The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

As at this Juncture every Speculation written on the other side the Water respecting America, tends in some measure to gratify the ardent Expectation of the Colonists, we presume the following Extracts from a late English Print, will not be unacceptable to our Readers, both as they contain Sentiments which have been broached here, and convince us we are not without Friends even in that Part of the World, and as we may thereby form some Judgment of the additional Colouring that will be given them, when they come to know all!

The Author after having made some Remarks on a Court Pamphlet, wrote in Vindication of the late Ministry, which are foreign to the Affairs of America, proceeds thus,

[A Sure Method to ruin the Trade of North-America, by which the People there are not only beggar'd, but an End put to any Demand for Manufactures from Britain, as they can have no Money to pay for them.--This honest Mr. G--e G--m--le, was not content to hinder Spanish Guarda Costas from being disturbed in ruining our Trade, but he sent Ships of War to prevent our Settlements from getting a Shilling of Spanish Money, in Exchange for our Manufactures, even though brought in Spanish Bottoms. This, indeed, was so high a Stroke of either Want of common Sense, or common Honesty, that I can't imagine how it ever could enter into the Head of any British Minister. and therefore I believe it was a Measure that came from Versailles. and was planned by the same French Ministers who planned the Terms of Peace, in order to ruin us effectually, and throw the Trade, by which the Spanish Money was to be had. into the Hands of France and Holland. -- The Trade of North-America took off before this diabolical Contrivance, about two Millions of our Manufactures yearly, and as every fifteen Years the Inhabitants double, in sixty or seventy Years the Demand must have encreased in Proportion; and as by our Possessions there, we can be furnished with almost every Thing we can want, France knows that if we keep well with them, we must soon be the most powerful Nation in Europe, and therefore are contriving every Method to make us quarrel with them ; and I look on all the Schemes, contrived by the late Ministry to oppress our Settlements in that Part of the World. to take their Rise from their Friends at Versailles.

Was it not these very now pretended Patriots, who, by their own Authority, without consent of Parliament, ordered the Commissioners of Customs to order their Collector to exact Four and a Half per Cent, on the Produce of our new Acquisitions in America, after they were declar'd Part of the British Dominions ?-- By the Calculations made by Joshua Gee, and others since made, it appears we are out of Pocket yearly Seven or Eight Hundred Thousand Pounds for Timber, Hemp, Flax, Tar, and other Naval Stores, from the Baltic and Norway, all which we can have from our own Settlements. We are at double that Sum in Expence for French Wine and Brandy, every Farthing of which is spent to ruin us, and to destroy the Liberties of Europe ; these we can have from our own Settlements, by improving them properly: In short we can have every Thing we want, if we encourage them ; and as the French know that a good Correspondence between them and us would make us the greatest Nation in Europe, they and the Devil together put it in the late Ministers Heads to have no Regard to their Power--to break that natural Affection for their Mother Country.--]