Page:Memoirs of a Huguenot Family.djvu/438

 430 yoke, every friend to Great Britain must even then find cause to detest and execrate the Act. For the execution of it, or of any other Act of Taxation, will affect her in the tenderest points,—her manufactures, trade, and naval power. The Colonies were poor before the war. They are much more so since. Additional taxes must increase their poverty. The poorer they are, the less of your manufactures can they pay for and consume. The less demand there is for those manufactures, the more of your manufacturers must want bread. When we can no longer pay for your manufactures, we cannot go naked. Necessity will set us upon improving the natural advantages of our soil and climate, and manufacturing the products of it, flax, hemp, wool, and cotton, which are to be had here in great plenty, as well as perfection. Besides, it is said, some eminent merchants in London have computed that one-third, others one-fourth, of your exports are brought to the Colonies; and have observed that those exports have greatly diminished since this Act hath been on the carpet. How just that computation or remark may be, I do not know. But this I know, that the orders for goods from Great Britain have greatly decreased, wherever I am acquainted, as well as the consumption of them, within these few months; that the number of wheels, looms, &c., have increased-to an amazing degree, and that only at one meeting in a neighboring Colony, upwards of two hundred merchants are said to have bound themselves under most solemn engagements, not to order any goods from Great Britain till that Act should be repealed. In short, necessity will force every man of us to employ his own labor and that of his slaves, so as may best supply his needs; from which, I believe, nothing but some dragoons at each man's door will prevent us. More need not be said to