The agitation thus invoked by the central body of shipowners in London was responded to by their fellow-shipowners throughout the country. Meetings were held at Belfast, Bristol, Dartmouth, Devonport, Dunfermline, Dundee, Exeter, Exmouth, Fleetwood, Glasgow, Gateshead, Hull, Hartlepool, London, Liverpool, Leith, Lynn, Montrose, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouth, Penzance, Perth, Sunderland, Shields, St. Andrews, Swansea, Saltash, Tynemouth, Weymouth, and Yarmouth. The petition from London was signed by 27,000 persons of the most respectable classes; while that from Liverpool comprised 24,700 names, not shipowners exclusively. This petition, eloquently drawn up, expressed alarm at the progress of a measure which proposed to take away from this country advantages it had so long and so successfully enjoyed, and to invite, unwisely, foreign nations to share those advantages with us; nations, too, utterly unable, even if willing, to confer on us any adequate equivalent in return. It pointed at the evident result of the substitution, to a great extent, of foreign for British and colonial shipping, the employment of foreign labour and capital in lieu of our own, and the creation of new relations between foreign nations and our own colonies; thereby weakening the ties which bind the latter to the mother-country, and diminishing British power and influence throughout the world. They did not fail to show, above all, the consequences the measure would have on the supply of seamen to the Royal Navy. The second reading of the Bill was fixed for the 9th March, when each party mustered all its forces. The shipowners throughout the kingdom were in a state of great excitement. It was true that among them were many who were ready to accept the measure as proposed by Government, if other nations would only reciprocate; and there were even a few who were so extreme in their views of Free-trade as to desire that the Bill should be carried as it stood, but the majority were vehemently opposed to repeal; and, though some fears were entertained that the second reading of the Bill would be carried in the House of Commons, it was confidently anticipated that a considerable majority in the Lords would, under the brilliant leadership of Lord Stanley (Lord Derby), who had warmly espoused their cause, defeat its progress and throw out the Whig administration. FOOTNOTES: [95] All these figures may now (1875) be at least doubled, except the number of men, as the improvements in mechanical contrivances have materially reduced manual labour since the repeal of the Navigation Laws. In the case of steam ships to nearly one-half. See following table:—