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ON THE SUPPLY OF 
 
 EMPLOYMENT AND SUBSISTENCE 
 
 FOE THE 
 
 LABOURING CLASSES, 
 
 IN 
 
 FISHERIES, MANUFACTURES, AND THE CUL- 
 TIVATION OF WASTE LANDS; 
 
 WITH 
 
 REMARKS ON THE OPERATION OF THE 
 
 SALT DUTIES, 
 
 AND A PROPOSAL FOR THEIR REPEAL. 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE 
 
 RIGHT HON. NICHOLAS VANS1TTART, 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR THOMAS (BERNARD, BART. 
 
 y> 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRIXTED FOR JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE- 
 STREET. 
 
 1*17. '.:" 
 ',)*> ' '' ' 
 
A LETTER, 
 
 1 HE PROVIDING of new and adequate 
 sources of healthful and beneficial employ- 
 ment for a numerous and increasing popu- 
 lation, is at present the general and im- 
 portant object of the public attention. After 
 the arduous and successful contest for the 
 liberty and independence of Europe, in 
 which we have persevered for above twenty 
 years, we now find other indispensable 
 
 B 
 
 M188157 
 
[2] 
 
 duties, which call for our exertions. We 
 have to supply means of occupation and 
 subsistence for those, to whom not only 
 England, but Europe is so deeply in- 
 debted; the duty and difficulty of which 
 are increased in proportion to the immense 
 numbers which we have enrolled by sea 
 and land, and to the distinguished part 
 which we have taken in restoring to the 
 civilized world the blessings of social order 
 and civil government. At the same time, 
 many of the labouring poor, by a con- 
 currence of unprecedented circumstances, 
 have been deprived of their ordinary 
 means of labour. In our efforts, how- 
 ever, for the relief of our fellow sub- 
 jects, it is no small encouragement to re- 
 flect that, during a sanguinary contest of 
 more than twenty years, in which some of 
 the fairest portions of the habitable world 
 have been desolated and laid waste, our 
 population has been gradually increasing, 
 our internal improvements have advanced 
 without interruption, our commerce and 
 manufactures have been more than doubled, 
 
3] 
 
 above three millions* of unproductive 
 acres have been brought into cultivation, 
 and an increasing surplus of more than 
 fourteen millions a year has been exclu- 
 sively and, I trust, inalienably appropriated 
 towards the reduction of our national debt. 
 With these advantages, indeed, it would 
 be the excess of weakness and cowardice, to 
 despair of providing an adequate remedy for 
 our present inconveniences, -by opening 
 new sources of occupation in our fisheries, 
 agriculture, manufactures and commerce ; 
 so as not only to provide employment and 
 subsistence for our brave sailors and sol- 
 diers, but at the same time to afford relief 
 to others of the labouring class, under diffi- 
 culties and distresses, which by some have 
 been imputed to renewed PEACE and PLENTY, 
 but may be attributed to other and very 
 different causes, which I shall endeavour 
 to explain. 
 
 In an age like the present, fruitful in 
 
 * Chalmers' State of the United Kingdom at the 
 Peace of Paris. 
 
[4] 
 Causes of scheme and enterprize, rival 
 
 want of em- 
 
 ployment. banks had been set up in coun- 
 try towns and villages, by petty trades- 
 men with little credit and no capital. In 
 order to circulate their paper, these new 
 bankers dealt in corn and other articles of 
 life, and advanced their paper to others for 
 the same purpose, with the noxious effect 
 of raising the markets, and producing a 
 kind of temporary scarcity.* Taking ad- 
 vantage of this increased price of the pro- 
 duce of the soil, a knavish race of land- 
 valuers impressed the mind of the land- 
 owner with chimerical ideas -f of the value 
 of real property, and induced him to set 
 the rent of his land far above its in- 
 
 * This subject is ably treated in the British Review 
 of August 1816. 
 
 f The madness of high rents and of high prices 
 became as epidemical, as it formerly was in the South 
 Sea year. When the Village Banker had made his 
 agreement for granaries of wheat and barley, or for 
 estates in lands and mines, he scorned to shrink from 
 his bargain, however improvident it might appear. He 
 only set to work with his clerk, to fabricate more notes, 
 to pay for his purchase ; as Swift's madman, when he 
 
[5] 
 
 trinsic worth. A favourable harvest, how- 
 ever, blighted all their hopes ; and the price 
 of corn was gradually returning to its 
 natural level, when the guilt, the impa- 
 tience, and the mutual distrust of these 
 monopolists, glutted and depressed the 
 markets, and a 'general alarm, the failure 
 of bankers, the insolvency of tenants, and 
 the distress of landlords, were the neces- 
 sary and immediate consequences. The 
 pecuniary distress which has very gene- 
 rally followed those failures, weakened the 
 spirit of commercial enterprize, stopped 
 some of our public works, checked the 
 improvements of private property, and 
 lessened the demand for labour throughout 
 the United Kingdom, just at the time 
 when the restoration of peace occasioned 
 the discharge of the immense numbers 
 of labouring men, engaged in the sea and 
 land service, and in the various depart- 
 
 had made his ten notches on his skewer, threw it on 
 the table, 
 
 " Shall I, ye Gods (he cries) my debts compound ? 
 There, take my tally for ten thousand pound.*' 
 
ments subservient to or connected with 
 it. This is a situation of extraordinary 
 difficulty, requiring the greatest degree of 
 abilities and attention in Government, to 
 cope with ; and it is a very fortunate' cir- 
 cumstance for this country, that at such a 
 crisis, we have a strong and efficient ad- 
 ministration, competent to contend with 
 the difficulties that surround them. 
 
 As the evil is not local or temporary, the 
 Sources of remedy must not only be ge- 
 
 d n e C mand d for heral in its effect > but P erma " 
 
 labour. nent j n j ts duration. Except 
 
 the greater evil of the renewal of the 
 horrors of war, no measure seems adequate 
 to the object, without the removal of every 
 existing obstacle and impediment to the 
 employment of the labouring class ; so as 
 to augment the call for manual labour, in 
 Agriculture, Fisheries, and Manufactures; 
 and particularly by the cultivation of our 
 WASTE LANDS and the extension of our 
 FISHERIES, to provide new sources of ac- 
 ceptable occupation. Looking to this object, 
 
[7] 
 
 it appears to me, and I shall endeavour 
 to prove, that there is no obstacle or im- 
 pediment, that operates so generally and 
 fatally against the increase of employment 
 for the labouring class, in these and many 
 other respects, as the existence of the SALT 
 DUTIES. 
 
 There is hardly to be found in the infi- 
 nite variety of created matter, any Account 
 
 C C! 1 *- 
 
 thing more valuable, or more gene- 
 rally applicable to use, than COMMON SALT. 
 Composed of two deleterious materials, 
 chlorine and sodium, the united substance 
 is more beneficial and salubrious, than it 
 is in the power of our limited understand- 
 ing to comprehend. Every accession of 
 knowledge discovers new benefits and uses 
 in it. Its spirit is diffused over the bound- 
 less ocean. It gives health and purity to 
 the mass of waters, and to the inhabitants 
 of the deep abyss. It preserves every spe- 
 cies of food for the use of man, renews 
 the exhausted soil and restores its fer- 
 tility, and is healthful and acceptable to 
 every kind of animal. In respect of this 
 
[8] 
 
 mportant and necessary article of life, 
 England has been peculiarly fortunate. 
 Her brine springs are rich and abundant ; 
 and, what is extraordinary, are stronger in 
 proportion as they are more and more 
 worked by the pump. A gallon of brine will 
 yield above two pounds and a half of solid 
 salt; whilst those foreign springs, which are 
 the subject of the French report in 1795, 
 are not of half the strength of the brine 
 springs in the county of Chester. Add to 
 this, that the waters which wash the bays 
 and inlets of our coasts, are capable of pro- 
 ducing an inexhaustible supply of salt ; and 
 that the subterraneous treasures of coal that 
 abound in every part of our Island, afford 
 means which no other country possesses, 
 of purifying and crystallizing it for our 
 own use, for the extension of our com- 
 merce, and for the supply of the world. 
 No country indeed has been in this respect 
 more favoured, except so far as (like 
 the wand of Sancho's physician ) the arm 
 of Government is extended, to prevent 
 our free enjoyment of the bounty of Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
[9] 
 
 In preparing the salt from the brine, 
 there is a refuse part, which is i tsusea3a 
 formed by the separation and de- Manure - 
 composition of the grosser particles from 
 the pure salt. This is cleared out from 
 the pans, and thrown on the ground, to 
 the amount of several bushels * at each 
 boiling. Before the excessive increase of 
 the duties (which now are thirty pounds 
 on a ton of salt, the original value of 
 which is about fifteen shillings) the salt 
 proprietors were allowed to dispose of this 
 
 * In his Agricultural Survey of Cheshire, (p. 238.) 
 Mr. Holland notices an experiment made with this 
 refuse salt, where it was spread in the middle of 
 October on a piece of sour rushy ground, after the rate 
 of eight bushels to the acre, and in another part sixteen 
 bushels. In a short time the vegetation disappeared 
 totally, and during the month of April following, not 
 a blade of grass was to be seen. In the latter end of 
 the Month of May a most flourishing crop of rich 
 grass made its appearance on that part where the eight 
 bushels had been laid. In the month of July, the 
 other portion produced a still stronger crop : the cattle 
 were remarkably fond of it, and during the whole en- 
 suing winter, and for several years, the land retained, 
 and yet exhibits, a superior verdure to the neighbouring 
 closes. 
 
refuse salt to the farmers ; who knew the 
 value of it as a manure, and (however infe- 
 rior it might be to pure salt) were very glad 
 to purchase as much as they could get of it, 
 at twenty-five shillings a ton : half of which 
 went as a duty to Government, and the rest 
 was a clear gain to the salt proprietor. The 
 late Lord Coventry used to have a regular 
 supply of this manure, sent from Droitwich 
 to his place at Crome Court ; the excise 
 officer attending to see it moved and laid 
 on the land, and receiving a compliment 
 for his extra attendance. The quantity of 
 this manure, which was at one time sold at 
 Northwich alone, to the farmers of that 
 neighbourhood, amounted, as we are in- 
 formed by Bishop Watson, to near 120,000 
 bushels annually. This was a very consi- 
 derable boon to agriculture, and an equal 
 advantage to the salt proprietor and to 
 Government in respect of the duty it paid. 
 But when the duties on salt were still more 
 increased, the disposal of this refuse salt 
 was prohibited, to the great regret of the 
 farmers; the country was deprived of the 
 benefit of a cheap and rich manure, and 
 
the whole of this refuse salt is now, under a 
 relentless order, carefully swept up by the 
 proprietor's labourers in the exciseman's 
 presence, and thrown into the river. 
 
