"We flatter ourselves, Noble, Great, and Venerable, Noble and Venerable Lords, that the present public demonstration of our esteem and attachment will be so much the more agreeable, as it is more rare in our Republic, and perhaps even it is without example, and as it is more proper to efface all the odious impressions that the calumny and malignity of the English Ministry, not long ago so servilely adored by many, but whose downfall is at present consummated, had endeavored to spread, particularly a little before, and at the beginning of this war, insinuations, which have since found partizans in the United Provinces, among those who have not been ashamed to paint the Exchange of Amsterdam, (that is to say, the most respectable and the most useful part of the citizens of this city, and at the same time the principal support of the well-being of the United Provinces,) as if it consisted, in a great part, of a contemptible herd of vile interested souls, having no other object than to give loose to their avidity and to their desire of amassing treasures, in defrauding the public revenues, and in transporting contraband articles against the faith of treaties; calumniators, who have had at the same time, and have still, the audacity to affront the most upright Regency of the most, considerable city of the Republic, and to expose it to public contempt, as if it participated by connivance and other ways, in so shameful a commerce; insinuations and accusations, which have been spread with as much falsehood as wickedness, and which ought to excite so much the more the indignation of every sensible heart, when one considers with all this, that not only the merchants of this city, but also those of the whole Republic, have so inviolably respected the faith of treaties, that, to the astonishment of every impartial man, one cannot produce any proofs, at least no sufficient proofs, that there has ever been transported from this country contraband merchandises; whilst that the conjuncture, in which imputations of this kind have been spread, rendered a like proceeding still more odious, seeing that one has done it at an epoch, when the commerce and navigation of Amsterdam, and of the whole Republic, would have experienced the first and almost the only attack of an unjust and perfidious ally, for want of necessary protection, upon which you, Noble, Great, Venerable, and Noble and Venerable Lords, have so often and so seriously insisted, even before the commencement of the troubles between Great Britain and the United States of North America; at an epoch, when the merchant, formed for enterprises, was obliged to see the fruit of his labor and of his cares, the recompense of his indefatigable industry, and the patrimony destined to his posterity, ravished from his hands by foreign violence, and unbounded rapacity; at an epoch, finally, when the wise and prudent politicians, who had exhausted themselves, and spared no pains for the public good, saw