| Description | "Town’s meeting on copper trade."
The Copper Committee, appointed at a Towns meeting, haveing deputed & requested Mr Simcox & my self to wait upon his Majestys Minister & our friends in Parliam[en]t for the purpose of obtaining some restraints & regulations in the Copper trade, & thereby to preserve our Manufactures from the ruin they are now threaten[e]d with: and Lord Hawksbury haveing also desired us to loose no time in coming to Town for the like purpose, We obeyd.
But we soon found Mr Pitt was absorb[e]d by the Loan, by new taxes, by debates upon Peace & War, & other important objects, that it was impossible for him to enter into our business. We therefore apply[e]d our selves to the prepareing & aranging our Case & to the collecting of such facts as we thought necessary for the refutation of those fallacious Accounts, & bold assertions contained in the printed Report of the Committee of Ms:P: appointed last Year to enquire into the state of the Copper mines & Copper trade.
In a few days after our Memorial or Case was prepar[e]d, We receivd an appointment from Mr Pitt & in conformity thereto We waited upon him accompany[e]d by Lord Hawksbury, Sr. Jno Mordaunt & Mr H: Brown Mr Pitt chose to read it himself which he did with great attention & from his observations I am perswaded he perfectly understood it and declared that he thought it unanswerable. He said he was confirmd in the opineon he had formed last Year & was convinced that the state of our Manufactures & our Navy render[e]d it indispensably necessary to check the growing evil & the Monopoliseing spirit that produc’d it.—He therefore desired we would print the Case in order to deliver it to the M:P: & that Lord Hawy would give notice in the House that he should bring in a Bill for the purpose of making some necessary Regulations in the Copper Trade—w[hi]ch I perceive he has done.
It therefore becomes necessary for us to remove as much as possible the false impressions that have been made upon the Minds of Members by the mistatements & misrepresentations that have been so industriously propogated by the Mineing Interest which can only be done by a personal application to all our friends in parliament & assisting Govt by every information & means in our power to accomplish an object of so much importance to our Manufactures & our Navy & consequently to our Country.
I will now Gentlemen lay before you our reply to the Mineing Interest & our refutation of their false statements. I will beg the fav[ou]r of Mr Villers to read it as I should soon loose my Voice, and I will also beg the fav[ou]r of the Gent[leme]n. present to make any remarks that may strike them. |