l apprehension of seeing American iron admitted duty
free: a supposition which had prevented the traders from extending their
works, and discouraged many from engaging in this branch of traffic;
they alleged that the iron works, already carried on in England,
occasioned a consumption of one hundred and ninety-eight thousand cords
of wood, produced in coppices that grow upon barren lands, which could
not otherwise be turned to any good account: that as the coppices
afford shade, and preserve a moisture in the ground, the pasture is more
valuable with the wood, than it would be if the coppices were grubbed
up; consequently all the estates, where these now grow, would sink in
their yearly value; that these coppices, now cultivated and preserved
for the use of the iron works, are likewise absolutely necessary for the
manufacture of leather, as they furnish bark for the tanners, and that,
according to the management of these coppices, they produced a great
number of timber trees, so necessary for the purposes of building. They
asserted, that neither the American iron, nor any that had yet been
found in Great Britain, was so proper for converting into steel as that
which conies from Sweden, particularly that sort called ore ground; but
as there are mines in the northern parts of Britain, nearly in the same
latitude with those of Sweden, furnished with sufficient quantities of
wood, and rivers for mills and engines, it was hardly to be doubted but
that people would find metal of the same quality, and, in a few years,
be able to prevent the necessity of importing iron either from Sweden or
Russia. They inferred that American iron could never interfere with that
which Great Britain imported from Sweden, because it was not fit for
edged-tools, anchors, chain plates, and other particulars necessary in
ship building; nor diminish the importation of Russian iron, which
was not only harder than the American and British, but also could be
afforded cheaper than that brought from our own plantations, even though
the duty of this last should be removed. The importation of American
iron, therefore, duty free, could interfere with no other sort but that
produced in Britain, with which, by means of this advantage, it would
clash so much, as to put a stop in a little time to all the iron works
now carried on in the kingdom, and reduce to beggary a great number of
families whom they support. To these objections the favourers of the
bill solicit