their enemies with their commodities, and have been known to sell at
night those bullets which were next day to be discharged against them.

Whether their example, sir, deserves our imitation I am not able to
determine, but it ought at least to be considered, whether their conduct
was rational or not, and whether they did not, by a present evil, ensure
an advantage which overbalanced it.

There are, doubtless, sir, sometimes such exigencies as require to be
complied with at the hazard of future profit, but I am not certain that
the scarcity which is feared or felt at present, is to be numbered
amongst them; but, however formidable it may be thought, there is surely
no need of a new law to provide against it: for it is one of those
extraordinary incidents, on which the king has the right of exerting
extraordinary powers. On occasions like this the prerogative has
heretofore operated very effectually, and I know not that the law has
ever restrained it.

It is, therefore, sir, in my opinion, most prudent to determine nothing
in so dubious a question, and rather to act as the immediate occasion
shall require, than prosecute any certain method of proceeding, or
establish any precedent by an act of the senate.

To restrain that commerce by which the necessaries of life are
distributed is a very bold experiment, and such as once produced an
insurrection in the empire of the Turks, that terminated in the
deposition of one of their monarchs.

I therefore willingly confess, sir, that I know not how to conclude: I
am unwilling to deprive the nation of bread, or to supply our enemies