Article proposed.

It is agreed, that his Britannic Majesty will earnestly recommend it to his Parliament to provide for and make Compensation to the Merchants and Shopkeepers of Boston whose Goods and Merchandise were seized and taken out of their Stores, Warehouses and Shops, by Order of Genl. Gage and others of his Commanders or Officers there; and also to the Inhabitants of Philadelphia for the Goods taken away by his Army there; and to make Compensation also for the Tobacco, Rice Indigo and Negroes &c. seized and carried off by his Armies under Generals Arnold, Cornwallis and others from the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia; and also for all Vessels and Cargoes belonging to the Inhabitants of the said United States, which were stopt seized or taken either in the Ports or on the Seas, by his Governors or by Ships of War before the Declaration of War against the said States.

And it is farther agreed that his Britannic Majesty will also earnestly recommend it to his Parleament to make Compensation for all the Towns, Villages and Farms, burnt and destroyed by his Troops or Adherents in the said United States.

There existed a Free Commerce upon mutual faith between Great Britain and America the Merchants of the former credited the Merchants and Planters of the Latter with great Quantities of Goods on the common Expectation that the Merchants having sold the Goods would make the accustomed Remittances; that the Planters would do the same by the Labour of their Negroes and the Produce of that Labour, Tobacco, Rice, Indigo, &c.

England before the Goods were sold in America, sends an armed force, seizes those Goods in the Stores, some even in the Ships that brought them, and carries them off; seizes also and carries off the Tobacco Rice and Indigo, provided by the Planters to make Returns and even the Negroes from whose Labour they might hope to raise other Produce for that purpose.

Britain now demands that the Debts shall nevertheless be paid.

Will She, can she justly refuse making Compensation for such Seizures?

If a Draper who had Sold a piece of Linnen to a neighbour on Credit, should follow him take the Linnen from him by force, and then send a Bailiff to arrest him for the Debt would any Court of Law or Equity award the Payment of the Debt without ordering a Restitution of the Cloth?

Will not the Debtors in America cry out, that if this Compensation be not made they were betrayed by the pretended Credit, and are now doubly ruined first by the Enemy and then by the Negociators at Paris, the Goods and Negroes sold them being taken from them with all they had besides, and they are now to be obliged to pay for what they have been robbed of.