That, although the petitioners have always relied, with entire confidence, upon the administration and the resolutions of your High Mightinesses, and it is against their inclinations to interrupt your important deliberations, they think, however, that they ought, at this time to take the liberty; and believe as well intentioned inhabitants, that it is their indispensible duty in the present moment, which is most critical for the Republic, to lay humbly before your High Mightinesses their interests. What good citizen in the Republic, having at heart the interest of his dear country, can dissemble, or represent to himself without dismay, the sad situation to which we are reduced by the attack, equally sudden, unjust, and perfidious of the English? Who would have dared two years ago to foretell, and, notwithstanding the dark clouds which even then began to form themselves, could even have imagined that our commerce and our navigation, with the immense affairs which depend upon them, the support and the prosperity of this Republic, could have fallen and remained in such a terrible decay? that in 1780, more than two thousands of Dutch vessels having passed the Sound, not one was found upon the list in 1781? That the ocean, heretofore covered with our vessels, should see at present scarcely any? and that we may be reduced to see our navigation, formerly so much respected and preferred by all the nations, pass entirely into the hands of other powers? It would be superfluous to endeavour to explain at length the damages, the enormous losses, which our inhabitants have sustained by the sudden invasion and the pillage of the colonies, and of their ships; disasters, which not only fall directly upon the merchant, but which have also a general influence, and make themselves felt in the most melancholy manner, even by the lowest artisans and labourers, by the languor which they occasion in commerce. But, how great soever they may be, it might, perhaps, be possible, by the aid of the paternal cares of your High Mightinesses, and by opposing a vigorous resistance to the enemy, already enervated, to repair in time all these losses, (without mentioning indemnifications) if this stagnation of commerce was only momentary, and if the industrious merchant did not see beforehand the sources of his future felicity dried up. It is this gloomy foresight which, in this moment, afflicts, in the highest degree, the petitioners; for, it would be the height of folly and inconsideration to desire still to flatter ourselves, and to remain quiet, in the expectation that, after the conclusion of the peace, the business, at present turned out of its direction, should return entirely into this country; for experience shews the contrary in a manner the most convincing; and it is most probable, that the same nations, who are actually in possession of it, will preserve, at that time, the greatest part of it. Your alarmed