A person in distress has not an equal command of his best faculties, or an equal courage to exert them, with one at ease and out of danger. 'Tis said that Cortes, the conqueror of Mexico, demanded of Montezuma, the Emperor, a surrender of his cash; the Emperor made some objections, and desired a treaty on the reasonableness of the demand, on which Cortes heated a gridiron red hot and seated poor Montezuma with his bare backside on it, and consented to treat with him as long as he pleased. I don't know that Great Britain would consent to treat with us on the subject of our rights, even in our excrutiating distress; but if they should be so condescending, there would be so much of duress in the whole treaty, that I doubt much if the Americans would admit of its validity, if the conclusion should not be favourable to them. I am indeed utterly averse to such an unequal treaty. Either let us be first put out of pain, or let them be put into equal pain, and then equal conclusions, if any, may be expected.

5. The British Parliament are not supposed to yield any thing to the ardours and passions of a petition, but their decisions are ever governed by facts and the reasons of them. But we cannot, in any petition, suggest any new matter with which the British Parliament were not perfectly acquainted when they passed the Acts; the whole subject has been long since exhausted, and every argument against all the Bills were set in the strongest light, by many very able speakers, when the Bills were debated. It will, therefore, be vain and ridiculous, and may perhaps be deemed disrespectful, for our Congress to offer a petition filled with old, trite, threadbare matters and arguments, which had a full discussion when the Acts passed.

6. Any petition, memorial, remonstrance, or by whatever other name it may be called, will be deemed to imply a confession of the right of the British Parliament to make the laws against which we remonstrate, which the Americans most certainly do not intend to acknowledge.

7. But what will be as fatal perhaps as any of the rest, if the Congress present a petition to Parliament, it may be received and depend a year or two there for consideration and answer, during all which time it may be thought very improper and indecent for us to adopt and pursue any other means of deliverance, and it will be strongly urged that we ought at least to suspend any other methods of redress, till we know the result of Parliament on our petition.

II. After all this, if it should be deemed expedient to present a petition, and lest words alone, however forcible, should not have sufficient weight, further active measures should be thought necessary to give energy to the same, it remains to be considered what these further measures ought to be; arms certainly ought to be the last thing in view. A suspension of our trade is, by most people, thought sufficient to effect our deliverance; and some think that a suspension of our trade with Great Britain only will effect the great end desired. On which I would observe,

1. However effectual this measure may be, it will be a slow one. Great Britain has great resources of raw materials besides her importations from us; she has many great vents for her merchandise besides her exports to us; the matter in dispute they look on of great importance, and they will suffer long before they will yield it; they will feel a suspension of our trade heavily, but not ruinously; the inconveniences to them will not be felt so immediately as will be necessary to force an immediate deliverance for us, and any long delay may prove fatal to us; for,

2. The success of our resolutions depends on the continued and united practice of millions; the minds of all ranks and conditions of people are now filled with a sense of our danger, and willing to unite in adopting and pursuing any practicable means of deliverance, but time may wear this high sense out of their minds. 'Tis madness to lose the universal warmth and zeal of all America by needless delays; such stupid, sleepy, dreaming conduct will cost our poor posterity hungry bellies, aching hearts, and tears of blood.

3. Yet there is one advantage arising naturally from a suspension of trade with Great Britain only; however slow its operations may be, it will give America time to complete their own manufactures, to correct their infatuation for British luxuries, and teach their merchants that they will grow rich faster by supplying raw materials than by importing finished goods.

III. I am now to consider what will be the probable consequences of a suspension of our trade with Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies.

1. All the wisdom and wealth of England and Ireland united cannot sow Ireland with flax without the American seed; thirty-four thousand hogsheads of which is annually exported to Ireland from the Provinces of New-York and Philadelphia only. If the flax is not sown there can be no crop, and consequently no material to employ the linen manufacturers, and thus three hundred thousand people must be thrown out of business, and of course out of bread; and the linen merchants be disenabled from supplying their customers, and so must lose their custom, and suffer that branch of trade to slide into the hands of other Nations, from whom it will be difficult to recover it. All the wisdom and power of Great Britain cannot prevent or remedy these evils, otherwise than by repealing the offensive Acts, and thereby opening the ports of America time enough for shipping seed in season for sowing Ireland next spring; the subject will not admit of dilatory deliberations; to delay will be to be ruined; if the seed time is suffered to pass without seed, no wisdom can prevent the ruin of the Irish linen manufacture, or the insurrection of millions of starving, unemployed people. The inconvenience of this suspension of trade is very little to America; no farmer depends upon his flaxseed for the supplies of the year; 'its a rich farmer who raises half a dozen bushels, and he can keep it over the year without sensible inconvenience.

2. Suspending our trade with the West Indies will ruin every plantation there. They can neither feed their negroes without our corn, nor save their crops without our lumber. A stoppage of North American supplies will bring on a famine, and scarcity too ruinous to be risked without the most stupid madness. It will instantly lie with the British Parliament to determine whether the West Indies shall be starved and ruined or not, and it will be necessary for them to determine quick, or the damages of delay will soon become irreparable. The damage of this suspension of trade would not be much to America; we cut our choicest timber for lumber too freely; our lumber cutters would serve themselves and country better were they employed in clearing and cultivating land. We can fill the West Indies with provisions this fall, and I dare say the British Parliament will remove all obstructions to our shipping more next spring. That the suspension will probably last only through the winter, which is not a season for much business. Besides, all the ports in Europe are open for our provisions, and if we lose a little in the price, we may afford it, inasmuch as we shall make great savings in the article of rum, and other West India luxuries. If it is objected that England alone has offended us, why should we smite Ireland and the West Indies? I answer, the funds which support the Irish linen manufacture and the West India plantations lie very much in London; the linen of Ireland and the produce of the West Indies are mostly due to London before they are made; and, therefore, ruining the Irish linen manufacture and the produce of the West India plantations, would greatly affect the Irish and West India merchants in London; it would break not single and principal houses only, but would oblige whole streets of them to shut up at once, and hasten to Parliament with such tales of woe as the stubborn omnipotence of that haughty House could not refuse to hear, or be able to remedy otherwise than by a repeal of the offensive Acts. But if the British Parliament should be mad enough to risk all these evils, and continue the Acts, America might live very well a number of years without them. 'Tis likely our provisions would be plenty and cheap, so that our poor might be supplied easily; we should save the annual millions we now pay for East India, West India, and British superfluities; our own manufactures would thrive; the cultivation of our country would be greatly increased; we should be gradually recovered from our ridiculous imitations of British fashions and extravagances; and, for any thing I can see, may soon be as happy as the ancient shepherds of Arcadia; we have a finer country than they ever had, and a Heaven equally propitious.

3. How far a suspension of our trade with Great Britain may affect them is not certain, but no doubt that blow, in conjunction with the other before mentioned par-