"The undersigned, all manufacturers, merchants, and other traders, interested in the manufactures of this city, most respectfully give to understand, that it is a truth as melancholy as it is universally known, that the declension of the said manufactures, which all the well disposed citizens have remarked with the most lively grief, from the beginning of this century, has increased more and more for several years; and that this principal branch of the subsistence of the good citizens has fallen into such a state of languor, that our city, once so flourishing, so populous, so celebrated on account of its commerce, and of its traders, appears to be threatened with total ruin; that the diminution of its merchant houses, on one hand, and, on the other, the total loss or the sensible decrease of several branches of commerce, furnish an evident proof of it; which the petitioners could demonstrate by several examples, if there were need of them to convince your Noble and Grand Lordships, to whom the increase of the multitude of the poor; the deplorable situation of several families, heretofore in easy circumstances; the depopulation of the city, which we cannot observe without emotion, in the ruins of several streets, once neat and well inhabited, are fully known, will recollect no doubt upon this occasion, with grief, that this state of languor must appear so much the more desperate, if your Noble and Grand Lordships will take into consideration, that in this decay of trades and manufactures, we find a new reason of their further fall, considering, that from the time, that there is not continual employment, and an uninterrupted sale, the workmen desert in such a manner, that when considerable commissions arrive, we cannot find capable hands, and we see ourselves entirely out of a condition to execute these orders. "That the petitioners, with all the true friends of their country, extremely affected with this alarming situation of so rich a source of the public prosperity, have, indeed, sought the means of a remedy, in amending some defects from which it seemed to arise, at least in part; but that the measures taken in this view, as is well known to your Noble and Grand Lordships, have not had the desired effect; at least, that they have not produced a re-establishment so effectual, that we have been able to observe a sensible influence in the increase of the sales of the manufactures of Leyden, as appears most evidently by a comparison of the pieces fabricated here, which have been heretofore carried to the divers markets of this city, with those, which are carried there at this day; a comparison which a true citizen cannot consider without regret.