rcial nations now in war.

That from these motives the petitioners respectfully hope that the
aforesaid offer of England will occasion no obstacle which may prevent
that the resolution of their noble and grand Mightinesses to acknowledge
the independence of North America, and to conclude with that power a
treaty of commerce, may not have a prompt execution, nor that even one
only of the other confederates will suffer itself to be diverted thereby
from the design of opening unanimously with this Province, and the
others which have declared themselves conformably with Holland,
negociations with the United States, and of terminating them as soon as
possible.

That the favourable resolutions already taken for this effect in
Zealand, Utrecht, Overyssel, and at present (as the petitioners learn)
in the Province of Groningen after the examples of Holland and
Friesland, confirm them in that hope, and seem to render entirely
superfluous, a request that, in every other case, the petitioners would
have found themselves obliged to make with the commercial Citizens of
the other Cities, to the end that, by the resistance of one Province,
not immediately interested in commerce and navigation, they might not be
deprived of the advantages and of the protection, that the sovereign
Assembly of their proper Provinces had been disposed to procure them,
without it; but that, to the end to provide for it, their noble and
grand Mightinesses, and the States of the other Provinces in this
respect, unanimous with them, should make use of the power which belongs
to each free State of our federative Republic; at least in regard to
treaties of commerce, of which there exists an example in 1649, not only
in a treaty of redemption of the toll of the Sound, but also in a
defensive treaty concluded with the Crown of Denmark, by the three
Provinces of Guelderland, Holland, and Friesland.

But as every apprehension of a similar dissension, among the members of
the confederation, appears at present absolutely unseasonable, the
petitioners will confine themselves rather to another request, to wit,
that after the formation of connections of commerce with North America,
the effectual enjoyment of it may be assured to the commercial Citizens
of this country, by a sufficient protection of their navigation; without
which the conclusion even of such a treaty of commerce would be
absolutely illusory. That, for a long time, especially the last year,
the petition