 In order to promote and encourage the 
 improvement of WASTE LANDS, as for ^ asle 
 an additional source of occupation Lands - 
 for the disbanded veteran and unemployed 
 labourer, no measure can be proposed so 
 desirable or effectual, as the removal of the 
 impediments that arise from the duties on 
 salt; the use of which in agriculture, is now 
 prohibited by a tax of forty times the 
 value of the article. The supply of means 
 for bringing the soil immediately and with 
 little expense into produce, affords the best 
 and most effectual encouragement and in- 
 citement to the cultivation of waste and un- 
 profitable lands.* It is thus that the intro- 
 
 * Mr. Holland has also recorded an Experiment 
 made on a meadow, where the after grass was of so 
 coarse and rank a nature that the cattle would not eat 
 it ; but upon some salt being laid upon a part of this 
 meadow, they have ever since preferred the grass 
 
duction of LIME into our list of manures, 
 has produced in the course of the last 
 thirty years, the most beneficial and extra- 
 ordinary effects in this country, by reclaim- 
 ing millions of acres, hitherto deemed 
 uncultivable. The vicinity of a lime quarry, 
 or the power of communicating with one 
 by water carriage, is marked in every 
 part of England by improved cultivation 
 
 growing on that ground, to every other part of the 
 field, and eaten up every blade. " The good effects of 
 salt (he adds) are also seen by mixing it even with the 
 coarsest manure. A gentleman lately carried a small 
 quantity of couch-grass roots and other rubbish, har- 
 rowed off his land, to the salt works, and laid it for 
 some time upon the ground, where the foul salt by the 
 direction of the officer is destroyed ; he then carried 
 it back, aud mixed it with other manure. His barley 
 and his hay grass were strong from this composition, 
 beyond his most sanguine expectations. Its effects on 
 fallow lands are equally advantageous : by sowing it 
 at the time of breaking up the land for a fallow, its 
 strong saline quality destroys vegetation, and every 
 noxious insect ; but by being mixed sufficiently with 
 the soil, before the wheat is sown, it adds a strong 
 nutriment, and insures the best of crops." Holland's 
 Agricultural Survey of Cheshire, p. 237- 
 
[13] 
 
 and increased fertility : yet lime is not so 
 cheap, nor so powerful, nor so universal a 
 manure as SALT. Lime must be applied 
 in much larger quantities;* the carriage 
 is much more expensive, and there are 
 
 * In a periodical publication of March, 1802, is 
 stated an experiment, to ascertain the comparative 
 strength of SALT and LIME, as manures. A compost 
 of refuse salt was mixed with the earth taken out of 
 water furrows ; and at the same time some lime was 
 also mixed with a portion of the same earth. " They 
 were each laid on different parts of the same field. 
 That part of the field which had the lime compost 
 laid upon it, vegetated strongly ; but it bore no com- 
 parison to the health and vigour of the vegetation of 
 the other part of the field, which had the compost 
 with salt laid upon itj and, notwithstanding five'years 
 have elapsed, one may still trace by the quantity of 
 grass thrown up, the extent to which the salt compost 
 had been spread. Having had such strong proof of 
 its good effect, he was induced to try another experi- 
 ment with the salt. He, last spring, strewed a por- 
 tion of land pretty thickly over with it, without any 
 admixture of earth : the consequence has been, that 
 he has not only not received the expected advantage, 
 but vegetation has been destroyed, and the land is/or 
 the present, almost bare/' 
 
[ 14 J 
 
 many parts of England, where it cannot 
 be had at a price to answer for the hus- 
 bandman. But SALT, duty free, is a great 
 deal cheaper, and (as far as experiment 
 have gone*) very superior in power and 
 permanency of effect; and it is to be 
 easily obtained in all the remote and de- 
 sert parts of the island, the expense of 
 carriage being comparatively nothing. At 
 the same time its powerful quality, and the 
 extreme caution required in its application, 
 have occasioned some doubts with regard 
 to its use as a manure. It seems, however, 
 invariably to have answered, when used 
 in the very small quantity of a bushel-^- to 
 
 * To manure twenty acres of land with lime, where 
 lime can be got, will require two hundred cart loads of 
 lime, which, at only a shilling a load, will cost ten 
 pounds ; whilst twenty bushels of salt, at the expense 
 of ten shillings, mixed up with three or four loads of 
 loam or dirt, will answer the same purpose. 
 
 I mention one bushel to an acre, on the authority 
 of a gentleman who made a series of experiments on 
 salt as a manure, and held that the proportion of a 
 bushel to an acre answered best, and made the land 
 most productive. Different proportions, however, 
 may suit different soils. 
 
[15] 
 
 an acre, and when used in too great 
 abundance, to have been as destructive 
 of vegetation, as it is friendly to it in 
 small and carefully measured propor- 
 tions. Bishop Watson accounts for these 
 effects of salt, " when applied as a manure 
 " in small quantities, from its efficacy in 
 " reducing weeds, dried herbage, dead 
 tc roots, &c. into a putrid, oily mass ;" * 
 and he goes on to observe, that when salt 
 is used in a larger proportion, it pre- 
 serves these matters from corruption, 
 and the fertility of the ground is there- 
 by diminished, or wholly destroyed. This 
 may be confirmed and illustrated by refer- 
 ence to Sir John Pringle's Experiments,^ 
 
 * Chemical Essays, vol. ii, p. 74. 
 
 t " Nothing could be more unexpected (says Sir 
 JOHN PRINGLE) than to find sea salt a hastener of 
 putrefaction. But the fact is thus : one drachm of salt 
 preserves two drachms of fresh beef, in two ounces of 
 water, above 30 hours, uncorrupted, in a heat equal to 
 that of the human body ; or, what amounts to the 
 same, this quantity of salt keeps flesh about 20 hours 
 longer sweet, than pure water ; but half a drachm of 
 salt does not preserve it above two hours longer. This 
 
C 16 3 
 
 which prove that common salt when used in 
 small quantities accelerates the putrefaction 
 of animal substances, but when used in 
 larger quantities it retards it. Whatever 
 
 experiment has been already mentioned. Now I have 
 since found that 25 grains have little or no antiseptic 
 virtue ; and that ten or fifteen, or even twenty grains, 
 manifestly both hasten and heighten the corruption. 
 The most putrefying quantity of salt, with this pro- 
 portion of salt and water, is about ten grains. It is 
 moreover to be remarked,, that in warm infusions with 
 these smaller quantities, the salt, instead of hardening 
 the flesh, as it does in a dry form in brine, or even in 
 solutions, such as our standard, it here softens and 
 relaxes the texture of the meat, more than plain water; 
 though much less than water with chalk, or the testa- 
 ceous powders, Many inferences might be made from 
 this experiment ; but I shall only mention one. Salt, 
 the indispensable seasoner of animal food, has been 
 supposed to act by an antiseptic quality, correcting the 
 too great tendency of meats to putrefaction ; but since 
 it is never taken in aliment beyond the proportion of 
 the corrupting quantities in our experiment, it would 
 appear that salt is subservient to digestion, chiefly by 
 a septic virtue, that is, by softening and resolving 
 meats; an action very different from what is com- 
 monly believed." Philosophical Transactions, vol. 46. 
 p. 557- 
 
C 17 D 
 
 may be the physical cause, it seems now to 
 be practically ascertained, that salt used 
 in very small quantities, and mixed with 
 loam or mould, is a valuable and power- 
 ful manure; but that in large quantities* 
 it is pernicious. The fertilizing power of 
 a little salt is alluded to in Scripture ; where 
 the extraordinary conversions, to be pro- 
 duced by a few illiterate disciples, are com- 
 pared to the power of a small portion of 
 salt to fertilize an extent of soil : " YE 
 
 ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH." 
 
 The use of salt as a manure, however, 
 if we were relieved from the For Hay, 
 duties, would not be confined to Cattle ' &c> 
 waste lands. The practice which existed a 
 
 f In the second Volume of the Communications of 
 the BOARD OF AGRICULTURE, there is a detail of 
 some experiments made by Mr. Fenna on the use of 
 salt for manure. As he used in some instances as much 
 as fifteen bushels an acre, and on nis general average 
 nine bushels an acre, his experiments erve only to 
 prove that salt in large quantities is injurious to land, 
 and to offer a long and laborious commentary on the 
 .old adage of NE QUID NIMIS. 
 
