The New Hampshire Gazette

LONDON,
July 1. The following is a translation of the famous memorial presented to the States General, by two hundred and sixty nine merchants, which is kept very secret in Holland.

We the undersigned merchants, insurers, and others, concerned in the commerce and navigation of the State, most humbly represent. That the violences and unjust depredations committed by English men of war and privateers on the vessels and effects of the state, are not only continued, but daily multiplied, and cruelty and excesses carried to such a height, that the Petitioners are forced to implore the assistance of your high Mightinesses, that the commerce and navigation of the Republic, which are the two sinews of the State, may suffer no interruption, and be protected in the most efficacious manner, in order that the being of the State may be preserved, and that it may be kept from complete and final ruin.

The petitioners shall not insert here a long recital of their ships that have been illegally stopped and seized, nor of the piracies and violences that have been committed for a considerable space of time, on the subjects of the Republic : nor of the acts of inhumanity with which they were often attended, even so far, that less cruelty might have been expected from a declared enemy, than they have suffered from the subjects of a power with whom the State is connected by the most solemn treaties of friendship.

The whole is public and notorious.

Nor will the Petitioners enlarge on the insults offered to the Dutch Flag, in contempt of your High Mightinesses, the natural protectors of the Republic. These facts are known to your High Mightinesses. But the petitioners beg leave to represent, with all due submission, that they cannot forbear to lay their just complaints before your High Mightinesses who are the protectors of their persons, their estates, their commerce and navigation ; and to lay before you the indispensable necessity of putting a stop, as soon as possible, to those depredations and violences. The Petitioners offer to contribute each his contingent; and to arm, at their own charge for the support and protection of their commerce and navigation.

The Petitioners flatter themselves that their toils, and the risk to which their effects are exposed on the seas, will have their proper influences on the general body of the state : since the Traders of this country, finding themselves left to the discretion of a part of that nation with whom the state is most intimately connected. Thousands of tradesmen and others, who are connected with merchants that have hitherto carried on a flourishing trade, will be reduced to distress and poverty ; those connections ceasing by the extinction of the estates of merchants, who have always approved themselves faithful to their country, these will be reduced to abandon it, to their great regret, and seek shelter and protection elsewhere; which will give a mortal blow to the principal members of the state.

For these just causes, the Petitioners have recourse to your High Mightinesses, most humbly imploring them both in their own names, and in the name of a multitude of unhappy people, who are on the point of being stript of all their effects, of sinking into the utmost distress and being reduced to beggary, that it may please your High Mightinesses to grant to commerce and navigation such speedy, vigorous, and effectual protection, that the faithful subjects of this free State may enjoy their possessions in full security. And your Petitioners, &c.