With Mr. Braysher’s evidence may be brought to a close the extracts necessary to be given from the mass of conflicting statements and documents laid before Mr. Ricardo’s Committee, and I may now proceed with the general history of the measures pursued and subsequently adopted. [Sidenote: Committee’s last meeting, July 17.] [Sidenote: General dissatisfaction with the results of the inquiry.] On the 17th of July, the Committee of the House of Commons held its last sitting; and as a dissolution of Parliament was impending, the Committee, after having published four successive reports, strictly confined to the minutes of the evidence taken before them, came to the conclusion of closing the inquiry. The Protectionist shipowners complained that this abrupt termination of the inquiry was brought about with the view of suppressing the evidence of Mr. D. C. Aylwin, an intelligent merchant connected with the Calcutta trade, who was in attendance to give counter-testimony to many of the Free-trade witnesses. It was also patent that, during the investigation, while twenty-five witnesses had been examined in favour of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, on the other hand, for their defence and maintenance, only nine persons had been called to give their testimony. It was therefore urged that the proceedings of the Committee and the abrupt termination of the inquiry were anything but fair, the more so that no practical results had been obtained, though the evidence procured was, ultimately, of considerable importance. Thus ended this important inquiry in a manner scarcely satisfactory to either party; nor was the investigation again revived in the committee-rooms of the House of Commons, the scene of the contest being transferred elsewhere. On the 23rd July, 1847, Parliament was dissolved; and at the subsequent general election the Free-trade party was triumphant everywhere, Mr. Cardwell gaining his election at Liverpool, while Mr. Cobden was returned in his absence for the West Riding of Yorkshire, as well as for Stockport; Mr. C. P. Villiers, on whose motion the Corn Laws had been repealed, being also doubly returned for South Lancashire and Wolverhampton, both these elections affording thereby unmistakable evidences of the feeling of the country in favour of unfettered commerce. With so great an accession of strength to the Whig Government, further progress in Free-trade measures became inevitable, and the greatest uneasiness prevailed among shipowners as to their future destiny. [Sidenote: Commercial panic]