 C 
 
C 183 
 
 few years ago, of applying the refuse salt as 
 a manure, would be renewed, and extended 
 to every part of the kingdom. The farmer 
 would also use the pure and marketable 
 salt, the price of which would not be so 
 much as he formerly paid for refuse salt. 
 Applied in the small quantities I have men- 
 tioned, and especially when mixed in the 
 compost dunghill,* salt is the best and the 
 cheapest of all manures, that can be used 
 irr the courses of agriculture. Its value 
 in preserving hay which has been exposed 
 to wet, has been long known, though the 
 
 * The fertilizing property of SEA. MUD is well 
 known. In Holland's Survey of Cheshire (page 368) 
 there is some account of its prolific effects. Manured 
 with it, land (according to this account) yields of ais 
 or barley, the first year, from 100 to 160 bushels per 
 acre : planted with potatoes the second year, they 
 seldom had less than 400 bushels an acre, 90 Ibs. to 
 the bushel; the third year as much wheat as could 
 grow on the land ; and the fourth year large crops of 
 oats and clover, or barley and clover. The virtue of 
 sea mud consists chiefly in the SALT which it contains ; 
 and it seems very practicable, by mixing a proper pro- 
 portion of salt with common dirt or mould) to produce a 
 manure as effectual and beneficial as SEA MUD. 
 
salt duties have now in a great measure 
 precluded the use of it. There is a custom 
 in Spain and Portugal, which I have per- 
 sonally witnessed the practice of in North 
 America, of daily placing on stones hi 
 the sheep pastures, some dry salt for the 
 use of the sheep. I have seen each of 
 the sheep in his turn, and with eager- 
 ness, take a small portion of it. This is con- 
 sidered as a preservative against the rot, 
 and as contributing to their general health 
 and good condition.* It is understood that 
 
 * la an address of a late President of the Board 
 of Agriculture, LORD SOMERVILLE, his Lordship 
 observes with regret, <f that salt is not a component 
 part of the food of stock, of sheep more particularly. 
 How many diseases (he continues) arising from damp 
 climate, from relaxation, and from rank green food, 
 might it not subdue ! In Germany, salt is universally 
 given to oxen and cows in a fatting state, and their 
 improvement is proportionate to the quantity given. 
 We are all sensible of the effect of salt on the human 
 body ; we are told how unwholesome, we know how 
 unpalatable, fresh meat and vegetables are without 
 it. The ancients held it in the highest estimation, 
 " Omnis mensa male pomtur absquc sale."" We also 
 know the avidity with which animals in a wild stale, 
 
C 203 
 
 a considerable part of the salt which we 
 export, duty free, to America, is used for 
 the purposes of agriculture ; though by the 
 time it reaches the American farmer, it 
 costs him as much as two shillings and 
 sixpence a bushel : and I have no doubt 
 but in our humid and uncertain climate, 
 and in the variety of our soils, it would in 
 small quantities be found generally useful, 
 in preserving our sheep from the rot and 
 other complaints, hitherto deemed inevita- 
 ble and incurable. In Spain the cows are 
 regularly supplied with a little salt ; and 
 
 seek the salt-pans of Africa and America, and the 
 difficulties they will encounter to reach them. Is it 
 not notorious that hay, mouldy from rain, is rendered 
 palatable, and infinitely nutritious to cattle, by simply 
 strewing salt on the stack, at the rate of 10 or 15 
 Ibs. per ton, when making ? Equally notorious is it, 
 that a sensible effect is hereby produced to the taste, 
 that cattle will prefer it to better hay, well put to- 
 gether, and will demand, when fed on it, without 
 injury to themselves, three times as much water; 
 which circumstance alone, accounts for that aptitude 
 to fatten, which is never denied to hay so salted. 
 Communications of the Board of Agriculture, vol, ii, 
 p. 471. 
 
C 21 3 
 
 the increase of their milk, and the benefit 
 which stable-fed cattle derive from it, are 
 confirmed by many authorities.* A Che- 
 shire gentleman informs me, that when he 
 wants extraordinary exertion from his 
 horses, he always gives them a little salt ; 
 and this is analogous to the practice in the 
 East, where the camels are allowed salt 
 
 * In his Natural History, PLINY observes on the 
 beneficial effects of salt, upon oxen, horses, and sheep ; 
 and also on its greatly increasing the quantity and 
 improving the quality of milk, so as to produce a 
 superior kind of cheese. " Pecudes, Armentaque et 
 Jumenta SALE maxime solicitanlur ad Pastum, multo 
 largiore Lacte, multoque gratiore etiam in Caseo Dote." 
 Lib. 31, cap. 7. In the next chapter but one, he 
 notices the medical benefit of salt, either taken inter- 
 nally or applied externally, in preventing and curing 
 the scab in sheep and oxen. " Pecorum quoque 
 Scabiem et bourn, illitus tollit. Daturque Jingendus." 
 When I am referring to the medicinal effects of salt, I 
 should uot omit to mention its salutary effects in scro- 
 phulous or other complaints, in restoring poor persons 
 to health and comfort, by the use of zvarm or cold 
 artificial salt baths, when they cannot afford the ex- 
 pense of salt at its present price ; or of a distant jour- 
 ney and a residence remote from their occupations. 
 
C 22 n 
 
 during the passage of the Caravans over the 
 Desert to Alexandria, as a support in the 
 extreme fatigue which they undergo. 
 
 The advantage of augmenting the num- 
 Forthe ^ er f cultivated acres in this 
 Fisheries CO untry, would certainly be of 
 great use at present, and would have per- 
 manent effects on the increase of employ- 
 ment and subsistence in future. In many 
 instances, however, legislative sanctions 
 would be necessary, to enable the parties 
 interested to proceed to exclusive cultiva- 
 tion : but in the millions of acres that sur- 
 round our coasts, no partition of property, 
 no cultivation of soil is required ; we have 
 only to reap what the bounty of Providence 
 has abundantly supplied. The boundless 
 fields are already white for the harvest; and 
 the labourers are standing all the day idle, 
 for want of employment, ready to enter 
 on their task, as soon as the financial pro- 
 hibition* is removed. The encouragement 
 
 * THE DOWNS SOCIETY, associated in November^ 
 1815, under the patronage of the EARL OP LIVERPOOL, 
 
C23 3 
 
 of our fisheries lias been often in the view 
 of the legislature: but all their measures 
 have been defeated by the salt laws. 
 Bounties too, have been added ; producing 
 little effect, and subject to great abuse; and 
 we have yet to learn, that the effectual and 
 impartial bounty is to leave to the husband- 
 man, the fisherman, the manufacturer, and 
 
 is a very gratifying example of the associations which 
 would be formed for this purpose, and of the improve- 
 ments which would take place in our fisheries, if the 
 difficulties and impediments created by the salt duties, 
 were but repealed. The fish which was cured by that 
 society in the preceding year (with a very little, though 
 very valuable instruction from Mr. Sicvers, a fishing 
 merchant of London) received the first bounty paid 
 under the late Act, on that part of the coast. They 
 have sent 62 barrels of white herrings to Barbaddes, 
 Antigua, Jamaica, and other West India Islands ; 
 from whence they have received the most favourable 
 and gratifying accounts of the excellence of their 
 fish ; which sold at very high prices, a third more than 
 those from either the United Slates, or British America. 
 The Society have received orders for many hundred 
 barrels for the ensuing season. See the Report of the 
 Committee of the Down's Society of Fisherman's Friends, 
 nth August, 1816. 
 
C243 
 
 to all, as far as may be, the free use of that 
 produce, which the BOUNTY of Providence 
 has bestowed upon the country. If we 
 really mean that the fisheries should pre- 
 vail and prosper, as sources of internal 
 supply and external commerce, as providing 
 present employment for our sailors and 
 future nurseries for our navy,* if we desire 
 that the fisherman and cottager on the 
 sea- coast should lay in a winter supply of 
 salt fish for themselves and their neigh- 
 bours, we must no longer embarrass them 
 with vexatious conditions, which they cannot 
 understand or comply with : but leave them 
 free to purchase at a cheap rate, and at the 
 nearest shop, the SALT required for curing 
 their fish, and to use it for the benefit of 
 
 * There are about twenty thousand sailors on our 
 southern coasts at present out of employment, being 
 part of those lately dismissed from the Royal Navy, 
 with little pensons proportioned to their services. 
 What a boon to them and others in like circumstances, 
 would be the removal of the financial obstacles to the 
 salt Jish trade, and how ready would they and their 
 boys be for the British Navy, when their country 
 called for their services. 
 
C25 3 
 
 themselves and their country. It has been 
 supposed, that there is already a sufficient 
 allowance of salt for the fisheries, and 
 that it is the fault of those who do not use 
 it : but what sailor, what fisherman, or 
 cottager can provide, what the law requires, 
 proper and secure storehouses for keeping 
 the ^alt, to be entered with and approved 
 by the excise officer ? Who can cure in 
 bulk, or can dry salt a hundred weight 
 of fish with only fifty pounds of salt, the 
 present reduced allowance?* And even 
 if the full allowance of salt were restored 
 to the fisherman, and the previous con- 
 
 * If the fish be barrelled, the allowance may be suf- 
 ficient ; but then the fisherman's expense is half as 
 much again. The Downs Fishery Society, however, 
 with all the instruction and assistance they have had, 
 exceeded the parliamentary allowance of salt this 
 Summer, even on barrelled fish ; and the Treasury 
 ordered the duty to be repaid to them, on the quan- 
 tity of salt used beyond the proportion allowed by 
 law. See their Report) p. 19. On foreign salt im- 
 ported for our fishery, I am informed there is no res- 
 triction. The Act for lessening the allowance on all 
 English salt (55 Geo. 3d. Cap. 179.) passed last July. 
 
C26 3 
 
 dition of the erection and entry of proper 
 and secure storehouses, entirely dispensed 
 with, what uneducated sailor, cottager, 
 or fisherman, could travel through all the 
 different sections of the Acts relating to 
 this subject, the bonds to be given, the 
 annual accounts to be made out, the en- 
 tries, notices, and permits required, and 
 the penalties and forfeitures in breach of 
 any of the forms prescribed ? If an educated 
 lawyer* will do this, he will see the impos^ 
 
 * A recent circumstance has occurred in regard lo 
 " the Association for the Relief of the manufacturing 
 (f and labouring poor/' where statesmen and lawyers 
 were the acting parties, and every assistance given by 
 Government ; and yet all their measures baffled by the 
 interference of a petty excise officer. As this is a 
 Case which came within my personal observation, I 
 will briefly state the circumstances. In order to pro- 
 vide relief for the poor under the pressure of scarcity, 
 the sum of ^17000. was raised by private subscription 
 in the Metropolis. Among other measures adopted, a 
 contract was entered into with the North Sea fishermen, 
 to purchase of them, at the rate of 18. per ton, all 
 the corned cod, which they could not otherwise dispose 
 of; and in the year 1813, six hundred tons of corned 
 cod, and three hundred tons of fresh cod, were supplied 
 
C27 1 
 
 sibility of any of the class of labourers and 
 sea-faring men, such as I have described, 
 ever taking the benefit of these allowances. 
 
 and distributed for the maintenance of our own poor, 
 and of the French prisoners then in England. In 1814, 
 the pressure of the scarcity still continuing, the Com- 
 mittee resolved to endeavour to double the supply : 
 they therefore invested the sum of /2264..11. in the 
 purchase of salt, prepared tanks for curing the fish, 
 and hired double the number of vessels that were 
 employed in the preceding year. When the fishermen 
 were ready to proceed on their voyages, doubts were 
 suggested, and notices given by the excise officer of 
 the district, as to their allowance of salt. An alarm 
 instantly spread among the fishermen ; and though 
 upon the Committee's application to the Treasury, an 
 order was obtained for the Excise to make the full 
 allowance of salt duty free, yet the terror of pains, 
 penalties, and Exchequer processes, prevailed among 
 the fishermen, and most of them abandoned their 
 contract for the season. In consequence, the quan- 
 tity of 900 tons, or rather (what might have been 
 obtained but for officious interference) the expected 
 supply of EIGHTEEN HUNDRED TONS of palatable 
 and nutritious food for the relief of a suffering popu- 
 lation, was reduced to 150 tons, being only a twelfth 
 part of what might otherwise have been obtained ; 
 the Association was subjected to a heavy loss, and 
 countless loads offish were lost to the country. 
 
