The Gull Rock.
��171
��Q. If the act is not repealed, what do you think will be the consequences ?
A. A total loss of the res[)ect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the com- merce that depends on that respect and affection.
Q. How can the commerce be af- fected ?
A. Yon will find that if the act is not repealed, they will take very little of your manufactures in a short time.
Q. Is it in their power to do with- out them?
A. I think they may very well do without them.
Q. Is it their interest not to take them ?
A. The goods they take fronj Brit- ain are either necessaries, mere con- veniences, or superfluities. The first, as cloth, &c., with a little industry they can make at home ; the second they can do without till they are able to. provide them among themselves ; and the last, which are much the greater part, they will strike off im- mediately. They are mere articles of fashion, purchased and consumed be- cause the fashion in a respected coun- try, but will now be detested and re- jected. The people have already struck off, by general agreement, the iuse of allgoods.fashionable in mourn-
��ings, and many thousand pounds
worth are sent back as unsalable.
- * * * *
Q. If the stamp-act should be re- pealed, would it induae the assemblies of America to acknowledge the rights of parliament to tax them, and would they erase their resolutions?
A. No, never.
Q. Is there no means of obliging them to erase those resolutions.^
A. None that I know of ; they will never do it unless compelled by force of arms.
Q. Is there no power on earth that can force them to erase them?
A. No power, how great soever, can force men to change their opin- ions.
Q. Would it be most for the inter- est of Great Britain to employ the hands of Virginia in tobacco or in manufactures ?
A. In tobacco to be sure.
Q. Wiiat used to be the pride of Americans?
A. To indulge in the fashions and manufactures of Great Britain.
Q. What is now their pride?
A. To wear their old cloaths over again till they can make new ones.
Withdrew. The End."
��THE GULL ROCK.
Down at the winding river's mouth, When the tide has ebbed far out,
A long black rock from out the sands Raises it smutty snout.
And there by the hundreds, in the sun.
When the low tide fairly sings. Come the laughing, chattering, screaming gulls
To preen their snowy wings.
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