It may be observed, sir, that other commodities are the peculiar product
of different countries, and that there is no danger of losing our other
trade by suspending it, because it depends upon the excellence of our
manufactures; but that insurance may be the commodity of any country,
where money and common honesty are to be found.

This argument may, perhaps, be yet more effectually invalidated, or,
perhaps, entirely subverted, by denying the expedience of that
prohibition which is produced as a precedent for another restraint. Nor,
indeed, does it appear why we should preclude ourselves from a gainful
trade, because the money is drawn by it out of the hands of our enemies;
or why the product of our lands should lie unconsumed, or our
manufactures stand unemployed, rather than we should sell to our enemies
what they will purchase at another place, or by the intervention of a
neutral power.

To sell to an enemy that which may enable him to injure us, that which
he must necessarily obtain, and which he could buy from no other, would,
indeed, be to the last degree, absurd; but that may surely be sold them
without any breach of morality or policy, which they can want with less
inconvenience than we can keep. If we were besieging a town, I should
not advise our soldiers to sell to the inhabitants ammunition or
provisions, but cannot discover the folly of admitting them to purchase
ornaments for their houses, or brocades for their ladies.

But, without examining with the utmost accuracy, whether the late
prohibition was rational or not, I have, I hope, suggested objections
sufficient to make the question doubtful, and to incline us to try the
success of one experiment, before we venture upon another more
hazardous.

I am never willing, sir, to load trade with restraints; trade is, in its
own nature, so fugitive and variable, that no constant course can be
prescribed to it; and those regulations which were proper when they were
made, may, in a few months, become difficulties and obstructions. We
well know, that many of the measures which our ancestors pursued for the
encouragement of commerce, have been found of pernicious consequence;
and even in this age, which, perhaps, experience, more than wisdom, has
enlightened, I have known few attempts of that kind which have not
defeated the end for which they were made.

It is more prudent to leave the merchants at liberty to pursue those
measures which experience shall dictate