The necessity of expediting this bill, however it has been exaggerated,
is not so urgent but that we may be allowed time sufficient to consider
for what purpose it is to be passed, and to recollect that nothing is
designed by it, but to hinder our enemies from being supplied from the
British dominions with provisions, by which they might be enabled more
powerfully to carry on the war against us.

To this design no objection has been made, but it is well known, that a
good end may be defeated by an absurd choice of means, and I am not able
to discover how we shall increase our own strength, or diminish that of
our enemies, by compelling one part of our fellow-subjects to starve the
other.

It is necessary, sir, to prohibit the exportation of corn to the ports
of our enemies, and of those nations by which our enemies will be
supplied, but surely it is of no use to exclude any part of our own
dominions from the privilege of being supplied from another. Nor can any
argument be alleged in defence of such a law, that will not prove with
equal force, that corn ought to remain in the same granaries where it is
now laid, that all the markets in this kingdom should be suspended, and
that no man should be allowed to sell bread to another.

There is, indeed, sir, a possibility that the liberty for which I
contend, may be used to wicked purposes, and that some men may be
incited by poverty or avarice to carry the enemy those provisions, which
they pretend to export to British provinces. But if we are to refuse
every power that may be employed to bad purposes, we must lay all
mankind in dungeons, and divest human nature of all its rights; for
every man that has the power of action, may sometimes act ill.