"The undersigned, manufacturers, merchants, and other traders of this city give, with due respect, to understand, that the petitioners, placing their confidence in the interest that your Noble Mightinesses have always appeared to take in the advancement of manufactures and commerce, have not been at all scrupulous to recommend to the vigilant attention of your Noble Mightinesses, the favorable occasion that offers itself in this moment, to revive the manufactures, the commerce, and the trade, fallen into decay in this city and Province, in case that your Noble Mightinesses acknowledged, in the name of this city, Mr Adams as Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of North America, to the end that there might be formed with them a treaty of commerce for this Republic. As the petitioners founded themselves thus upon the intimate sentiment of the execution of that, which your Noble Mightinesses judged proper to the advancement of the well-being of the petitioners and of their interests, the petitioners have further the satisfaction of feeling the most agreeable proofs of it, when your Noble Mightinesses, in your last Assembly, resolved unanimously to consent, not only to the admission of the said Mr Adams, in quality of Minister of the Congress of North America, but to authorise the gentlemen, the Deputies of this Province at the Generality, to conform themselves, in the name of this Province, to the resolutions of the Lords, the States of Holland and West Friesland, and of Friesland, and doing this, to consent to the acknowledgment and admission of Mr Adams as Minister of the United States of North America; or, as that resolution furnishes the proofs the best intentioned, the most patriotic for the advancement of that, which may serve to the well-being, to the encouragement of manufactures, of commerce, and of decayed trades, as well in general, as of this city and Province in particular, and which had been so ardently desired; the petitioners think themselves indispensably obliged to testify, in the most respectful manner, their gratitude for it, to your Noble Mightinesses.