hat it having been deemed
expedient to prohibit the distilling of spirits from any sort of
grain, to the twenty-fourth day of December then instant, some of the
petitioners had entirely ceased to carry on the business of distilling,
while others, merely with a view to preserve their customers, the
compound distillers, and employ some of their servants, horses, and
utensils, had submitted to carry on the distillation of spirits from
molasses and sugars under great disadvantages, in full hope that the
restraint would cease at the expiration of the limited time, or at least
when the necessity which occasioned that restraint should be removed;
that it was with great concern they observed a bill would be brought in
for protracting the said prohibition, at a time when the price of all
manner of grain, and particularly of wheat and barley, was considerably
reduced, and, as they humbly conceived, at a reasonable medium.
They expatiated on the great loss they, as well as many traders and
artificers dependent upon them, must sustain in case the said bill
should be passed into a law. They prayed the house to take these
circumstances into consideration, and either permit them to carry on the
distillation from wheat, malt, and other grain, under such restrictions
as should be judged necessary; or to grant them such other relief, in
respect of their several losses and incumbrances, as to the house shall
seem reasonable and expedient. This petition, though strenuously urged
by a powerful and clamorous body without doors, did not meet great
encouragement within. It was ordered to lie upon the table, and an
instruction was given to the committee, empowering them to receive a
clause or clauses to allow the transportation of certain quantities of
meal, flour, bread, and biscuit, to the islands of Guernsey and Jersey,
for the sole use of the inhabitants; and another to prohibit the making
of low wines and spirits from bran. Much more attention was paid to a
petition of several farmers in the county of Norfolk, representing,
that their farms consisted chiefly of arable land, which produced much
greater quantities of corn than could be consumed within that county;
that in the last harvest there was a great and plentiful crop of all
sorts of grain, the greatest part of which had by unfavourable weather
been rendered unfit for sale at London, or other markets for home
consumption; that large quantities of malt were then lying at London,
arising