[69] Evidence of Captain Briggs. [70] Evidence of Captain Briggs. [71] These tables occupy much space. _Vide_ ‘Report,’ p. 690. House of Commons Inquiry. [72] Per Ton. £ _s._ A ship 12 years, A 1 Class, 300 tons old measure, } built complete, sold for } 12 12 ” 10 ” A 1 Class, ditto ditto 10 10 ” 9 ” A 1 Class, ditto ditto 9 0 ” 8 ” A 1 Class, ditto ditto 8 0 ” 7 ” A 1 Class, ditto ditto 7 0 ” 6 ” A 1 Class, ditto ditto 6 0 [73] _Vide_ Evidence of Mr. Braysher, 2297. [74] It followed from the system, that there was coincidently a protected trade and an unprotected trade. The _protected_ trade included in 1847 the whole coast of Africa and Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena and Ascension, Mauritius, British India, the British North American Colonies, the Australian Colonies, the British West Indies, the Fisheries, and the Channel Islands. The _unprotected_ trade included Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Gibraltar and Malta[75], Turkey, the Morea and Egypt, Tripoli, Barbary and Marocco, China, Sumatra and Java, the foreign West Indies, the United States of America, Mexico and the States of South America, the Ionian Islands, the Cape de Verde and the South Sea Islands. In these two categories, protected and unprotected, the whole of the British trade was then comprehended. [75] Gibraltar and Malta, although colonies of the British Crown, were considered as not in Europe, or foreign countries, with reference to the Navigation Laws, and our Customs Regulations. [76] On April 3, 1848, Mr. Bright urged on Mr. Labouchere the propriety of importing cotton from Havre, then abundant there; but he replied that the Minister could not abrogate the Navigation Laws; Hansard, vol. xvii. p. 1202. [77] See Tooke’s ‘History of Prices,’ vol. v. p. 95. [78] Mr. Tooke says in a note that the highest price in Mark Lane had been reached on the 17th May, when 115_s._ per quarter was paid for wheat; a very fine parcel was sold in the Uxbridge Market, at 125_s._ [79] The total quantity of grain imported of all kinds into this country was 3,790,957 quarters in 1846; but the total imports in 1847 reached 9,436,677 quarters, while the imports of meal and flour in these two years amounted to 3,347,565, and 8,633,991 cwts. respectively. That year my firm alone (W. S. Lindsay and Co.) chartered, in their capacity as shipbrokers, vessels to bring from the Black Sea, Egypt, America, and elsewhere, no less than 1,250,000 quarters of grain of different sorts. CHAPTER VII.