On the fourth of July, when the bill had been returned to the Commons, it was moved that the amendments made in it by the Lords should be read; but as it had become a money-bill in consequence of the bounties to be granted, and as new regulations were to be incorporated in it, it was thought proper that it should be wholly done away.  Accordingly Sir William Dolben moved, that the further consideration of it should be put off till that day three months.  This having been agreed upon, he then moved for leave to bring in a new bill.  This was accordingly introduced, and an additional clause was inserted in it, relative to bounties, by Mr. Pitt.  But on the second reading, that no obstacle might be omitted which could legally be thrown in the way of its progress, petitions were presented against it both by the Liverpool merchants and the agent for the island of Jamaica, under the pretence that it was a new bill.  Their petitions, however, were rejected, and it was committed, and passed through its regular stages and sent up to the Lords.

On its arrival there on the fifth of July, petitions from London and Liverpool still followed it.  The prayer of these was against the general tendency of it, but it was solicited also that counsel might be heard in a particular case.  The solicitation was complied with; after which the bill was read a second time, and ordered to be committed.

On the seventh, when it was taken next into consideration, two other petitions were presented against it.  But here so many objections were made to the clauses of it as they then stood; and such new matter suggested, that the Duke of Richmond, who was a strenuous supporter of it, thought it best to move that the commitee, then sitting, should be deferred till that day seven-night, in order to give time for another more perfect to originate in the lower house.

This motion having been acceded to, Sir William Dolben introduced a new one for the third time into the Commons.  This included the suggestions which had been made in the Lords.  It included also a regulation, on the motion of Mr. Sheridan, that no surgeon should be employed as such in the slave-vessels, except he had a testimonial that he had passed a proper examination at Surgeons’-Hall.  The amendments were all then agreed to, and the bill was passed through its several stages.

On the tenth of July, being now fully amended, it came for a third time before the Lords; but it was no sooner brought forward than it met with the same opposition as it had experienced before.  Two new petitions appeared against it, one from a certain class of persons in Liverpool, and another from Miles Peter Andrews, esquire, stating that, if it passed into a law, it would injure the sale of his gunpowder, and that he had rendered great services to the government during the last war by his provision of that article.  But here the Lord Chancellor Thurlow reserved himself for an effort, which, by occasioning only a day’s