Let us next advert to the amazing injury you sustain in the dependant trade, by your merchants being all foreigners. This is a situation not peculiar to you, but affects all the Southern Colonies, from Maryland to Georgia. I am not well enough acquainted with the trade of Virginia to know exactly how many foreign houses, or companies, have an interest in it, or how many factors are employed by them to manage it; but I suppose I shall be far enough within bounds if I say fifty of the former, and two thousand of the latter. Whether I am right or wrong in the numbers, the principles of my calculation will be equally just, and may be very easily applied to enlarge and diminish the profit or loss to the merchant and the country, by readers who are better acquainted with the subject than I am. It is not unreasonable to say, that every house or company makes fifteen thousand pounds a year, net gain, by the trade of this Colony; and, consequently, fifty houses will annually export seven hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling to Scotland and England; which will be just so much saved to the Colony, whenever its own natives shall become its merchants. And allowing to the factors, on an average, one hundred pounds each per annum, (as some have much more, and others perhaps may have less;) if, out of this annual income, we suppose them to spend thirty pounds in the country, there will be seventy pounds a year laid up for their own use, and expended in Britain, for what they cannot, or do not choose to purchase in America. But because they pay taxes, and are of some other small service to the Colony as long as they stay in it, we will rate their gain at ten pounds less, and suppose them to lay up sixty pounds a year, which is so much taken out of the trading stock of this country, and only waits for a sufficient addition to be carried off and expended beyond sea. Here is another loss of one hundred and twenty thousand pounds per annum; and the whole together amounts to eight hundred and seventy thousand pounds sterling per annum that we lose by foreign merchants; besides the great number of useful arts that are closely connected with the management of commerce by the natives of any country. How many thousand excellent servants might be employed in ship-building, in manning your fleets, in raising and manufacturing all kinds of naval stores? Reflect a moment on the present condition of Spain, and on her condition two centuries ago. She presents us with a striking instance, out of a great number which Europe, Asia, and Africa afford, of the ill effects of resigning her commerce into the hands of foreigners; then the most opulent and formidable power in Europe, now among the most despised and neglected; then able to give laws to almost all the world, (the United Netherlands were but an inconsiderable part of her extensive and powerful Empire,) but now, grown indolent and negligent of commerce, even the little Province of Holland, in her turn, gives the laws of the sea to her former mistress.

I am afraid this subject, though very important, begins to grow dry and unentertaining to the publick. I shall therefore produce but one more instance of the loss we sustain by this dependant trade; and that is in our staple, upon which the Government of England, and the merchants of Scotland, have it in their power to put what price they please. At present we esteem two-pence half-penny per pound, or about twenty shillings per cwt a very good average price; and at this rate a careful planter may keep himself above want, and have enough besides to pay his taxes, and give a dinner now and then to a friend. This tobacco is exported to Britain, and pays seven-pence half-penny sterling duty per pound, and their merchants make their fortunes out of it afterwards. The duty that tobacco pays in the British ports is almost four times the price it bears in Virginia; which, by a free trade, and exporting it directly to the countries that consume it, would be so much clear gain to us. The planter, then, instead of twenty shillings, would receive five pounds per cwt. But, making large allowance for the discouragements that such an article of luxury might be under in our hands, if we were separated from Britain, which now consumes a large proportion of it, I shall suppose its common price to be three pounds; that is, forty shillings more than we receive at present. If, then, we suppose that there are annually one hundred and ten million pounds, or one hundred and ten thousand hogsheads of tobacco exported out of the Colony, (which, perhaps, is pretty near the truth,) we shall gain an advantage of two million two hundred thousand pounds a year, besides half as much more by the great quantities of hemp, flax, cotton, wheat, and flour, that are beginning to be raised or manufactured; that will enable my countrymen to be as generous as their natural temper inclines them to be, and to pay a tax of forty shillings, with greater convenience than they can pay one of fifteen shillings at present. To present you in one view the whole of what you lose by a dependant trade, and would gain by a determined resolution to emancipate yourselves and it into the liberty for which I hope Providence has designed both, and to listen to no pretended Negotiation that docs not carry upon her face candor and fairness, and openly, and without disguise, extend freedom in the one hand, while she offers peace in the other:

That is, it will increase the real property among us annually to near six millions. This, in seven years, (by which time we shall undoubtedly have discharged our part of the Continental expense) will amount to above forty millions of pounds currency that we shall be more wealthy than we should have been if we had continued dependant on Great Britain, and in the same circumstances that a few years ago we esteemed very prosperous. I make no allowance for the gradual improvement of commerce, because I am willing to make all my calculations at the lowest rates that things will bear; and it is very possible that I am now a million or two below the truth. Besides, we may let the increased profits of some of the last years of this period balance our unskil-fulness and poverty for a few years in the beginning of it. Here is a fund sufficient for defraying all the expenses that even the most timorous amongst us can suppose to be necessary for the preservation of our liberties against the avarice of a nation much more powerful than the English, and not a farthing of our present property touched. And although we should not be able to enjoy an unmolested trade for several years to come; yet, whenever that desirable period shall arrive that we shall be as free as we ought to be, we shall speedily be able to redeem all the Bills of Credit it may be found necessary to issue for that purpose. For if we lay but the moderate tax of a shilling in the pound (which we should hardly perceive) only on those gains that will be wholly additional to the gains of our former limited and dependant commerce, we shall be able to sink all the bills issued in this Colony, and our quota of those that have been issued by the Congress, and have in the publick coffers besides upwards of five millions of dollars for other necessary uses.

If we aim only at interest in the present contest, it appears plainly what part we ought at once to resolve upon. If we mean to unite with our interest the considerations of equity, and the dictates of natural affection, there is a degree of injury where affection ceases, and is converted into resentment; and I know of no principles of equity that forbid us to defend ourselves, or that require us to risk everything we have been contending for in tedious and treacherous negotiations. Does any of my countrymen ask me whether I am an enemy to all treaty, and inquire what prospect shall we have if these maxims prevail, of ever seeing a period of our trouble? I answer, No; but I would treat with them as the Roman Consul did with the King of Asia. And since they have first drawn the sword, I would make a circle round them with the sword, and demand their peremptory, unevasive answer to every requisition our country has a right to make from them, before they leave the spot. The controversy has been agitated long enough for both nations to understand each other. Each perfectly knows what she is willing to yield, or on what she will firmly fix her foot, determined to hold it, or perish in the attempt. What need is