There are no questions, sir, which require so much personal knowledge of the subject to which they relate, nor is there any subject with which so few gentlemen in this house have had opportunities of being acquainted. There are no questions, sir, which their variety of relations to different persons exposes to be so easily misrepresented without detection, nor any in which the opposition of particular interests so much incites a false representation. In all these cases, deceit is easy, and there is a strong temptation to deceive. Nor are these questions, sir, always perplexed by intentional fraud, or false assertions, of which they that utter them are themselves conscious. Those who deceive us, do not always suppress any truth of which they are convinced, nor set facts before us in any other light, than that in which themselves behold them; they for the most part err with an honest intention, and propagate no mistakes but those which they have themselves admitted. Of this kind, sir, are, doubtless, the measures proposed in the bill before us, which those by whom they are promoted may easily think to be of benefit to the publick, but which, I believe, will appear the result of imperfect views, and partial consideration. The great and fundamental errour, sir, of the patrons of this bill, seems to be an opinion that the practice of insuring is not known to other nations, nor can be carried on in any other place; and from this principle they deduce consequences, which, if they were inevitably certain, might easily influence us to an immediate approbation of the bill, as necessary to secure our commerce, and distress our enemies. They conclude, sir, with sufficient justness, that very few merchants would hazard their fortunes in long voyages or distant commerce, or expose themselves to the dangers of war, without the security which insurances afford them; and having persuaded themselves that such security is to be obtained from no other nation, they imagine that we might, by prohibiting it, confine all the foreign vessels in their ports, and destroy, by one resolution, the trade of both our rivals and our enemies. That our East India company may desire the ratification of this bill, I cannot deny, because they might, perhaps, receive from it some temporary advantage by the short inconveniencies which those whom they consider as the enemies of their commerce would feel from it. They may desire it, because the experiment, if it fails, as it must, cannot injure them; and if it succeeds, may produce great advantages to them: they may wish it, because they will feel the immediate benefit, and the detriment will fall upon others.