A REPORT OF PROCEEDINGS AT A PUBLIC MEETING OF THE MERCHANTS, BANKERS, AND TRADERS OF THE CITY OF LONDON, HELD AT THE LONDON TAVERN, ON WEDNESDAY, DEC. 3, 1831, TO WHICH IS ADDED A REPORT OF THE DEPU- CHAP. II. COLLISION BETWEEN THE BOARD AND THE LONDON DOCK DIRECTORS Section 1.-Prefatory Statement of the circumstances introductory to the CHAP III. 2.-Wool Sweepings, Stoppages, and Seizures 3.-Charge against the Company of corrupt application of pro- CHAP. V. CHAP. VI. CHAP. VII. THE BOARD'S SOLICITOR AND THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.- CHAP. VIII. THE ST. KATHARINE DOCK COMPANY.-ITS HISTORY, CONSTITUTION, 59 5 PREFACE. We here present to the Legislature and to the public, upon a subject in which the former is deeply implicated, and the latter largely interested, the result of the labours of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, and of a Committee of London Merchants. The causes which evoked these exertions will be found in the Introduction-their fruits in the sequel and body of the work. After a careful revision, and a candid re-examination of their proceedings, and of the views they have expressed, this Committee feel called upon gratefully to acknowledge the liberal and considerate support they have received from the independent members of the House of Commons, and from the great body, and most eminent individuals, of the mercantile community. That they have committed no errors in judgment in the management of this vital question, they are not so presumptuous as to assert. That they have sometimes permitted, by inadvertency, a betrayal into expressions not to be justified by the finical canons of fastidious taste, or that sagacity which is always wise enough behind hand, and by afterthought, they are quite ready frankly to confess. The fact is, they have all along been in earnest—and sincerity does not always wait to pick and chuse its words, or genuine zeal to weigh them. They are not desirous to palliate their fortiter in modo by quoting the precedent of Mr. Hamel's epistolary effusions, or the example of the Board, through their standing counsel, Mr. James O'Dowd. "Pitiful deceit," " mendacity," "reckless falsehood," are epithets, the selection and taste of which they leave to be justified by the Board, as applied by their advocates to those who simply and inoffensively detail a plain narrative of their cases. How the private correspondence of the merchants, with the Board of Customs, and the official documents of the Commissioners, together with the names of Memorialists and Petitioners, were laid open and explained in detail to a professional writer who had no official or government commission or appointment; and how the Board should have instructed. him to make these public, in the pamphlets which it is proposed to put forward as a complete refutation of the following pages, perhaps the Commissioners will be called upon to explain. It is scarcely necessary to direct the attention of the reader to that which is perhaps the most striking portion of the following pages the Public Meeting at the London Tavern, and the subsequent Deputation to the First Lord of the Treasury. An assembly of the mercantile classes, at once so numerous and influential, perhaps never was assembled. It will be seen that without distinction of party, the proceedings were adopted unanimously-and, that no pretence might be afforded for the charge of mere passive and ignorant unanimity, the Resolutions and Report to be proposed thereat had been placarded, and copies left with 4,000 of the merchants of the City, several days before they were called upon to pronounce a judgment upon them. The Representation to Lord John Russell, which will be found at pp. 419-20-21 and 22, embodies a summary of the grievances sought to be redressed, and particularly of the abuses connected with the proceedings against the London and St. Katharine Dock Companies. Without having ever identified themselves with the cause of those great corpora |