were so frightened at the
accomplishment of their own most earnest and anxious desire, that,
before any good or evil effect from it could happen, they immediately
put a stop to all further exportation.

It is obvious that we must look for the true effect of that act at the
time of its first possible operation, that is, in the year 1767. On this
idea how stands the account?

1764, Exports to Jamaica L 456,528
1765 415,624
1766 415,544
1767 (first year of the Free-port Act) 467,681

This author, for the sake of a present momentary credit, will hazard any
future and permanent disgrace. At the time he wrote, the account of 1767
could not be made up. This was the very first year of the trial of the
Free-port Act; and we find that the sale of British commodities is so
far from being lessened by that act, that the export of 1767 amounts to
52,000_l._ more than that of either of the two preceding years, and is
11,000_l._ above that of his standard year 1764. If I could prevail on
myself to argue in favor of a great commercial scheme from the
appearance of things in a single year, I should from this increase of
export infer the beneficial effects of that measure. In truth, it is not
wanting. Nothing but the thickest ignorance of the Jamaica trade could
have made any one entertain a fancy, that the least ill effect on our
commerce could follow from this opening of the ports. But, if the author
argues the effect of regulations in the American trade from the export
of the year in which they are made, or even of the following; why did he
not apply this rule to his own? He had the same paper before him which I
have now before me. He must have seen that in his standard year (the
year 1764), the principal year of his new regulations, the export fell
no less than 128,450_l._ short of that in 1763! Did the export trade
revive by these regulations in 1765, during which year they continued in
their full force? It fell about 40,000_l._ still lower. Here is a fall
of 168,000_l._; to account for which, would have become the author much
better than piddling for an 80_l._ fall in the year 1766 (the only year
in which _the order_ he objects to could operate), or in presuming a
fall of exports from a regulation which took place only in November,
1766; whose effects could not appear until the following year; and
which