C 28 3 
 
 But, were the financial fetters of the salt 
 laws once removed, we should then see 
 
 What NATIONAL INDUSTRY aild NATIONAL 
 
 ENTERPRIZE could effect. Our sea-coasts 
 would swarm with adventurous fishing 
 boats ; new means of employment would 
 be afforded to the necessitous and unem- 
 ployed ; new supplies of life* would be con- 
 veyed into the interior of the Island ; new 
 sources of commerce be opened to foreign 
 countries, and nurseries of seamen abound 
 on our sea-coasts. No region on earth is 
 so well adapted to the salt fish trade. We 
 are a naval power: the ocean is our ele- 
 ment. We possess a hardy enterprizing 
 race of sailors, now grievously suffering 
 for want of employment : we have shoals 
 of fish-f surrounding our coasts, and an 
 
 * The salt duties have contributed to the disuse of salt 
 fish in this country ; which formerly made part of the 
 winter stores and diet in most families. In the Earl 
 of Northumberland's Household Book, we find fish in 
 the established bill of fare for breakfast, which consist- 
 ed among other things, of '- two pieces of salt fish, six 
 red herrings, four white ones, or a dish of sprats." 
 
 t In the Report of the DOWNS FISHERY, the Com- 
 
C 29 1 
 
 inexhaustible store of native salt, which 
 may be more easily and much more profitably 
 applied in curing fish, than by exportation. 
 
 mittee (page 21; observe " that the periodical shoak 
 of herrings, in their progress from the North Sea to the 
 Channel, appear in wonderful abundance in their 
 straits, in the early part of October, and remain till the 
 end of November ; about which time they proceed 
 gradually to the westward, and are caught off the Isle 
 of Wight till the end of February. Such is the pro- 
 fusion of these fish, while they continue between the 
 Forelands, where they are necessarily condensed by 
 the conformation of the straits, that the quantities 
 taken on this part of the coast, amount to more than 
 double the average catch of our great fishery at New- 
 foundland, in proportion to the time and number of 
 hands employed in it. The mackerel are also found 
 during their season, in remarkable abundance in these 
 straits, which appear to form the limits of their mi- 
 gration up the Channel. In this neighbourhood (Deal) 
 they generally remain from May to July, affording, 
 like the herrings, a rich harvest that seems to invite 
 the industry of the fisherman." In pages 26 and 28, 
 they add, that " Holland has no herrings near her own 
 coast, but takes them on the coast of Britain, from 
 Shetland to the coast of Sussex; commencing at the 
 distance of 250 leagues, and ending at 50 leagues from 
 her own ports. The cod banks on the North Sea may 
 be considered as common to both nations ; but Ice- 
 land is only half the distance from Great Britain." 
 
C 30 3 
 
 Though MANUFACTURES may not sup* 
 Effects of the ply so great or so desirable an 
 
 Salt duties on 
 
 Manufactures, increase of our means oi 
 employment, as Agriculture and the Fish- 
 eries, yet every addition to our manu- 
 factures is a considerable addition to the 
 demand for labour, as well as to the re- 
 sources of the country : and here too 
 the salt duties present the same obstacle to 
 progress and prosperity. On two of our 
 manufactures there is a limited and qualified 
 allowance of the salt duties ; on glass, and 
 oxy -muriatic acid for bleaching : but there 
 are articles essentially necessary to our 
 manufacturers, which the salt duties pre- 
 vent our making at home ; so that we are 
 obliged to purchase from abroad, at much 
 higher prices than \ve could make them at 
 home- Such are mineral alkali, sal-ammo- 
 niac, magnesia, and Glauber salts: which 
 might be made in this country, with great 
 advantage and in great quantities, with a 
 part of the salt which we now export, free 
 of duty. In other manufactures, the effect 
 of the salt duties is only to injure the 
 English manufacturer ; who, for the salt 
 
313 
 
 which his works require, must pay a duty 
 of fifteen shillings a bushel on our own 
 native salt, whilst the foreigner has it, duty 
 free. To enumerate all the uses of salt, in 
 their various processes* for facilitating and 
 improving their operations, would require 
 an intimate and confidential knowledge 
 of the secrets of their manufactories : but 
 it does not require that minute degree of 
 information, to be convinced that on all our 
 manufactures, (the exports of which ex- 
 ceeded in value last year FIFTY THREE 
 MILLIONS) considering them merely as ob~ 
 jects of taxation, the revenue suffers more 
 in them only, from the effects of the salt 
 duties, than the salt duties amount toy 
 
 Of articles essential to our manufactures, 
 and capable of affording an increase j\|i nera i 
 of employment for the poor, in case Alkali. 
 
 * The Repeal of the Salt duties would increase the 
 proportional use of salt in glazing earthen zvare, instead 
 of the use of white had, which is very noxious to 
 health, applied as it now is to the glazing of pans for 
 milk, for salting beef, and for baking. See Bishop 
 Watson's Chemical Essays, vol. ii. p. 265. 
 
32 3 
 
 of the repeal, or allowance of the salt du- 
 ties, I shall first notice the article of MI- 
 NERAL ALKALI, an ingredient in soap, and in 
 some other of our manufactures. Three tons 
 of salt will make one ton of mineral alkali; 
 the salt without the duty, costing forty-eight 
 shillings, and with the duty, NINETY-SIX 
 POUNDS. The salt duties, in this instance, are 
 not simply an impediment, but a prohibi- 
 tion ; and in order to obtain this ingredient 
 for soap, &c. our manufacturers have been 
 driven to have recourse to Spain for barilla, 
 the price of which varies very much. 
 During the war, it was as high as 80. 
 per ton, and is as low as 30. at present. 
 If salt were allowed to be used, free of 
 duty, mineral alkali could be made of a 
 superior quality, and at an inferior price, 
 from our own salt works. At the same 
 time, the supply of barilla is very insuf- 
 ficient ; and our soap boilers are gene- 
 rally obliged to use other inferior articles 
 instead of it. This year the importation of 
 barilla, though more than usual, is 6500 
 tons : but that is only a part of what this 
 country requires for soap, and other manu- 
 
[33] 
 
 factures. It is calculated, "that there would 
 be an annual demand at home, for 20,000 
 tons of mineral alkali ; and that as much 
 more might be immediately disposed of at 
 foreign markets. Such a regular supply at 
 home, would improve the quality of soap, 
 lessen its price, benefit our other manu- 
 factures, and afford an advantageous market 
 for 120,000 tons of salt, now sent abroad, 
 duty free. It would set all our salt manu- 
 factories to work (many being now shut 
 up) and produce an immediate increase in 
 the demand for labour, not only in the 
 salt works, and in preparing the new works 
 for making the mineral alkali, and also in 
 making it, but in our other manufactures. 
 It would bear a duty of ten shillings per 
 hundred weight ; producing about4oo,ooo. 
 a year to the revenue. Mineral alkali is 
 an article so useful, that it is hardly pos- 
 sible to anticipate the extent of the demand 
 for it, if the salt duties were out of the 
 question : and with the spirit, science, and 
 capital of our manufacturers, and our in- 
 exhaustible supply of salt and coals at lesfs 
 D 
 
[34] 
 
 than six-pence a bushel, our advantages in 
 the manufacture of it would be such, as to 
 exclude all competition of foreign manufac- 
 turers. I am not unaware, that when this 
 has been suggested, the objection on the part 
 of the Excise has been, that if Government 
 were to allow the use of salt, which pays a 
 duty of 30. a ton, for making mineral al- 
 kali, to pay only 10. a ton., the revenue 
 would lose by it ; and that what would be 
 gained by the alkali duty, would be many 
 times over conceded in the salt duty. 
 Now, it does not seem to have occurred, 
 that the salt proposed to be used for making 
 this alkali, in England, is now exported duty 
 free for the benefit of foreign manufac- 
 turers ; and that if my sanguine wishes 
 could be realized, and 40,000 tons of mine" 
 ral alkali annually made from 120,000 tons 
 of salt, which would be otherwise sent abroad 
 duty free, the revenue would gain 400,000. 
 a year, where it now receives nothing the 
 country would save nearly as much more, 
 of money now remitted abroad for the pur- 
 chase of barilla our manufactures and 
 
[35] 
 
 export trade be augmented the salt pro- 
 prietor obtain a better market the demand 
 for labour be increased and the public 
 greatly benefited. 
 
