Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 3.djvu/463

Rh for their barrier (as we are made to believe by a treaty lately made by her majesty's ambassador, the lord viscount Townshend, at the Hague) that the States-general may also soon declare all goods and merchandises, which are contraband in their provinces, to be also contraband or prohibited in these new conquests, or new barrier: by which her majesty's subjects will be deprived of the sale and consumption of the following products of her majesty's dominions, which are and have long been declared contraband in the United Provinces, such as English and Scots salt, malt spirits, or corn brandy, and all other sorts of distilled English spirits, whale and rape oil, &c.

It is therefore humbly conceived, that her majesty, out of her great care and gracious concern for the benefit of her subjects and dominions, may be pleased to direct, by a treaty of commerce, or some other way, that their trade may be put on an equal foot in all the Spanish Netherlands and the new conquests of barrier with the subjects of Holland, by paying no other duty than that of importation to the king of Spain; and by a provision, that no product of her majesty's dominions shall ever be declared contraband in these new conquests, except such goods as were esteemed contraband before the death of Charles II, king of Spain. And it is also humbly prayed, that the product and manufacture of the new conquests may be also exported without paying any new duty, beside that of exportation at Ostend, which was always paid to the king of Spain; it being impossible for any nation in Europe to assort an entire cargo for the Spanish West-Indies without a considerable quantity of several of the manufactures of