The Virginia Gazette

Of all the pernicious Measures that have ever been pursued, by any Administration upon Earth, none have ever had a more immediate Tendency to destroy Trade, to ruin Manufactures, and to starve the Poor, than those that have lately been adopted for the Humiliation of the Colonies; a Humiliation alike impolitick, ignominious, unnatural, and unjust, replete with a Thousand Evils and Absurdities, and portentous of the Loss of every Thing that is valuable in this Kingdom. Commerce, the Boast of Britons, has sustained an irretrievable Injury. Our American Trade is now entirely at a Stand; all the Makers for the London Warehouses have nothing to do, and when the Orders in the foreign Houses are executed we are like to be in a blessed Situation. But (says an imperious, short-sighted Minister)—are such Considerations to be a Restraint upon me? Did not a Parcel of Raggamuffins in Boston destroy a Quantity of Tea, because it was taxed? And shall they go unpunished? No, my Lord, no One objects to the Punishment of the Guilty; provided their Punishment is proportioned to the Crime committed; but the World, your own Conscience, must condemn the Oppression of the Innocent. Dragooning and enslaving a whole Province for the Enormities of a few is Cruelty in the Extreme, and universally pronounced to be infamous and diabolical. For God’s Sake, then, let those whose Business it is to promote the publick Welfare have some Reason, as well as Resentment, and not thrust out both our own Eyes, merely for the Sake of depriving (not our Enemy) but our Friend, of one of his. Our Trade to America is an Object of the highest national Importance, and cannot be too carefully preserved; and unless it is speedily restored, the Imprecations of the Poor, in most of the manufacturing Places of this Kingdom, as well as this City, will bring down a Judgment upon the Heads of those who deprive them of it.