 Another similar instance occurs in the 
 making of SAL AMMONIAC ; gal 
 an article necessary to our Ammoniac, 
 manufactures, and hitherto imported at a 
 considerable expense. This is so useful in 
 working metals, that not less than twenty 
 tons of sal ammoniac are annually used by 
 workers of metals, in Birmingham only. 
 Our chemists lately discovered a process 
 for making it from common salt, not only 
 at much less expense, but of a superior 
 quality : but the excise officers soon found 
 out, that the salt used in this process, was 
 liable to the full duty. Baffled, however, 
 in this, the manufacturers made another 
 effort ; by adopting a process, for making 
 sal ammoniac from the bittern of common 
 salt works, which is otherwise waste and 
 refuse : but here again the excise officers 
 interfered, and decided that the code of 
 
[36] 
 
 salt laws prohibits this bittern to be con- 
 verted to any such use, without payment 
 of a duty that amounts to a "prohibition. 
 In the consequence, foreigners have made 
 use of our own discovery, to establish 
 manufactories of sal ammoniac in France 
 and Germany. In North Britain, however, 
 the use of this bittern is allowed by Govern- 
 ment, and sal ammoniac is making from it 
 in many parts of Scotland. 
 
 During the process of making common 
 
 Magnesia salt, it would be easy to sepa- 
 and Glauber 
 
 Salts. rate the MAGNESIA, and thereby 
 
 greatly to improve the quality of the salt, for 
 curing fish and animal food, and at the same 
 time to produce quantities of magnesia for 
 exportation ; but the effect of the salt 
 laws is to prohibit the use or sale of mag- 
 nesia so obtained. As to GLAUBER SALTS, 
 the salt duties have had a still more inju- 
 rious and vexatious operation. I have ob- 
 served, that there is an allowance of the 
 salt duties for making oxy-muriatic acid for 
 bleaching. In preparing this, there is a con- 
 
[37] 
 
 siderable residuum, which had been thrown 
 away. To prevent this waste, a gentleman 
 in Lancashire constructed a large apparatus, 
 consisting of boilers and crystallizing ves- 
 sels, and succeeded in producing from this 
 residuum many tons of very fine GLAUBER 
 SALTS ; on which he paid to the revenue, 
 the then existing duty of 30. a ton. 
 " Government, however, (says Mr. Parkes, 
 from whom I transcribe the fact)* has 
 forbidden the sale of the residuum^ and con- 
 sequently this extensive apparatus has be- 
 come useless/' In these and other articles 
 of manufacture, though the increase of the 
 demand for labour may not be so consider- 
 able as in husbandry and the fisheries, 
 yet if the total amount of what would be 
 added to our manufactures by the repeal 
 of the salt duties, be fairly estimated 
 with its consequences in the increase of 
 commerce, and of the trades and occupa- 
 tions connected with manufactures and 
 commerce, we shall find a considerable 
 and immediate addition would be thereby 
 made to the sources of employment. 
 * Parkes' Chemical Essays, vol. iv. page 162. 
 
[381 
 
 It must indeed astonish foreigners, that 
 Foreigners an i me nse prohibitory impost 
 duty free, should be laid on an article of 
 British produce, essentially necessary to 
 our manufacturers, agriculturists, and fish- 
 ermen ; whilst Ireland and Scotland are 
 burthened in a lesser degree, and France, 
 Spain, and all the rest of the world are 
 entirely free. Very different is this from the 
 policy of antient governments, recognized 
 by the greatest and highest authority : " Of 
 " whom do the kings of the earth take 
 " custom or tribute ? of their own children, 
 " or of strangers?" " Of strangers/' 
 <c THEN ARE THE CHILDREN FREE." 
 But with us, and by our laws, the strangers 
 are free; and the children are taxed to 
 forty times the value. 
 
 The imposition of a tax, so far beyond the 
 Immoral rea ^ va l ue of the article on which 
 Effects, if. j s imposed, inevitably leads to 
 strictness and severity of language in the 
 regulations respecting it ; and notwithstand- 
 ing all the pains, penalties, forfeitures, and 
 
restrictions, which have been so lavishly 
 bestowed on these acts, payment of the 
 duty is very frequently evaded. Taking into 
 consideration the increase of price charged 
 to the consumer, where an excessive tax has 
 been previously advanced, and that this in- 
 crease of price is also applied to stolen salt 
 which has paid no duty at all, there will be 
 little doubt but that the consumer pays 
 twice the amount of what is received on 
 account of this tax into his Majesty's Ex- 
 chequer. This, however, is a minor consi- 
 deration to that of the pernicious effects, 
 which it produces on the moral character 
 of the labouring class. The temptation of 
 forty times the original value, on a neces- 
 sary article of life, becomes so great as to 
 affect their principles, and to convert 
 honest men into scurvy knaves. Thievery 
 and its concomitant vices prevail in the 
 neighbourhood of great salt works, to an 
 alarming degree. The salt is of so little 
 value to the proprietor before the duty is 
 paid, and is of so much value to the thief 
 who evades the duty, that this kind of petty 
 
[ 40 ] 
 
 plunder is carried on to a considerable ex- 
 tent ; so that many farmers in the neigh- 
 bourhood, have a regular supply of salt at 
 very reduced prices, periodically brought 
 to their houses, to cure their bacon, salt 
 their cheeses, and for other domestic pur- 
 poses. This generates thievish habits 
 among the labouring class,* and prepares 
 
 .* The system which disgraces our statute book 
 under the name of GAME LAWS, operates universally, 
 and creates thieves and poachers over the whole king- 
 dom. But the SALT LAWS, though locally confined 
 to particular districts, yet so far as their infection ex~ 
 tends, are far more deleterious. The temptation to 
 evil, reaches every age and class of the necessitous ; is 
 constantly present to them, and in its nature and de 
 gree is far more potent and destructive : and thus the 
 unhappy labourer, seduced by the influence of bad 
 laws, is led on from one fault to another, till he atones 
 for his crimes by death, or transportation. SMUG- 
 GLING is an evil likewise produced by similar temp- 
 tations, and producing the same immoral effects, It 
 is very justly observed in the Downs Fishery Report, 
 which I have before referred to, that the general exten- 
 sion of our FISHERIES, by giving honest and profitable 
 employment to sea-faring men, " would immediately 
 cr reduce, and gradually supplant the contraband trade 
 
[41] 
 
 them for atrocious crimes. Two young 
 men, who were executed a few years ago 
 in Cheshire for defending their plunder by 
 shooting at an exciseman, and who ap- 
 peared to be by far the least culpable of 
 their gang, confessed at the gallows, that 
 petty thefts in salt-works, were the origin 
 and cause of their criminal habits, and of 
 the unhappy termination of lives, which 
 might otherwise have been a blessing to 
 the community. 
 
 Whenever the NATURAL PRODUCE of a 
 country is capable of increase in O l h 
 value by the intellectual skill, or of Salt 
 manual labour of the inhabitants, it is true 
 policy, and by no means unjustifiable 
 policy, to check, and even to prohibit the 
 exportation of it, in its rude and unmanufac- 
 tured state. The retaining of it at home 
 as an object of manufacture,* will supply 
 
 " which has been estimated at the enormous amount 
 of fifteen millions sterling, and thus render the 
 " revenue more productive." 
 
 * I should extend the word produce, to all articles, 
 not completely manufactured : such as the English 
 
[42] 
 
 the means of employing and enriching the 
 people, and of augmenting the revenue 
 of the state : and when it shall after- 
 wards be exported in its manufactured 
 state, it will be of far greater value as an 
 object of export, and at the same time will 
 have afforded an increased supply of profi- 
 table occupation, and well earned subsist- 
 ence, two of the greatest temporal bless- 
 ings which any Government can confer 
 on active and rational beings. The most 
 important articles of natural produce in 
 this country are COALS, and SALT. If we 
 had shewn the same want of wisdom in 
 respect of our coals, that we have done with 
 regard to our salt, supplied foreigners 
 with them duty free, and imposed a very 
 heavy tax on home consumption, we should 
 
 twist, of which, it is said, large quantities have been 
 lately shipped for the use of foreign manufacturers; 
 who can weave the cloth at a cheaper rate than our 
 weavers, but have not been able to succeed in spinning 
 the twist, so as to make their woollen and cotton goods 
 equal to ours. The exportation of this twist has de- 
 prived several of our manufacturers of employment 
 and subsistence. 
 
[43] 
 
 have been a wretched, insignificant, and 
 contemptible people: manufactures and 
 commerce would have been almost un- 
 known amongst us, and agriculture would 
 have sympathized in the general depression. 
 But on the other hand, if we will act with 
 regard to our SALT as wisely as we have 
 done as to our COALS, encourage the 
 profitable use of it in arts and manufactures, 
 and give to our own countrymen the free 
 and (as far as maybe) the exclusive be- 
 nefit of it,* all the advantages which this 
 
 * The British government is not the only one in the 
 world that, in this respect, misjudges of its own true 
 interest. In his interesting and valuable account of the 
 Brazils, Mr. BARROW states that, though there is plenty 
 of salt on that coast, yet the exclusive right of the 
 crown puts so high a price on it, that they cannot 
 afford to give it their cattle, to whom the use of it is 
 essential ; nor can they afford to salt their meat with 
 it, as " the salt that would be required to preserve the 
 <( carcase of an ox, costs in general about thrice as 
 (( much as the whole animal." " The monopoly of 
 " salt (he proceeds) is estimated to produce to the 
 "crown of Portugal, about l5,GOO. a year. Thus 
 " for the sake of realizing so pitiful a sum, thousands 
 " of cattle are suffered to perish, the carcases of such 
 
[ 44 ] 
 
 country has derived from the free use of 
 coals, would be doubled by the free use of 
 sail; and whenever we may think fit to 
 favour other countries with a participation 
 in this advantage, the imposition of a duty 
 on exported salt, would prevent the favour 
 from being considered as wholly gratuitous. 
 It is on this ground that I submit that, not 
 only during the continuance of the salt 
 duties but even if they were wholly re- 
 pealed as to ourselves, it would be a want 
 of political wisdom, and an act of injus- 
 tice to our own manufacturers, to allow 
 the exportation of salt, duty free, beyond 
 the limits of the united kingdom ; but that 
 on what is allowed to be exported to foreign 
 countries, there should be a custom house 
 duty, sufficient to compensate to our manu- 
 facturers for the greater burthen to which, 
 in respect of higher wages and taxes, they 
 are subjected. 
 
