REASONS Humbly offered to the Consideration of the Honourable the Commons of England in Parliament assembled Against a DUTY of tonnage on all Ships and merchandise.  
IT hath hitherto been the Care and Prudence of this Nation, to endeavour all they could to propagate, encourage and increase the Trade thereof; and have expressed, by their great Zeal and Concern for Trade, so much Concern for it, as if it were the Unum Necessarium of this Kingdom and People: To which purpose, have made many Laws for its encouragement; as, The Act of Navigation, which was solely made for encouragement of Shipping and Trade; and by a Clause in that Act did lay 5 s. per Tun on all French Shipping, for no other Reason, but that the French King had laid 50 Sols per Tun on all English Shipping.  
In an Act made also in King Charles II.'s time, entitled, An Act to prevent Frauds, and regulating Abuses in His Majesty's Customs, there encouragement was given to all Persons to build good and defendable Ships, and they should be allowed, out of the Customs, one Tenth Part of the Customs of all the Goods Exported or Imported in such Ships; besides, in that Act there is another Clause that lays a Duty of one per Cent. on all Goods and merchandise Exported and Imported, from any Port of this Kingdom, to any Port or Place in the Mediterranean-Sea, beyond the Port of Malaga, in any Vessel, less than 200 tons and 2 Decks.  
It will be also of a very dangerous Consequence to lay any Duty upon all Shipping, being a means to provoke other Countries to do the like on the Shipping of this Nation. Who can be assured the Portuguees will not lay on a Duty of 2 l. per Tun, in regard it is the Shipping of this Nation, that stops their having the most part of the Uropean-Trade, at this time, to themselves? Nor who knows how the Dutch and the Hanse-Towns will relish it? Nor Sweedland and Denmark especially, who doth so much follow the Steps, and imitate the absolute Power of France, but that they may also use one French practise more, and lay on a heavy Duty on English Shipping; which will be to the great Loss and Damage of this Kingdom, by becoming Tributaries to Foreign Nations?  
The laying on a Duty on Shipping now, seems to be ill timed, for these Reasons. First, the very great weight of discouragement Trade at present labours under, and the multitude of Losses the Merchants daily sustain, and those not small ones, loudly testify. Secondly, that it may not answer the End of raising money designed by it, by reason that there is but very few Ships left in this Kingdom, not Two Thirds what there was before the War begun; which few this Duty, if Imposed, will make less, and put it out of a possibility of increasing their Number; from which ill Consequence, God defend us.  
Amongst the many, and almost insupportable, dead Losses the Merchants sustain, may be ranked the vast Disappointments all Ships meet with in their Voyages, by long detention in Ports, waiting for Convoy, as the the Berbadoes, Virginia and Maryland Fleets outward last Year, and long and tedious lying in Ports, of almost all Ships homeward, causes the Voyage to be so extreme long, that the very Seamens Wages and Provisions, carries all the fraught away; and to many Ships( reckoning 6 per Cent. Interest and 10 per Cent. Insurance, which is much less than is usually paid) there will not be enough left to pay a Duty of tonnage.  
The laying on this Duty will be Taxing one sort of Estate twice: All Shipping are esteemed a Personal Estate, and every Man is Taxed, and pays as such: All merchandise pays a very considerable Duty already, and more than most can well bare, as Tobacco, &c. and therefore it will be extreme hard, absolutely to drown what is already sinking, and wants a most powerful Hand to rescue from utter Destruction.  
Should this Duty be laid, in all probability other Nations would be as kind to us as we to them, and double it possible for ever, tho' we should ease ourselves and them in Four Years. It is very well known and manifest to all the World, that the Shipping of the English Nation, before this War, were 20 Tun in all Foreign Ports for one Tun of Foreign Shipping in England, out of which great disproportion, a great advantage will arife to all Foreign Nations, which they will be very tenacious of.  
It is to be considered, that the Shipping and Commerce of this Kingdom, is the very Life of it and Principle of Motion, which to wound in any Part, is very dangerous in all the Consequences of it. In a word, the Trade of this Kingdom is greatly discouraged, and so little regard to secure it, that the Merchants are ready enough, as the Case already stands, to cease their Trade, and secure something to maintain their Families; which a further Duty may constrain them to put in execution with speed, what they are now in doubt to do.  
If Shipping should be discouraged, what would then become of all the Woollen Manufacture, and all other Things, the Product of this Nation? It is true, we might eat and consume it ourselves, and be Poor when we have done.  
It is nothing but Trade can make a Nation great, rich and powerful, feared Abroad and honoured at Home; it will, with God's Blessing, bring Happiness and Peace into the Nation, and Plenty, abundant Plenty, into our Streets and Houses.   

REASONS Againast a DUTY ON Ships and merchandise.