no fund remains for wa[.. lost] Trade & Naval Intercourse to do justice to the Motgagees or even to keep the Harbours secure.

That the late Act of Parliament for encouraging & regulating the Trade & Manufactures of this Island however indulgent in its Tendency still subects us with former restraining Laws to such peculiarhardships as no other part of his Maesty's Dominions has the Misfortune to labour under, most of which laws were made previous to the Act Vesting this Isle in the Crown, and calculated to suppress a Trade which no longer subsists. In remedy of these Grievances which are as notorious as they are great. Your Petitioners beg leave to offer to your Lordships consideration some few particulars of our request which we have instructed our Agent to lay before your Lordships, and most humbly beg in Pity to our Distress an allowance of such Indulgences as to your Wisdom & Goodness shall seem meet.

Notes

noted as read 5th Apr 1769

93 names are appended - one name not present is that of George Moore

There is a futher document, T 1/474/148, entitled the Memorial of the ...