 " as are slaughtered, for the sake of the hides only,>to 
 " be thrown away, the fisheries on the coasts checked, 
 " and in a great measure rendered useless, and one 
 " great source of commerce and navigation entirely 
 " dried up." BARROW'S Cochin China, page 121. 
 
[45] 
 
 I bear no personal enmity to the New- 
 foundland fisheries. But I am per- Colonial 
 suaded that one DOMESTIC FISHERY Flsneries 
 upon our own coasts,* employing our own 
 people, though only of half their mag- 
 nitude, would do this country infinitely 
 more real service, than they can ever do. 
 They can never provide employment for 
 our own poor: and they are not, exclu- 
 sively, nurseries for British seamen. So 
 far indeed from their being EXCLUSIVELY 
 so, it is more than doubtful whether their 
 effects are not inimical and injurious to the 
 interests of this country, whilst they are 
 very favourable to those of the American 
 States ; especially if it should appear, that 
 a considerable portion of the persons em- 
 ployed in those fisheries, are emigrants 
 from our SISTER ISLAND ; young men in 
 
 * If the restrictions on the use of salt were removed, 
 and those of our countrymen who are now engaged in 
 the Newfoundland Fishery, would employ even a part 
 of their capital at home in the BRITISH FISHERY, they 
 might greatly benefit themselves, our unemployed 
 sailors and fishermen, and their native country. 
 
[46] 
 
 the prime and most valuable part of life ; 
 who, instead of supplying our army and navy 
 with sailors and soldiers, fly to a distant 
 quarter of the globe ; leaving the helpless 
 and the aged to be provided for at the cost, 
 and by the labour of those who continue 
 at home : young men, who, at the ex- 
 piration of their three * years service, ge- 
 nerally settle for life in America; and in 
 the event of war, are much more likely to 
 assist in manning the fleets of America and 
 France, than to enter into the British navy. 
 
 Our natural advantages in respect of the 
 Our natural manufacture of salt, might give 
 
 advantages 
 
 in making us a decided superiority over all 
 other countries ; advantages de- 
 rived from our salt mines and brine springs,-f 
 
 * The three year's service relates only to the ap- 
 prentices, which they are bound to take under the na- 
 vigation acts. The green or fresh-men (as they are 
 called) go in hundreds every year from Ireland ; and 
 instead of coming back as the old acts require, almost 
 invariably go over to the Americans. 
 
 t The BRINK SPRINGS produce the great portion 
 of the English salt. What is made of rock salt, or of 
 
[47] 
 
 from our being washed on every side by 
 the salt waves of the boundless and inex- 
 haustible ocean, and made more valuable 
 by the vast beds of coal, to be found in 
 almost every part of the island, by the 
 extent of our navigation, by the enter- 
 prizing spirit of our sailors and manufac- 
 turers, and by the capital which we 
 possess. The mere dregs and refuse of 
 our salt-pans, would produce glauber salts, 
 magnesia, and sal ammoniac, to a great 
 amount ; the consumption of which, and 
 the consequent demand, would be far 
 greater in the civilized world, and even 
 among savage nations, than an uninformed 
 mind can tonceive. The French process, 
 of forming a dirty and inferior species of 
 salt by mere atmospheric evaporation, must 
 
 sea-water, bears no comparison in point of quantity. 
 The brine of Cheshire yields on an average 25 per cent, 
 or one gallon of solid salt from four gallons of brine. 
 Common sea water contains less than four per cent, of 
 salt ; but the strength, in a severe winter, might be in- 
 creased, by adopting the Swedish practice of freezing 
 the sea water, throwing away the ice, and reserving 
 the remaining liquid for evaporation. 
 
[48] 
 
 ever be tardy and imperfect, compared with 
 what may be done by our scientific and en- 
 terprizing manufacturers, possessed of the 
 powerful agency of coal, and of every 
 facility of operation. The mere waste and 
 refuse coals of ^Newcastle alone, what is 
 thrown aside and trodden under foot as not 
 worth collecting for use, would supply fuel 
 for making salt to a great value. 
 
 Among the benefits of the repeal of the 
 Improvements sa ^ duties, I must not omit the 
 suggested. improvements which would then 
 take place in the making of salt. On my 
 first visit to North wich, when I saw their 
 grate-doors quite open, the supply of coals 
 unlimited, a thick black smoke rising, as a 
 public object and a public nuisance, and 
 their salt pans uncovered and exposed to 
 rain, I was not surprized at being informed, 
 that the crystallizing of one hundred tons 
 of salt, required from 70 to 100 tons of 
 coal. At the entrance of the town, my 
 attention was attracted by rows of new 
 houses, built on each side of '.the way. I 
 
[49] 
 
 complimented my conductor on the com- 
 forts which the labouring class appeared to 
 enjoy here, and on the air of neatness and 
 elegance which these buildings gave to the 
 place. He told me these were some of the 
 houses of officers of excise ; and on further 
 inquiry added, that there were 120 resident 
 excisemen at Northwich. With a feeling 
 that these gentlemen were the diseases 
 of the place, I exclaimed with Virgil, 
 
 Vestibulum ante ipsuin, primisque in Faucibus orci 
 Pallentes habitant morbi 
 
 History has said a great deal about the 
 thirty tyrants of Athens : but what are they 
 compared with the hundred and twenty of 
 Northwich ? Numerically, I know nothing 
 like them, except the " one hundred and 
 " twenty princes, which it pleased Darius 
 " the king to set over the province of 
 " Babylon/' I do not mean any personal 
 disrespect to these gentlemen. It is not 
 their behaviour, but their existence that I 
 object to : or if they must exist, 1 think they 
 would be much better employed in catcmng 
 Jish, tha^ft#^reventing our having salt to 
 
 E 
 
[50] 
 
 cure it. Nor would I insinuate that Govern- 
 ment abuses its power, when it employs 
 so many excise officers in Northwich. 
 Twice the number would not be sufficient 
 to protect the revenue against the frauds 
 and thefts occasioned by so excessive anddis- 
 proportioned a tax. What improvements 
 can a man have the heart to attempt and 
 perfect, or what experiments or investiga- 
 tions can he pursue with any spirit, when 
 there are a hundred and twenty persons of 
 different tempers and dispositions, living 
 near him, each having the right* to exa- 
 mine all his works every hour of the day, 
 interrupt his processes by the discovery of 
 some obsolete clause in some forgotten Act 
 
 * It is so completely in the power of the excise 
 officer to thwart and interfere with all the processes 
 and operations of the salt manufacturer, that his only 
 wise policy is UNLIMITED SUBMISSION. What in- 
 ducement can a man have to try a question with the 
 Crown and the Board of Excise, when the Board is the 
 judge, and the Crown pays no costs ? Is it worth 
 while to contest a penalty of 50/. at the expense of 100/. 
 when the costs are not to be repaid, even though the 
 judgment be in the subject's favour I 
 
[51] 
 
 of Parliament, and check his inquiries and 
 deprive him of the benefit of his skill and 
 attention? This unceasing interference, with 
 all their operations, has so damped and ex- 
 tinguished their talent and invention, that 
 instead of wondering that our salt manufac- 
 turers have made so little use of our recent 
 discoveries in chemistry, and in the appli- 
 cation of fire, we should rather admire 
 that they have not been chained down to 
 the old process of pouring brine on burn- 
 ing wood, and then raking the salt out of 
 the ashes.* In the construction of their 
 boilers, and of the apparatus belonging to 
 them, much benefit might be derived from 
 Count Rumford's improvements. The 
 doors of the grates should be made to 
 
 * This was the old English process. TACITUS 
 mentions it as a practice of the Germans : " Illo in 
 amne salcm pro venire, super ardentem struem fusa, 
 contrariis inter se elementis, igne atque aquis con- 
 creta." Annal. lib. 13, cap. 57. Pliny also mentions 
 the German method of pouring the brine on a wood 
 fire ; and treats with contempt our superior process 
 of boiling the brine, and crystallizing the salt by eva- 
 poration, lib, 31, cap. 7. 
 
[52] 
 
 shut quite close, so as to lessen the draft 
 and quiet the fire at pleasure. Checks in 
 the top of the flues, and particularly in the 
 approach to the ascent up the chimney, 
 would prevent the wasteful escape of un- 
 consumed heat in the vehicle of black 
 smoke ; and contribute to preserve the 
 apparatus from being destroyed by excess 
 of fire, whilst it saved immense quantities 
 of coals from being wasted, and converted 
 into a public nuisance. Covers, or roofs 
 to their boilers, would protect their pro- 
 cesses from being checked by rain. Steam 
 might be applied in many of their opera- 
 tions with great economy and effect ; and 
 by proper arrangement, one boiler might 
 be made to supply steam-heat to crystal- 
 lize the contents of another. I have no 
 difficulty in venturing to assert, that above 
 lialf of the present expenditure of fuel* 
 
 * In the salt works to which my inquiries were 
 chiefly directed, the quantity of coals used were about 
 12,000 tons a year; a saving to the proprietor of half 
 that expense, would amount to more than 4,000/. 
 a year. 
 
[53] 
 
 may be saved, and a superior kind of salt 
 produced, so as to fetch a higher price in 
 foreign markets. Sunday salt, as it is 
 called, is preferred to any other : yet the 
 only difference is, that in making it, the 
 process not being completed on Saturday, 
 the fires are let down over Sunday, and 
 the crystallization proceeds ge )tly and gra- 
 dually until Monday. The large grained 
 fishery sail bears a much greater price than 
 common white salt, being produced by a 
 slower process, and with a mitigated de- 
 greef of heat : yet in making this salt, 
 no advantage is taken in point of eco- 
 
 t Bishop WATSON observes, that "the Dutch have 
 long been famous for preparing a salt for the pickling 
 of herrings, by which they have acquired a superiority 
 in that article of commerce over all other European 
 nations. Their principal secret in this business con- 
 sists in evaporating the brine made from the solution 
 of bay salt WITH THE GENTLEST FIKE, and in mixing 
 with the brine a proper quantity of very sour whey; 
 the acid whey unites itself with the uncombined fixed 
 alkali, and thus prevents it from adhering to the 
 common salt as it crystallizes. Any other mild acid 
 might probably answer the same purpose." Chemical 
 Essays, vol. 2. page 63. 
 
