In support of argument and protest, the colonists once more resorted to the practice of non-importation. The earliest agreement was signed by Boston merchants in October, 1767. But a far more rigid association, not to import with trifling exceptions any goods from England or Holland, was formed in New York in August, 1768, and agreed to by the merchants in most colonies. Better observed in New York than elsewhere, it was so far maintained as to reduce the English importations into the Middle and Northern colonies from L1,333,000 in 1768 to L480,000 in 1769. In inducing the Ministry of Lord North to repeal the duties the association played its part; but from the point of view of the conservatives it was not without its disadvantages. The importation of goods from Holland was forbidden in order to catch the smuggler; but the smuggler ignored the agreement as readily as he signed it. Yet for a time the association was no burden to the fair trader, who in anticipation had doubled his orders, or sold "old, moth-eaten goods" at high prices. The merchants were "great patriots," Chandler told John Adams, "while their old rags lasted; but as soon as they were sold at enormous prices, they were for importing." And in truth the fair trader's monopoly could not outlast his stock, whereas the smuggler's business improved the longer the association endured. In the spring of 1770, the New York merchants, with their shelves empty, complaining that Boston was more active in "resolving what it ought to do than in doing what it had resolved," declared that the association no longer served "any other purpose than tying the hands of honest men, to let rogues, smugglers, and men of no character plunder their country." Supported by a majority of the inhabitants of the city, and undeterred by the angry protests of the Sons of Liberty, they accordingly agreed to "a general importation of goods from Great Britain, except teas and other articles which are or may be taxed." Boston and Philadelphia soon followed the lead of New York, and before the year was out the policy of absolute non-importation had broken down.