"You have heard the petition and reference of the Council read," gabbled Pelham in whining voice. "We will now hear arguments by the opposing sides. Who opens?"
There was some hesitation.
"If it pleases your lordships," spoke up a merchant in the group surrounding Murray, "we would have the opponents of the petition heard first."
"Be it so. Who appears against the petition?"
Master Juggins rose beside me. His arguments were substantially those he had used with me, bulwarked additionally by a mass of facts and statistics. He drew, too, upon several documents in the bag I carried, letters and statements from Governor Burnet of New York and other merchants of that province. When he sat down it seemed to me that no Englishman who thought of his own country's interest could resist the logic of his appeal.
There was a smattering of applause, and then the same merchant who had spoken before introduced Murray, with the remark that he had kindly consented to give his opinion, as he had recently come on a visit to London from the province of New York, where he was in residence.
"The gentleman who preceded me," began Murray, "and who, I am told, once spent some time in our province many years ago, is unfortunately laboring under a misapprehension of the situation. It is not, my lords, as though we had the misfortune to be at war with France. Through the grace of God, the two countries have now been for some years at peace with one another, and their subjects in the New World have striven not to be behind-hand in drawing closer the bonds of trade which in themselves are the best preventative of war."
"Hear, hear," cried his supporters.
"There is no difficulty about this matter which we are discussing," he resumed. "We manufacture in this country more goods of a certain kind than we can consume ourselves. These goods are in great demand amongst the savage tribes which inhabit the interior of North America.
"Both the French and our own traders have use for these goods in the fur-trade, which is growing to be of increasing worth to the London merchants. The French, by reason of their location on the shores of the Great Lakes, which stretch like inland seas across our wilderness, have access to the trade of many tribes which we do not reach.