the Navigation Laws, the palladium of our national independence, preserved from destruction. That the Navigation Laws have been a great advantage to our shipowners and seafaring interests is self-evident. They afforded superior advantages in conducting the trade of the empire to British over foreign shipowners; and they nursed up, accordingly, the immense and hardy body of British seamen, who have founded and protected our colonial empire, and rendered Great Britain the terror and admiration of the world. What, then, is the great benefit which is anticipated from the repeal of laws, the practical operation of which has been attended with such uniform and unparalleled benefits? The benefit is, that it will save our merchants some millions a-year in the payment of freights. It is calculated by the Free-traders that £30,000,000 yearly is paid by Great Britain for freights; and of this sum, it is thought a fourth, or £7,500,000 yearly, may be saved by the employment of foreign instead of British sailors in the conducting of our commerce, or the reduction of freight and seamen's wages in these islands, which will result from their unrestrained competition. This is the benefit to attain which our Navigation Laws, the nursery of our seamen, are to be sacrificed. And the question to be considered is,--Is the gain real, or apparent only; and, supposing it is real, is it worth the risk with which it is attended? Is the advantage real, or apparent only? Concede to the Free-traders all they contend for: call the saving to the nation annually in freights, to be effected by free trade in shipping, not £7,500,000 but £10,000,000 annually. The strength of the argument will admit of almost any concession. Admit this, and consider what it is worth, and on whom it is made. It is not worth a _fiftieth part_ of the revenue of the nation, which, in the produce of land and manufactures alone, is above £500,000,000 annually. A week of sunshine in autumn, a favourable set of Fall orders from America, the stoppage of a revolution in Europe, are each worth more to the nation. But, such as it is, from whom is it gained? Why, it is all _gained from our own people_: it is a saving effected to _one class of our inhabitants by impoverishing another class_. If our merchants and the purchasers from them pay £20,000,000 a-year for freight of goods sea-borne, instead of £30,000,000 as formerly, undoubtedly there is a saying of £10,000,000 _to them_, or the consumers who buy from them. But of whom is this saving made? From whom is it derived? Is it not from our shipbuilders, shipowners, and seamen, who get so much the less: either by being driven out of the market by foreign mercantile navies, or by getting their own profits or wages reduced by external competition to that amount? Ten millions now earned by shipowners and sailors in Great Britain, is, on the most favourable supposition for the Free-traders, _taken from them_, and