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demned as lawful prizes, though they were 

 not legally so. Mr. Collins made it plainly 

 appear that those ships so condemned, were 

 condemned through your own fault, by 

 endeavouring to carry on an unlawful trade, 

 by carrying contraband goods, to defraud 

 the government of England of what they 

 are entitled to according to the treaty made 

 between Britain and America at the con- 

 clusion of the war. But were that the 

 case, it is a strange way of settling accounts 

 for the American merchants to say there is a 

 general balance struck bet ween the two coun- 

 tries from the property taken from them, 

 to give a balance to a merchant's account, 

 who has been good enough to give credit for 

 a part of that account several years, and all 

 of it so long a time as to give bread to the 

 American and his family ; which has been 

 very often the case. You said that the 

 Bank of England's inability to pay their 

 paper was the cause why Mr Pitt made an 

 act for the Bank of England's notes to be 

 $ legal payment. Mr. Pitt might have 



