Will vend the goods they have imported, tho' they have Solemnly
pledg'd Their Faith to the body of merchants, that they should remain
in store 'till a general importation should take place! Where then is
the honor! where is the shame of these persons, who can look into the
faces of those very men with whom they have contracted, & tell them
Without Blushing that they are resolved to Violate the contract! Is it
avarice? Is it obstinacy, perverseness, pride, or from what root of
bitterness does such an unaccountable defection from the laws of
honor, honesty, and even humanity spring? Is it the Authority Of An
Unnatural Parent--the advice of some false friend, or their own want
of common understanding, and the first principles of virtue, by which
these unhappy young persons have been induced, or left to resolve upon
perpetrating that, at the very tho't of which they should have
shudder'd! By this resolution they have already disgrac'd themselves;
if they have the Hardiness to put the resolution into practice, who
will ever hereafter confide in them? Can they promise themselves the
regards of the respectable body of merchants whom they have affronted?
or can they even wish for the esteem of their country which they have
basely deserted, or worse, which they have attempted to wound in the
very heart.--If they imagine they can still weary the patience of an
injured country with impunity.--If--I will not utter it--would not the
grateful remembrance of unmerited kindness and Generosity, if there
was the least spark of ingenuity left, have Influenced to a far
different resolution!--If this agreement of the merchants is of that
consequence to All America which our brethren in All the other
governments, and in Great-Britain Itself think it to be--If the fate
of Unborn Millions is suspended upon it, verily it behooves, not the
merchants Only, but every individual of Every class in City and
Country to aid and support them and Peremptorily To Insist upon its
being Strictly adhered to.