[54] 
 
 nomy ; the waste of coals rs rather 
 increased ; and a ton of coals is allowed to 
 make a ton of this salt. Again ; the same 
 degree of heat is continued during the whole 
 process, instead of keeping up a boiling 
 heat for only eight hours,* when a kind 
 of granulation appears, and then leaving it 
 with a very gentle heat for six or eight hours 
 more, to complete the operation. The 
 objection to the common white salt is, that 
 there is a proportion of magnesia in it, 
 which from its septic quality, makes it not 
 answer so well for curing beef and fish. 
 In his manufactory of Cheltenham Salts, 
 Mr. THOMPSON, in the same process that 
 crystallizes his salts, and with little or no 
 additional expense or trouble, separates 
 the magnesia, and produces that article for 
 sale to a considerable amount : but the 
 salt manufacturers cannot new follow his 
 example, and thus improve the quality of 
 
 * This is Mr. Thompson's practice at Cheltenham, 
 where it answers very well. In his salts a kind of 
 pellicle or scum forms on the top, in about eight hours, 
 and is a signal for diminishing the heat. 
 
[55] 
 
 their salt ; as the same objection would arise 
 from the salt laws, to such a mode of pro- 
 ducing magnesia from common salt, as has 
 operated with irresistible effect against our 
 manufacture of sal ammoniac. 
 
 I have already anticipated part of what I 
 had to offer, on the probable ff ects O f 
 effects of the repeal of the salt the Re P eaL 
 duties. The advantages that would result 
 from power being given to our unemployed 
 sailors, fishermen, and labourers, to reap 
 the full and free benefit of our insular situa- 
 tion, and to form petty associations with 
 their messmates for catching and curing of 
 fish, thus exercising their industry in a 
 manner congenial to all their wishes and 
 habits of life, and obtaining an honest 
 independence favourable to the moral vir- 
 tues of the country, would partly remove 
 the temptation* to illicit and contraband 
 
 * In the Report of the Committee of the DOWNS 
 FISHERY, the annual loss to the revenue by the smug" 
 gling of goods on the southern coasts of the island, is 
 estimated at two millions a year. Whenever the repeal 
 
[56] 
 
 trade, whilst it afforded present occupation 
 to our seafaring men, and future supplies 
 for our navy ; advantages of such inesti- 
 mable value to this country, that the petty 
 considerations of finance sink before them. 
 At the same time the extent of the 
 improvements in agriculture by the pos- 
 session of a rich and hitherto prohibited 
 manure, cheap, and light in conveyance, and 
 always valuable as part of the compost 
 dunghill, would enhance the value of 
 our cultivated estates, and produce new 
 and increasing sources of useful EMPLOY- 
 MENT, in reclaiming and enriching millions 
 of acres of waste and uncultivated lands. 
 In our manufactures, the prohibition that 
 exists in some cases, and the impediment 
 which embarrasses all our other operations, 
 would be removed,* and our manufacturers 
 
 of the salt duties shall offer to all our SMUGGLERS 
 the honest trade of fishermen instead of their present 
 course of life, the, saving thereby to the revenue, ill 
 this respect only, would go a great way to compensate 
 for the abolition of all the salt duties. 
 
 * A gentleman, whose manufacture requires a good 
 deal of salt, tells me he pays 3u/. a ton for all the 
 
[57] 
 
 be placed on a footing with those of other 
 countries ; the prices of many of the neces- 
 saries of life would be reduced ; and more 
 science, more energy, and more capital 
 be directed to extend their operations; 
 new processes would be introduced, new 
 uses discovered, and fresh sources of occu- 
 pation be supplied. The addition of health- 
 ful and profitable employment always gives 
 strength and vigour to the body politic, 
 and in every state, and in all cases, is con- 
 ducive to its vital prosperity ; but in this 
 country, and at the present moment, there 
 are peculiar and unprecedented circum- 
 stances, to increase its value beyond calcu- 
 lation. Whilst, however, I am stating this, 
 I am aware that GOVERNMENT has gene- 
 rally been, and is at present, most earnest 
 and anxious to adopt every proper and 
 practicable measure, for encouraging our 
 manufactures, agriculture, and fisheries. 
 
 salt which his works require : thirty-six pounds for a 
 ton of salt, for which the salt proprietor receives not 
 quite sixteen shillings ! 
 
[58] 
 
 On that EARNESTNESS and ANXIETY I found 
 my chief hopes of success. 
 
 When a tax that produces less than a 
 
 Principles of the million and a half into his 
 SALT COMMU- 
 TATION. Majesty's Exchequer, takes 
 
 twice that sum out of the pockets of his 
 subjects, and deprives them of the benefit 
 of their natural produce to ten times its 
 amount, it should seem an easy task to find 
 terms of commutation, that would prove 
 beneficial to all. The division of the payment, 
 however, so as to make it fair and equal 
 (as far as is practicable) may require some 
 consideration; and I am not so vain as to 
 pretend to any peculiar knowledge or talent 
 on the subject : but having stated my 
 objections to the existing salt duties, it 
 seems to be incumbent on me, to offer my 
 idea of the principles on which a SALT 
 COMMUTATION may be proposed, as a mea- 
 sure of expediency and propriety. In the 
 first place, I would submit that the labour- 
 ing poor should be entirely exempt ; and have 
 the free use of salt for domestic purposes, for 
 
[ 59 ] 
 
 preserving their bacon and fish, for improv- 
 ing their bread now often spoilt for want 
 of a little salt, for increasing the milk of 
 their cows and the produce of their gar- 
 dens, without any compensation on their 
 part. In the next place, I conceive that in- 
 come from trades and professions should 
 not, especially in this instance, be subject 
 to any contribution. A war like the last, 
 a contest for existence and independence, 
 may require extraordinary taxes : but the 
 labours of the hand and the head, the pro- 
 duce of mental and manual exertion, should 
 generally be free from taxation. In the 
 third place, the commutation should be so 
 calculated, as not to subject the individual 
 to more than what he is now charged with 
 under the existing salt duties. For ex- 
 ample, if the householder's expense in salt 
 be at present thirty shillings a year,* it 
 
 * The difference between the expense of a family, 
 in salt at the taxed price of twenty shillings a bushel, 
 or at the untaxed price of a shilling the bushel, is more 
 than I could have conceived, until I made inquiry 
 respecting the quantity used in my own family, and 
 in some others. 
 
[60] 
 
 will be an advantage to him to pay only 
 twenty shillings a year in lieu of it - 
 If in a farming concern the tax on salt for 
 cheese, butter, bread, bacon, beef, and 
 other domestic purposes, costs the farmer 
 five pounds a year, it will be a considerable 
 benefit to him to have the free use of 
 untaxcd salt, not only, for his house, but 
 for his flocks and herds, for his cows and 
 horses, for his hay, his pasture and arable 
 land, by contributing only a portion of what 
 he now pays for the partial use of salt for 
 domestic purposes* only. If the salt duties 
 
 * In the Agricultural Report for the County of 
 Chester by Mr. Holland, the annual allowance of salt 
 for cheese, &c. in a farm of 200/. a year, is stated at 
 half a bushel a week. This may perhaps be over- 
 stated, though the book is in general correct. I am, 
 however, persuaded that the expense of salt at its pre- 
 sent price, in a farm, is much more than the farmers 
 are in general aware of: and if in other counties there 
 is less salt required for cheese than in Cheshire, more 
 may be wanted for bacon, bread, butter, beef, fish, 
 and other domestic purposes; and if we add the use of 
 it for hay, cattle, manure, &c. the advantage of the 
 repeal to the farmer would be very considerable. 
 
[61] 
 
 at present interfere with the improvement 
 of landed estates, the landlords' contribution 
 towards the repeal of them need only 
 amount to a small part of the benefit which 
 he would immediately derive from the 
 repeal. If, again, the manufacturer, on 
 account of the scarcity or inferior quality 
 of Spanish barilla, prefers mineral alkali 
 made from salt, he may very well afford 
 to pay a duty on the mineral alkali, of a 
 tenth of what he now pays on the quantity 
 of salt from which it can be made ; and if 
 he makes use of salt for producing sal am- 
 moniac, Glauber salts, or magnesia^ he may 
 pay a similar duty on it. If the salt pro- 
 prietor is relieved from the embarrassing 
 regulations on the exportation of salt, and 
 has the full benefit of a very extensive and 
 much better market* at home, he cannot 
 
 * There are very few articles of commerce so unpro- 
 fitable as the exportation of English salt. In the first 
 place, the price is very inadequate, and the market 
 uncertain ; they have this year attempted to get 
 eighteen shillings a ton, and not succeeding, many of 
 the works are shut up. Three-fourths of the price are, 
 by their present process, expended in coals. Bonds 
 
[62] 
 
 object to a trivial duty on that which is 
 exported abroad : and lastly, if by the re- 
 peal of the salt duties, the English manu- 
 facturer be enabled to make muriatic and 
 oxy muriatic acid, objects of exportation to 
 foreign countries, a tax may be laid on 
 the exportation of them. On these princi- 
 
 from the proprietor and two sureties, to the amount of 
 treble the duly (which on a load of a hundred tons 
 would amount to 9,000/.), are required before the salt 
 can be weighed and loaded at. the works, and must be 
 repeated again at the sea port, where the salt is again 
 weighed ; if, at the sea-port, there is any deficiency or 
 excess (the comparative waste of salt being very uncer- 
 tain) the proprietor is subject to penalties. The very 
 expense of the bonds amounts to some hundreds a 
 year. This export trade in salt is nearly, if not 
 wholly, confined to Liverpool, and amounts on the 
 average of the last six years to 160,000 tons a year ; 
 which might be used at home, with infinitely more 
 benefit to the country. The increase of price which 
 salt would fairly bear, and the great demand for salt at 
 home, in case of the repeal of the duties, would make 
 its export a thing of minor consideration. It is 
 also probable lhat an improvement in the process of 
 making salt, would augment the demand for it abroad, 
 even though the price were a little more on account 
 of the duty. 
 
