SPEECH

ON PRESENTING A PETITION FROM THE MERCHANTS OF LONDON

FOR THE RECOGNITION OF

THE INDEPENDENT STATES

ESTABLISHED IN THE COUNTRIES OF AMERICA FORMERLY
SUBJECT TO SPAIN.

DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ON THE 15TH OF JUNE, 1824.

“As for the wars anciently made on behalf of a parity or tacit conformity of estate, to set up or pull down democracies and oligarchies, - I do not see how they may be well justified." BACON, Essay on the True Greatness of Kingdoms.

MR. SPEAKER,

SPEECH.

I hold in my hand a Petition from the Merchants of the City of London who are engaged in trade with the countries of America formerly subject to the crown of Spain, praying that the House would adopt such measures as to them may seem meet to induce His Majesty's Government to recognize the independence of the states in those countries which have, in fact, established independent governments.

In presenting this Petition, I think it right to give the House such information as I possess relating to the number and character of the Petitioners, that it may be seen how far they are what they profess to be,what are their means of knowledge, what are likely to be the motives of their application, — what faith is due to their testimony, and what weight ought to be allowed to their judgment. Their number is one hundred and seventeen. Each of them is a member of a considerable commercial house interested in the trade to America: the Petition, therefore, conveys the sentiments of three or four hundred merchants. The signatures were collected in two days, without a public meeting, or even an advertisement. It was confined to the American merchants, but the Petitioners have no reason to believe that any merchant in London would have declined to put his name to it. I am but imperfectly qualified to estimate the importance and station of the Petitioners. Judging from common information, I should consider many of them as in the first rank of the mercantile community. I see among them the firm of Baring and Company, which, without disparagement to any others, may be placed at the head of the commercial establishments of the world.

I see also the firms of Herring, Powles, and Company; of Richardson and Company; Goldsmid and Company; Montefiore and Company; of Mr. Benjamin Shaw, who, as Chairman of Lloyd's Coffee-house, represents the most numerous and diversified interests of traffic; together with many others not equally known to me, but whom, if I did know, I have no doubt that I might with truth describe as persons of the highest mercantile respectability. I perceive among them the name of Ricardo, which I shall ever honour, and which I cannot now pronounce without emotion. In a word, the Petitioners are the City of London. They contain individuals of all political parties; they are deeply interested in the subject, perfectly conversant with all its commercial bearings; and they could not fill the high place where they stand, if they were not as much distinguished by intelligence and probity, as by those inferior advantages of wealth which with them are not fortunate accidents, but proofs of personal worth and professional merit.

If, Sir, it had been my intention to enter fully on this subject, and especially to discuss it adversely to the King's Government, I might have chosen a different form of presenting it to the House. But though I am and ever shall be a member of a party associated, as I conceive, for preserving the liberties of the kingdom, I present this Petition in the spirit of those by whom it is subscribed, in the hope of relieving that anxious desire which pervades the commercial world,and which is also shared by the people of England. that the present session may not close without some discussion or some explanation on this important subject, as far as that explanation can be given without inconvenience to the public service. For such a purpose, the presentation of a petition affords a convenient opportunity, both because it implies the absence of any intention to blame the past measures of Government as foreign from the wishes of the Petitioners, and

* Mr. Ricardo had died on the 11th of September preceding.-E

because it does not naturally require to be followed by any motion which might be represented as an invasion of the prerogative of the Crown, or as a restraint on the discretion of its constitutional advisers.

At the same time I must add, that in whatever form or at whatever period of the session I had brought this subject forward, I do not think that I should have felt myself called upon to discuss it in a tone very different from that which the nature of the present occasion appears to me to require. On a question of policy, where various opinions may be formed about the past, and where the only important part is necessarily prospective, I should naturally have wished to speak in a deliberative temper. However much I might lament the delays which had occurred in the recognition of the American States, I could hardly have gone further than strongly to urge that the time was now at least come for more decisive measures.

With respect, indeed, to the State Papers laid before us, I see nothing in them to blame or to regret, unless it be that excess of tenderness and forbearance towards the feelings and pretensions of European Spain which the Despatches themselves acknowledge. In all other respects I can only describe them as containing a body of liberal maxims of policy and just principles of public law, expressed with a precision, a circumspection, and a dignity which will always render them models and master-pieces of diplomatic composition.* Far from assailing these valuable documents, it is my object to uphold their doctrines, to reason from their principles, and to contend for nothing more than that the future policy of England on this subject may be governed by them. On them I rest: from them seems to me to flow every consequence respecting the future, which I think most desirable. I should naturally have had no other task than that of quoting them, of

They were among the first papers issued from the Foreign Office after the accession to office of Mr. Canning, and represented the spirit of his — as distinguished from the preceding Castlereagh policy. ED.