inces not of the combination, though they did not receive more than £400,000 in value, at the medium of these three last years; when there will remain £3,000,000 out of the £8,500,000; nay, I will further reduce the six by nearly £700,000, to remove all suspicion of exaggeration, and to make an exact third of the sixteen, and which is the part immediately affected by the Association in North America.

From this ground see what is put in hazard; not merely a moneyed profit, but our bulwark of defence, our power in offence—the arts and industry of our Nation. Instead of thousands and ten thousands of families in comfort, a navigation extensive and enlarging, the value and rents of land, yearly rising, wealth abounding, and at hand for further improvements, see or foresee, that this third of our whole commerce, that sole basis of our Empire, and this third in itself the best, once lost, carries with it a proportion of our national faculties, our treasure, our publick revenue, and the value of land, succeeded in its fall by a multiplication of taxes to reinstate that revenue, an increasing burden on every decreasing estate, decreasing by the reduced demand of its produce for the support of Manufactures and Manufacturers, and menaced with a heavier calamity still—the diminution of our Marine, of our Sea-men, of our general population, by the emigration of useful subjects, strengthening that very country you wish to humble, and weakening this in the sight of rival Powers, who wish to humble us.

Having been hitherto merely general, I must now descend to a detail, but of parts so large, that each is separately big with sufficient evils to draw the utmost stretch of your attention. I begin with those which threaten the West Indies.

To recapitulate the heads of that material evidence delivered by Mr. Walker and Mr. Ellis, would be tedious in me, unnecessary in itself. Leaving it, therefore, to its own powerful impression, I here add only, in a general mode of my own, that of the inhabitants of those Islands, above four hundred thousand are Blacks, from whose labour the immense riches there, so distinctly proved at your bar, are derived, with such immense advantage to these Kingdoms. How far these multitudes, if their intercourse with North America is stopped, may be exposed to famine, you have heard. One half in Barbadoss and the Leeward Islands, say one hundred thousand Negroes, in value at least four millions sterling, possibly, it grieves me to say probably, may perish. The remainder must divert to Provisions the culture of the produce so valuable to Great Britain. The same must be the practice in great part throughout Jamaica and the new settled acquisitions. They may feel a distress just short of destruction, but must divert for subsistence so much labour as, in proportion, will shorten their rich product. In fact, why should they raise the latter, if Lumber should be wanting for its package to Great Britain? How vague, how uncertain, how nearly impracticable, would be a supply of these necessaries through any new channel, I need not repeat; but shall close this head with another short general state, in confirmation of Mr. Walker's most accurate detail. The gross amount of Imports, at an annual medium, from these now unfortunate Islands, exceed £4,000,000; one hundred and ninety thousand casks of Sugar and Rum, besides many other articles, the bulky loading for such a multitude of Vessels, more than authorize my assertion. Of these annual four millions, the Exchequer receives its proportion, the Navigator and Merchant theirs, the rest centres with the Planter; and how distributed by him? In the purchase of £1,300,000 in our Exports direct, and the largest part of £700,000 more in circuition through Africa, for a constant supply of Negroes. What is left, considerable as it may be among residents here, is applied to home consumption; not with a sparing hand, and to investments, upholding the price of land and the credit of publick funds. At the same time they are furnishing commodities to us of such necessary use, which else must be paid for to foreigners, and with a superfluity for foreign consumption likewise; I avoid comparison, but judge from this state how valuable a subject is the Planter. All these benefits, the healthy progeny of active trade, all or part must sleep as in a grave, during a total or partial stagnation.

Upon the North American Imports I shall only remark, that the most considerable part of their bulky productions is bought by the foreigner, and of the amount consumed in Great Britain, the Exchequer hath a capital share. Nor will I take North America for a companion in my present melancholy walk, because she may prove the only gainer, and as the community become more sound and healthy, while every other member of the Empire lies bleeding. But my heart bleeds, when, renewing my gloomy progress, I turn a view towards one Kingdom, a great member, which may unhappily be distinguished above all sufferers in the present conjuncture; I mean the Kingdom of Scotland; and among my honourable hearers, they whose particular attention I may now engage, have no cause to doubt the sincerity of my feelings. I have taken equal pains with the accounts of Exports from that Kingdom as from this. The Papers I could collect began at Christmas, 1748, and end at Christmas, 1772, with two years wanting; a circumstance, however, which will not in the least impede me in illustrating the progress and improvement of the North British trade. A first period shews an annual medium of about £500,000. In a second it rises to £860,000. In a third to £1,150,000. And in the last, for 1770, 1771, and 1772, to £1,700,000, of which about £400,000 is Colony export, exclusive of Ireland, and the far greater part to the Tobacco Provinces, where many of my most worthy friends have a property lying, much larger than I choose to conjecture. To this I add a known export of , exceeding £200,000, supplied to England for American use. The whole may be little short of £700,000; but calling it six, I ask if Scotland can well endure a stagnation of such a value for twelve months to come? Whether their export to Ireland of 3 to £400,000, will be affected; and how far emigration, of late so prevalent, may be extended by the pressure of a new calamity, I will net forbode. Sir, I feel—sir, those feelings forbid me to expatiate further; I choose to drop the subject, observing only, that the Colony Export from Scotland is to their whole much in the same proportion with ours. I will now pass over to Ireland.

That Kingdom takes from England and Scotland little short of £2,400,000 annually in Goods. How doth she pay for them? A large part in Linen and Yarn, the remainder in cash, acquired by her foreign traffick. In the printed report to this House, from their Linen Committee, it appears that, in 1771, the Linen made and brought to market for sale in trial Kingdom, for its own use and ours, amounted to £2,150,000, and the Yarn exported, to about £200,000. This immense value, the employment of such numbers, hath its source in North America. The Flaxseed from thence, not worth £40,000, a trifle to that Continent, forms the basis of Ireland, and reverts largely in Manufacture from her to the original seat of growth. In reply, what is the cry of my magnanimous countrymen without doors? Dignity! Supremacy! The evil hour is advancing, not yet come; no sooner come than felt: it may produce a discovery too late, that high-sounding words imply no food to the hungry, no raiment to the naked; and these, throughout our Empire, may amount to millions in number. But new channels of supply shall be found; our potency can surmount all difficulties. It is full time to begin the essay in Ireland, lest, during the experiment, emigration so constant there, should change to depopulation in the Protestant quarters.

I now return to England, not a member, but the head. Her sorrows I will leave to the contemplation of that superiour class which must be the ultimate and permanent sufferer. The sage Mr. Locke would tell the country gentleman, that his visible property must replace the loss of publick revenue; that he must provide for a Nation of hungry and naked, or sink into utter debility and despondency; when the Sun rises no more on this once flourishing Island, but to see the desertion of inhabitants, and a wretched remnant wandering, unclad and unfed, in lamentation over a wilderness.

I have mentioned the Revenue, and shall now be very concise upon that head; deducting Bounties and Drawbacks, the net receipts at the Exchequer, from Duties and Excise on West India productions, I venture to set at more than £700,000, and another receipt in the North American branch, at just so much as with the former, may render a total of one million. To that amount the publick Reve-