By a Statute 4th and 5th W. and M. twenty Shillings _per_ Ton was laid on _Lapis Caliminaris_ dug here and Exported, on an Information given to the House of Commons, that it was not to had any where else; the Merchants concerned in exporting that Commodity, made Application, and set forth, that such a Duty would bring in nothing to the Crown, but be a total Bar to its Exportation; yet the Act past, and we were like to have made a fatal Experiment; for till the Statute of the 7th and 8th of the same King, which reduced the Duty to two Shillings _per_ Ton, the Exportation ceased; and in the mean Time, those Places which had been discouraged from digging, and calcining it, because we undersold them, set again to work, and supplied the Markets where we vended ours. What Injury was done by the Act made in the 9th and 10th W. III. for the more effectual preventing the Importation of Foreign Bonelace, &c. doth sufficiently appear by the Preamble of that made in the 11th and 12th of the same Reign, for repealing it three Months after the Prohibition of our Woollen Manufactures in _Flanders_ (which was occasioned by it) should be there taken off; but I don’t understand that is yet done, and it may prove an irrecoverable Loss to the Nation. I mention these Things with great Submission to the Judgment of that glorious Assembly, the Wisdom and Strength of the Nation; to whom I only presume with all Humility to offer my Thoughts, that it would very much tend to the putting Matters of Trade into a true Light before them, if they were first referred to a Body of Men, well versed in the true Principles thereof, and able to see through the Sophistical Arguments of contending Parties, to be by them considered, and well digested, before they received the Sanction of a Law. And as to foreign Treaties; I do not think our Trade hath been so much bettered by them as it might have been, for want of such a Committee; the Representations made by private Merchants, (who generally differ according as their Interests clash with each other) tending rather to distract, than to inform the Government; which would not be, if their first Applications were made to an experienced Committee, who had Judgment enough to substract out of them what was proper to be offer’d; by which means, our Demands might be rendered short and comprehensive.