[63] 
 
 pies I venture to propose that a moiety of 
 the SALT COMMUTATION be produced by a 
 moderate duty on mineral alkali, sal ammo- 
 niac, glauber salts, and magnesia, ( produced 
 from common salt) and on salt exported 
 out of the united kingdom, and also on 
 muriatic and oxymuriatic acid* produced from 
 salt, and exported; these duties, on the 
 average, not exceeding a tenth of the pre- 
 sent duties, on the salt required for the 
 
 * There are many trades and manufactures on the 
 Continent, such as those of bleachers, calico printers, 
 &c. which cannot be carried on without large supplies 
 of MURIATIC ACID, and also of OXYMURIATIC ACID. 
 And as foreigners, in making these chemicals, have 
 had the unrestrained use of English salt, duty free, 
 they obtain these articles, so mcestarytotheir operations, 
 at a much lower rate than our own manufacturers ; 
 who are subject to the severe restrictions of the 38th 
 of Geo. III. in the use of salt, and are prevented from, 
 applying the residuum to any profitable purpose. If 
 the salt used in England, were duty free, and a small 
 duty laid on exported salt, muriatic acid and bleaching 
 salts, would become with us articles of manufacture 
 to send abroad ; and, on exportation, would bear a 
 moderate duty, equivalent to the export duty on the 
 quantity of salt from which these articles are made. 
 
[64] 
 
 several articles : and that, for the encou- 
 ragement of the manufacture of mineral 
 alkali, the duty on imported barilla be 
 increased. The other moiety of the com- 
 mutation will be easily supplied, by a very 
 trivial annual contribution from landed 
 property, bearing a very small proportion 
 to the benefit it would derive from the re- 
 peal; and by a similar contribution from 
 the occupiers of farms and houses, not 
 amounting to so much as they now pay on 
 account of the salt duties. In this manner 
 half of the proposed commutation, would 
 be supplied by duties on new manufactures 
 from salt, hitherto prohibited by the salt 
 duties^ or by duties on exports and imports 
 which the repeal would warrant ; and the 
 inhabitants of England would not have to 
 pay any more for the use of salt for all 
 purposes (those new manufactures ex- 
 cepted) than a part of what they do now 
 pay for the limited and restricted use of the 
 portion of native salt, which they are now 
 permitted to enjoy. 
 
[65] 
 
 It may be said that the measure under 
 consideration looks chiefly to the Case of 
 
 , the Salt 
 interest of the salt proprietor, and Proprietor. 
 
 will be of more benefit to him than to 
 others. I do not admit the fact ; for I am 
 persuaded that our financial resources, our 
 manufacturers, seafaring men, farmers, 
 land proprietors, and above all, the suf- 
 fering and unemployed individuals of the 
 labouring class, will derive great and im- 
 portant benefits from the measure. But 
 for a moment suppose, that a considerable 
 part of the advantages of the repeal of the 
 salt duties, would accrue to the salt proprie- 
 tor, and then let us see what are his 
 claims to be relieved from the unequal 
 burthen, which the code of salt laws has 
 imposed upon his property. A bushel of 
 salt, when purified and crystallized, is 
 worth (exclusive of the duty) about four- 
 pence halfpenny. On this bushel of salt 
 the duty imposed is fifteen shillings, or 
 3o/. per ton, being forty times the value of 
 the article. Such is the fact. Let us then 
 consider the equity of such a tax ; and in- 
 
 F 
 
[66] 
 
 quire, whether there is any other property 
 in the United Kingdom, that pays a tenth 
 part of its comparative amount. The coal 
 proprietor may easily make the case his 
 own, by only calculating the operation of a 
 duty of 3O/. a ton, on all coals for home 
 consumption ; so as to equalize his condition 
 with that of the salt proprietor. There is 
 nothing in the nature of coal, no special 
 ground of exemption, no particular merit 
 in its character or substance, to give it a 
 preference over salt. They are both use- 
 ful : but many nationsthe greatest part 
 of the world do very well without coals ; 
 none of them however can do very well 
 without salt. Coal indeed is a substitute 
 for turf, Wood, and other fuel : but it will 
 not manure land, preserve meat, cure fish, 
 season and improve the food of man or 
 beast, and render it palatable. Why then 
 should the salt proprietor, in addition to all 
 the other taxes, pay a tax of forty times the 
 value of his property,, when the coal proprie- 
 tor pays nothing ? or rather, why should 
 not both the proprietors be equally exempt, 
 
. ' C 67 ] 
 
 and the public the party really interested 
 enjoy the full benefit of these two useful 
 and valuable articles of British produce, 
 in employing and enriching its individual 
 members, and giving strength, perma- 
 nence, and prosperity to the empire ? 
 
 Let us, however, for a moment suppose 
 the same duty of so/, per ton HisClaim 
 were to be laid on coals, that is for Relief - 
 already imposed upon salt, with the same 
 allowance of it, duty free, to foreign nations, 
 50 as not to injure their manufacturers; and 
 let us try to anticipate the strength of 
 argument, and vehemence of language, 
 which would be applied to shew the injus- 
 tice and impolicy of such a tax. The claim 
 of a royal fifth out of some mines has been 
 thought oppressive. Yet what is a fifth ? 
 what would be four-fifths of the annual 
 produce of a copper mine, lead mine, or any 
 other mine, compared with a tax which 
 prohibits the proprietor, under the severest 
 and most rigorously exacted penalties, to 
 apply three-penny worth of his own salt for 
 
[68] 
 
 the use of his family, until the sum of TEN 
 SHILLINGS has been paid to the collector 
 of excise for permission to use it? Such, 
 however, is the law*. Compared with this, 
 the taking from him nine-tenths of his annual 
 produce, would be nothing. He would 
 enjoy the remaining tenth freely. What ! 
 after that he has raised his own property 
 from the bowels of the earth, purified it, 
 crystallized it, and fitted it for use, must 
 he pay a fine of forty times its value, 
 for permission to use it ? No privation, 
 that does not take the whole, can be com- 
 
 * The regulations respecting the salt duties are, on 
 account of the excessive amount of the tax, necessarily 
 very strict and severe. The salt proprietor is in no 
 case, allowed admission into his own warehouses, 
 except in presence of the excise officer, who keeps 
 the key, and never trusts it out of hand on any 
 account whatever. Whenever the proprietor wants 
 admittance to them, he is obliged to give previous 
 notice to the exciseman, and request him to attend'. 
 So, on the pumping into the pan, boiling, drawing, 
 warehousing, and loading, previous notice must be 
 given ; and thereby time is lost, expense incurred, and 
 the proprietor often materially injured, 
 
[69 ] 
 
 pared with such a tax.* I trust, therefore, 
 that no Englishman who attentively consi- 
 ders the situation of the salt proprietor, 
 will think it unreasonable that, when he has 
 drawn up his brine from the springs on his 
 own estate, and with considerable expense 
 of fuel and labour, has purified and crys- 
 tallized it, he should obtain eight-pence a 
 bushel for the salt so produced, as well as 
 the coal proprietor for his bushel of coals, 
 brought out rough from the pit. What 
 farmer would grudge paying two-pence for 
 a peck of salt, if it would secure a load of 
 hay from the effects of wet ? or not give a 
 shilling for a bushel and a half of salt, to 
 preserve his sheep from the rot, and to 
 increase the milk of his cows, the fat of his 
 bullocks, and the health and strength of his 
 
 * In my attempt to draw the public attention to this 
 subject, it is fortunate for me that I have no interest or 
 concern in any salt works, nor (to my knowledge) any 
 connection or relative, who has. My information, I 
 can add, has been obtained from gentlemen whose 
 knowledge and character induced me to give them 
 credit, and has been confirmed by subsequent inquiry. 
 
[70] 
 
 horses and other animals ? or who would 
 think of the cost of ten shillings, for fifteen 
 bushels of salt, to sweeten and improve 
 as many acres of sour coarse grass, or to 
 restore and fertilize as much of exhausted 
 soil ? It would indeed be an insult to my 
 .countrymen, after their noble and disinter- 
 ested stand for the liberty and happiness of 
 the civilized world, to suppose that their 
 minds can become at once so narrow and 
 sordid, as to be insensible of the inequality 
 and injustice of a tax, lying with such ex- 
 cess of burthen on the property of one class 
 of their fellow subjects. If the redress of 
 the grievance were to be attended even with 
 some personal expense or loss to the other 
 members, still it should not be withheld: 
 but ) when the repeal of the tax appears to 
 be of general benefit to the community, 
 the commutation on the whole far less 
 burthensome, and the only question, the 
 adjustment of a few annual shillings more 
 or less, in the degree of contribution to 
 be made for the abolition of the tax, it 
 were an aspersion on the British character 
 
[71] 
 
 (whilst kind and considerate to all other 
 nations) to insinuate that it can fail in 
 justice and attention to its own members. 
 
 The condition of a minister, however 
 sought for and solicited, is seldom to be 
 envied, except when he has the means 
 of doing an act of essential justice to in- 
 dividuals, and of general benefit to the 
 community. Power so enjoyed, however 
 awful the responsibility, is more than en- 
 viable ; it partakes of the nature of the 
 divine attributes. If the thanks of a country 
 be due to the man, who has made two stems 
 of corn to grow where only one grew 
 before, what debt of gratitude will be due to 
 that STATESMAN, who shall have the glory 
 of adding to the rich and luxuriant herbage 
 and produce of his native land, of releasing 
 the property of some of his fellow subjects 
 from a burthensome inequality of condition, 
 of relieving the manufacturers from re- 
 straints and impediments calculated to check 
 and paralyse all their exertions, and of 
 removing from the labouring class, strong 
 
[72 ] 
 
 temptations to vicious and criminal habits, 
 whilst they afforded them fresh means of 
 subsistence, and opened to their industry, 
 new and increasing sources of healthful 
 and profitable employment ? 
 
 London : Fruited by W, iiuLucr and Co. Cleveland-row, St, James's. 
 
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