The New Hampshire Gazette And Historical Chronicle

The following is from the Public Ledger.

LONDON. April 1.

NOTWITHSTANDING it has been frequently mentioned in your paper by several gentlemen, that our Colonies were in a most flourishing situation, and that it was very hard they should reap all the advantages arising from the freedom of a British constitution, without subscribing something towards the prodigious sums, which in the course of the late war have been laid out in its defence: yet I must differ very much in opinion from your correspondents. with regard to the opulence of the Colonies: I am in trade myself, Sir, and formerly had considerable orders from the Plantations; but within these three or four years, my business had not only visibly decreased; but even the little I do send to that part of the world is so ill paid, that I have almost determined to discontinue my connections there, and not for the sake of a very trifling profit, run the hazard of losing the whole. Every Gentleman who knows any thing of the American Commerce, knows very well that not above an eighth part of the orders, which were sent over in 1756 came over during the course of the last year; and they also know very well that remittances from our Colonies have been so extremely precarious, that it would be a degree of the greatest rashness to trust them with any capital quantity of goods.

The reason of this Decline in the Plantation Trade has been a thousand and a thousand times mentioned. The only Commerce of considerable advantage which our Colonies carried on, was with the neighbouring French and Spanish settlements, who paid a very high price for their goods. This enabled them to send orders of a most extensive nature every year, for the various manufacturers of the Mother Country, and put it also in their power to be religiously punctual in the payment of their bills. The Mother Country however through a strange principle of policy tho't proper some time ago to lay a restriction upon this trade, between our Colonies and the French and Spanish settlements. By this means our Colonies have been deprived of the most material channel of their opulence, and consequently rendered utterly unable to assist the Mother-Country to any degree of importance, by the purchase of its various commodities and manufactures.

This is in short the whole state of the case; and we may exclaim as much as we think proper about the little advantages which our Colonies produce; but our exclamations will be attended with no salutary effects till we remove the cause of complaint, and restore the Plantations to their former privileges.- This we ought to do as speedily as possible, as there is but too much reason to suppose some other European nations will establish free ports in America, and prevent the possibility of this beneficial traffic ever to return to our hands.

A MERCHANT.