1. THE Crown hath no necessity for this Bill , for the Stores at present are furnished , and if they should be exhausted they may be supplyed from Holland without this Bill ; and therefore the Officers of the Ordnance ( who are not Members of the Honourable House of Commons ) do declare that this Bill is a Mystery to them .

2. This Bill is not for the Interest of the Crown for want of a high Impost , whereby the Crown might import it under 75 l. per Tun .

But to Stave off an Impost the poor Tradesmen are made Petitioners , and it is observable that this Petition did not come into the House until the first Case was Printed against this Bill : In which an Impost was proposed , which was generally approved of ; insomuch that the Sollicitors for the Bill , durst not proceed in it till they had got the Tradesmens Petition to offer against an Imposition ; because they say , that tho' an Imposition makes it cheap to the Crown , yet it makes it dearer to the Subjects . But this is a Fallacy too , for if the Bill passes without an Impost , it raises Petre in Holland as much as the Impost comes to ; and if it Passes with an Impost , it falls the Price as much as the Impost comes to ; as for Example , if this Bill Passes without a New Impost , it is expected that Petre will be in Holland , at Eighty or Ninety Pounds per Tun ; and if it Passes with a New Impost of Thirty pound per Tun , it will be Sold there under Sixty Pound , and then the Crown of England will receive Thirty Pound : So that the Bill without an Impost , gives the Thirty Pound per Tun to the Dutch , and with an Impost to the Crown of England ; which will make no difference in the Price to any English Subject , except the Sollicitors of this Bill , for such Quantities as they have already bought ; and it is not expected from them , that they will afford these Tradesmen this Petre as cheap as they can ; but that they endeavour by this Bill to disable all others to buy so cheap as they have done .

And if the Petitioners against this Bill might be heard , it would appear , that the Tradesmens pretences are frivolous and false ; and that Salt-Petre is a very inconsiderable ingredient in any of their Trades , for the Diers who use most ( and therefore are set in the Front of the Petition ) use it only in Bow-dies , and there are not above ten in the Kingdom who die that Colour ; and for every twenty Shillings worth of Salt-Petre which they use , they use twenty Pounds worth of Cocheneal , which is a Commodity prohibited by the same Act of Navigation , and by means thereof , is now at twice the Price in England as in Holland , and yet these Diers don't complain for want of Cocheneal ; nor did they know their want of Petre , till the Sollicitors of the Bill told them , and there are twenty other Commodities , which ( by Reason of the same Act of Navigation ) are now at twice the Price in England as they are in Holland ; and had the Sollicitors of this Bill bought up as great Quantities of any of those other Commodities in Holland , as they have of Salt-Petre , they might have had as many Pretences and Petitioners for importing them , as they have for the Passing of this Bill ; which if it doth pass , is to the Discouragement of all other English Subjects and Traders ; who depend upon the Laws in being , and lay out their Monies and Trade accordingly ; and if such fundamental Statutes as the Act of Navigation may be repealed on a sudden , by the instance of two or three Men , no Man can be safe in his dealings ; and upon the Confidence of this Act , the East-India Company and Interlopers , have given out larger Commissions for Petre than ever they did before , and several Private Gentlemen in England have laid out above five thousand Pound apiece in Order to make Salt-Petre in England , and tho' they can't give Security to furnish the Crown , yet by this , and the Expectancy of the return of the East-India Ships , the Kingdom hath a greater Expectancy and Security for Petre , than ever it had before ; and the Sollicitors of the Bill are aware of this , and therefore Press this Bill for one Year , in which they 'll accomplish all their private ends , and occasion the carrying out from hence of a above hundred thousand Pounds to the Dutch , only to save a few Tradesmen a little Money in the Price of Salt-Petre , by which they lose nothing , thô the Price were higher than it is , for they are repaid it in the Sale of their Commodities . And by such means , the Dutch ( by Computation of the Exchanges between England and Holland ) have already , since the War , drawn from hence above three Millons of our Money upon the Ballance of Trade , and we are daily running in their Debt , by owing them our Money for their Commodities : And this Bill by discouraging all other Means of supplying the Nation with Petre , will put us under a Future Necessity of being beholden to the Dutch for our Stores , at what Rates they please .