Petition of the People Called Quakers

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The Order of the Day being read, for the House to resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole House, upon a Bill to restrain the Trade and Commerce of the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New-Hampshire, and Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantation, in North America, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the West Indies; and to prohibit such Provinces and Colonies from carrying on any Fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, or other places therein to be mentioned, under certain conditions, and for a time to be limited;

A Petition of the people called Quakers was presented to the House, and read; taking notice of the Bill to restrain the Trade and Commerce of the Provinces of Massachusetts Bay and New-Hampshire, and Colonies of Connecticut and Rhode-Island, and Providence Plantation, in North America, to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British Islands in the West Indies; and to prohibit such Provinces and Colonies from carrying on any Fishery on the banks of Newfoundland, or other places therein to be mentioned, under certain conditions, and for a time to be limited; and that the Petitioners are informed, that, in the Island of Nantucket, on the Coast of New England, there are about five thousand inhabitants, nine-tenths of whom are of the people called Quakers; and that the said Island is for the most part barren and sandy, not yielding Provisions for a twentieth part of its inhabitants; and that the inhabitants almost wholly depend on the Whale Fishery for their subsistence, purchasing with the produce of the said occupation, Grain, and other necessaries, from the neighbouring Colonies; and that if the said Bill should pass into a law, these people would unavoidably be exposed to all the hardships of famine, as no Provisions can be imported from any of the neighbouring Colonies, and their trade, by which they subsist, will be totally prohibited; and that the said inhabitants, to the best of the Petitioners' information and belief, are entirely innocent in respect to the present disturbances in America; wherefore, in consideration of the miseries impending over so large a part of their brethren and others, their fellow-subjects in that Island, and in the neighbourhood, under the like circumstances, the Petitioners entreat the House, that the said Bill may not pass into a law, as thereby, a most grievous punishment would be inflicted on the innocent, and a body of men, whose occupation is hazardous, their gains uncertain, and their labours necessary to themselves and the community, would be subjected to inevitable ruin and destruction.