. Essays / 
their buildings, and steel for their tools, from these 
artificers, under the same disadvantages. * 
Added to these, the Americans remembered the act 
authorizing the most cruel insult that perhaps was 
ever offered by one people to another, that of empty- 
img our gaols into their settlements; Scotland too 
having within these two years obtained the privilege 
it had not before, of sending its rogues and villains 
also to the plantations. I say, reflecting on these 
things, they said one to another (their newspapers 
are full of such discourses): 
*Here is given the reader the note at the end of the fourth paragraph 
of the Farmer's Seventh Letter, written by Mr. Dickinson: 
“Many remarkable instances might be produced of the extraordi- 
nary inattention with which bills of great importance, concerning 
these colonies, have passed in Parliament: which is owing, as it is sup- 
posed, to the bills being brought in, by the persons who have points to 
carry, so artfully framed, that it is not easy for the members in general, 
in the haste of business, to discover their tendency. 
“The following instances show the truth of this remark. 
“When Mr. Grenville, in the violence of reformation and innovation, 
formed the 4th George III. ch. 15th, for regulating the American trade, 
the word ‘Ireland’ was dropped in the clause relating to our iron and 
lumber, so that we could send these articles to no other part of Europe, 
but to Great Britain. This was so unreasonable a restriction, and so 
contrary to the sentiments of the legislature, for many years before, 
that it is surprising it should not have been taken notice of in the 
House. However, the bill passed into a law. But when the matter 
was explained, this restriction was taken off in a subsequent act. 
“I cannot say how long after the taking off this restriction, as I have 
not the acts, but I think in less than eighteen months, another act of 
Parliament passed, in which the word ‘Ireland’ was left out, as it had 
been before. The matter, being a second time explained, was a 
second time regulated. 
“Now, if it be considered, that the omission mentioned, struck off, 
with one word, so very great a part of our trade, it must appear re- 
markable; and equally so is the method by which rice became an 
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