ling their property at one-half
or one-third of its former value in order to discharge obligations long
overdue, the fair trading merchants of New York were not disposed to
continue an experiment of which, as they said, they had borne the chief
burden to the advantage of others and to their own impending ruin.
Zealous Sons of Liberty, such as Alexander MacDougall and John Lamb,
popular leaders of the "Inhabitants" of the city, were on the other
hand determined that the non-importation agreement should be maintained
unimpaired. The hard times, they said, were due chiefly to the monopoly
prices exacted by the wealthy merchants, who were not ruined at all, who
had on the contrary made a good thing out of the non-importation as long
as they had anything to sell, and whose patriotism (God save the mark!)
had now suddenly grown lukewarm only because they had disposed of all
their goods, including "old moth-eaten clothes that had been rotting in
the shops for years."

These aspersions the merchants knew how to ignore. Their determination
not to continue the non-importation was nevertheless sufficiently
indicated in connection with the annual celebration, in March, of the
repeal of the Stamp Act. On this occasion the merchants refused to meet
as formerly with the Sons of Liberty, but made provision for a dinner of
their own at another place, where all the Friends of Liberty and Trade
were invited to be present. Both dinners were well attended, and at both
the repeal of the Stamp Act was celebrated with patriotic enthusiasm,
the main difference being that whereas the Sons of Liberty drank a toast
to Mr. MacDougall and to "a continuance of the non-importation agreement
until the revenue acts are repealed," the Friends of Liberty and Trade
ignored Mr. MacDougall and drank to "trade and navigation and a speedy
removal of their embarrassments."

In the determination not to continue the old agreement, the Friends of
Liberty and Trade were meanwhile strongly confirmed when it was learned
that Britain was willing on her part to make concessions. By the middle
of May it was known that the Townshend duties (except the duty on tea)
had been repealed; and in June it was learned that Parliament had at
last, after many representations from the Assembly, passed a special
act permitting New York to issue 120,000 pounds in Bills of Credit
receivable at the Treasury. It was thought that concession on the part
of Great Britain ought in justice t