equency;
the cheapness of insurances, and eagerness of foreigners to insure here,
reciprocally contribute to each other; we are often applied to, because
we insure at an easy rate, and we can insure at an easy rate, because we
are often applied to.

Nor is the cheapness of British insurance the only motive to the
preference which it preserves among foreigners, who are induced to apply
to this nation, by the reputation which our merchants have deservedly
gained for probity and punctuality superiour to that of any other
traders. Our merchants, sir, bargain without artifice, pay without
subterfuges, and are ready on all occasions to preserve their character
at the hazard of their profit.

From these two considerations we may draw unanswerable arguments against
any restraints upon the practice of insuring: if foreigners are once
disappointed in their applications to us, our business will in a great
part cease, and as we shall not then be able to insure at lower rates
than other nations, we shall never recover that branch of our trade. And
as the character of the British merchants exempts them from any
suspicion of practices pernicious to the publick, why should they be
restrained? Why, sir, should they appear to be suspected by the
legislature of their own country, whom foreigners trust without
hesitation.

It has been objected to them with great warmth, and urged with much
rhetorical exaggeration, that they assist the enemies of their country,
that they prolong the war, and defeat those advantages which our
situation and commerce have given us; imputations sufficiently
atrocious, if they were founded upon truth.

But let us, sir, examine the arguments by which this accusation has been
supported, and inquire whether this triumph of eloquence has been
occasioned by any real superiority of evidence or reason; it is urged,
that we have already prohibited commerce with the Spaniards, and that,
therefore, we ought, likewise, to prohibit the insurance of their ships.

It will not require, sir, an imagination very fertile, or a knowledge
very extensive, to supply arguments sufficient to refute the supposed
demonstration; in opposition to which it may be urged, that this kind of
commerce is of a peculiar nature, that it subsists upon opinion, and is
preserved by the reputation of our insurers; a reputation that the
insurers of other nations may obtain by the same means, and from whom we
shall, therefore, never recover it.