Our imports excite much less attention than our being apparently less intimately connected with that productive industry which affords a nation al and favours the popular notion of our ex tracting an annual revenue from our neighbours. They are, in from ten to twelve millions below the amount of our a difference which was and still considered by many to indicate the amount of our annual gains; it being supposed that the excess of our exports omstituted a favourable which was remitted to us in money or bills of But money and bills of exchange are sent abroad as well as remitted, and had our metallic currency been in reality swell ed by these successive importatwns during the last it ere have amounted to The Bullion Committee of aware of the fallacy of this and de sirous to arrive at as great a degree of certainty as was practicable in so complicated a calculation, ob tained from the of our imports and exports a in an amended farm, of the balance of This estimate • exhibits an apparent favourable balance of L8,000,000 or but is evidently defective in some very material particularly in taking no notice of government remittances for garrisons abroad.
A list of bankruptcies forms an unpleasant part of our mercantile particularly as their number is found regularly to increase with the extension of our commerce.
No. of Bantraptt es.
In 1703, there were only 30 1753, 214 1763, 233 1773, 562 1783, 548 1793, 1,304 1816, 2,442 If, as we a large proportion of these fail urea has been owing to political convulsions, and to the indirect effect of the usury laws Art. CoY Y6aCB, pp. 482), we are not without hopes that settled and a change in the laws in question, may materially improve this distressing part of our mercantile situation.
The following is a statement of the progressive increase of English Shipping.
Yeen. Ton..
1663, 95,266 1688, 190,533 1701, 273,693 1715, 421,431 1737, 4776,941 1751, 609,798 In the following years the shipping of Scotland is included: 1765, 726,402 1774, 901,016 1785, 1,074,862 We have selected years of because in war the necessity of resorting to neutral flags generally causes a diminution of British The above column expresses the not as permanently re gistered, but as entered in the Customhouse books on the outward clearance of vessels.
On coming nearer to our own times we possess more satisfactory viz. the Tonnage and Seamen permanently registered in England, exclu sive of Scotland, Jreland, and the Colonies, from the Customhouse returns on 30th September each year.
1792, 1,186,610 87,569 1800, 1,466,632 1Q5,037 1812, 1,951,234 124,896 1813, 2,029,637 127,740 1814, 2,088,204 131,078 1815, 2,139,301 135,006 1816, 134,060 • We add for one year (30th September 1817) the Total tonnage and seamen belonging to the British empire.
England, Scotland, and Jreland, 2,397,655 152,352 Guernsey, Jersey, and the IsIe of Man, . . 23,689 3,190 Colonies, . . 243,632 15,471 -- Total, 2,664,976 171,018 Number of Vends, with their Crews, which entered British .Ports daring 1816, including their repeat ed Voyages in the course of the year._ I British Veuels.IForeignVessels.
nearly 2,000,000 tons; that of foreign nations only 318,000. The chief cause of this great superiority lies in our exclusive navigation to the East and West Indies; but as this proceeds in a great measure from our navigation laws, it is fit to look abroad and to compare our numbers with those of other nations in the comprehensive record kept in the entrance to the Baltic. The number of British vessels that entered the Sound in the year 1817 was 2088 out of 6758. In tonnage we bore a still larger propor tion, perhaps the half of the whole, the majority of other vessels (Swedish and Prussian) being of infe rior size.
As the preceding table does not include the coast ing trade, we annex a computation of the number of vessels employed in that department of our navigation.
Vessels.
From the whole of the Out-ports to the Port of London, • 700 From Newcastle, Sunderland, and Blythe, with coals to London, . . 450 Vessels in the Coal trade to other ports from ditto, 470 Vessels employed from Whitehaven and other ports in the Coasting Coal Trade, . 250 Vessels employed in conveying produce and merchandise to and from one Out•port in the United Kingdom to another, about 1120 Total, 3000°, Of these vessels the half in tonnage, if not in num ber, belong to the coal trade. Of the value of the merchandise or property thus transmitted, there are at present no means of judging; it being exempt from duty, and a great part of it either uninsured or covered in such a manner as not to come under the policy duty.
The shipping interest have long complained of the decay of ship-building, but an accurate inquiry was made in 1806, which showed, that whatever might be the case in regard to our southern dock-yards, the northern had increased their business, and that, on the whole, there was an augmentation. The returns made to government exhibit an instructive example of the migration of industry according to the price of living. The following Table shows a decrease s Tons of Shipping Tons of Shipping built in the two built in the two Years Years 1790 and 1791 1804 and 1805 London, 16,372 12,680 Bristol, 8,071 1,623 Liverpool, . 6,710 4,154 Rochester, . 1,842 1,087 But the case is very different in the ports remote from the metropolis.