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 petitioners have tasted the bitter fruits of the defenceless state in which the Dutch flag has been incessantly found; as they have already said, conformably to the truth, in their first request, "that by the total stagnation of the navigation, and of expeditions, they have felt, in the most painful manner, the effects of the hostile and unexpected attack of Great Britain, and that they feel them still every day." That, in the mean time, this stagnation of commerce, absolutely abandoned to the rapacity of an enemy greedy of pillage, and destitute of all protection whatever, hath appeared to the petitioners, as well as to all the other commercial inhabitants; yes! even to all true Citizens, so much the more hard and afflicting, as they not only have constantly contributed, with a good heart, to all the public imports, but that, at the time even that the commerce was absolutely abandoned to itself, and deprived of all safeguard, it supported a double charge to obtain that protection which it hath never enjoyed; seeing that the hope of such a protection (the Republic not being entirely without maritime force) hath appeared indeed more than once, but always vanished in the most