isappointed
expectations inclines the buyer to seek another market, and the civility
to which his new correspondents are incited by their own interest,
detains him, till those by whom he was formerly supplied, having no
longer any vent for their products or their wares, employ their labours
on other manufactures, or cultivate their lands for other purposes.

Thus, sir, if those nations who have hitherto been supplied with corn
from Britain, should find a method of purchasing it from Denmark, or any
other of the northern regions, we may hereafter see our grain rotting in
our storehouses, and be burdened with provisions which we can neither
consume ourselves, nor sell to our neighbours.

The Hollanders, whose knowledge of the importance or skill in the arts
of commerce will not be questioned, are so careful to preserve the
inlets of gain from obstruction, that they make no scruple of supplying
their enemies with their commodities, and have been known to sell at
night those bullets which were next day to be discharged against them.

Whether their example, sir, deserves our imitation I am not able to
determine, but it ought at least to be considered, whether their conduct
was rational or not, and whether they did not, by a present evil, ensure
an advantage which overbalanced it.

There are, doubtless, sir, sometimes such exigencies as require to be
complied with at the hazard of future profit, but I am not certain that
the scarcity which is feared or felt at present, is to be numbered
amongst them; but, however formidable it may be thought, there is surely
no need of a new law to provide against it: for it is one of those
extraordinary incidents, on which the king has the right of exerting
extraordinary powers. On occasions like this the prerogative has
heretofore operated very effectually, and I know not that the law has
ever restrained it.

It is, therefore, sir, in my opinion, most prudent to determine nothing
in so dubious a question, and rather to act as the immediate occasion
shall require, than prosecute any certain method of proceeding, or
establish any precedent by an act of the senate.

To restrain that commerce by which the necessaries of life are
distributed is a very bold experiment, and such as once produced an
insurrection in the empire of the Turks, that terminated in the
deposition of one of their monarchs.

I therefore willingly confess, sir, that I know not how to conclude: I
am unwilling to depri