It is, however, prudent to obstruct criminal attempts even when we
cannot hope entirely to defeat them, and, therefore, I am of opinion,
that no provisions ought to be exported without some method of security,
by which the governours of every place may be assured that they will be
conveyed to our own colonies. Such securities will easily be contrived,
and may be regulated in a manner that they shall not be defeated without
such hazard, as the profit that can be expected from illegal commerce,
will not be able to compensate.

It is, therefore, sir, proper to delay the bill so long, at least, as
that we may produce by it the ends intended, and distress our enemies
more than ourselves; that we may secure plenty at home, without the
destruction of our distant colonies, and without obliging part of our
fellow-subjects to desert to the Spaniards for want of bread.

Mr. BOWLES spoke in this manner:--Sir, the necessity of excepting rice
from the general prohibition, is not only sufficiently evinced by the
agent of South Carolina, but confirmed beyond controversy or doubt, by
the petition of the merchants of Bristol, of which the justice and
reasonableness appears at the first view, to every man acquainted with
the nature of commerce.

How much the province of South Carolina will be distressed by this
prohibition, how suddenly the whole trade of that country will be at a
stand, and how immediately the want of many of the necessaries of life
will be felt over a very considerable part of the British dominions, has
already, sir, been very pathetically represented, and very clearly
explained; nor does there need any other argument to persuade us to
allow the exportation of rice.