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<DATE>2008-05-02</DATE>
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<NAME>Mona Logarbo</NAME>
<RESP>MURP</RESP>
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<ITEM>Proofed and reviewed as part of batch B080412.pdcc.</ITEM>
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<IDG S="marc" R="UM" ID="B02608">
<STC T="W">C984</STC>
<BIBNO T="oclc">52211929</BIBNO>
<VID>175498</VID>
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<DIV1 TYPE="lawsuit">
<PB REF="1" MS="y"><!-- PDF PAGE 12 -->
<HEAD>The CASE of &s;everal Italian Merchants &s;ettled in <HI>London.</HI></HEAD>
<P>THE Trade to <HI>Italy,</HI> and all other Places is equally free to Natives and Aliens, only with this Difference, that the Aliens pay greater Duties to their Maje&s;ties.</P>
<P>Thrown Silks being very &s;carce in <HI>England,</HI> by rea&s;on of the Difficulty of bringing them out of <HI>Italy</HI> at this time of War with <HI>France,</HI></P>
<P>The Weavers petitioned the Honourable Hou&s;e of Commons, for Liber|ty of importing fine <HI>Italian, Sicilian</HI> and <HI>Naples</HI> Thrown Silk over Land. Whereupon a Bill was brought in, and pa&s;s'd that Honourable Hou&s;e, and lies now before your Honours.</P>
<P>There is a Clau&s;e in the &s;aid Bill, which re&s;trains the &s;aid Importation over Land to the Subjects of this Kingdom only, and for their proper Accounts, and no other what&s;oever.</P>
<P>'Tis humbly hoped that your Honours will take this Matter into your &s;erious Con&s;ideration, and be of Opinion, that if this Clau&s;e pa&s;&s;es, it will be a kind of monopolizing that Silk Trade in the Hands of two or three Engli&s;h Merchants dealing therein, who procured this Clau&s;e. Whereas it has always been taken for a certain Rule, That Trade &s;hould not be re&s;trained, but Traders encouraged; for the more of a Commodity comes in, the cheaper it mu&s;t be &s;old to the Subject, and the more Cu&s;toms will accrue thereby.</P>
<P>Be&s;ides that it is mo&s;t humbly conceived, that your Honours will not think it rea&s;onable, That the&s;e Merchants, who are by Law at liberty to import Goods directly over Sea from <HI>Italy,</HI> &s;hould not be &s;uffer'd to im|port the &s;ame Goods over Land.</P>
<P>There are &s;everal Engli&s;h Merchants &s;ettled in divers Ports of <HI>Italy,</HI> who may rea&s;onably fear in ca&s;e this Clau&s;e pa&s;&s;es into a Law, that tho&s;e Governments may return it upon them, by forbidding all but their own Subjects to import the Engli&s;h Manufactures into <HI>Italy,</HI> in&s;tead of the con|tinuance of the kind Treatment which the Engli&s;h Merchants meet with there, as is notoriou&s;ly known to all that ever travelled into tho&s;e Coun|tries. <HI>Jo&s;eph Cagnony, Angelo Corticelly, Jo&s;eph Como,</HI> and <HI>Anthony Francis Magnony</HI> are <HI>Italians,</HI> who have lived in <HI>England,</HI> and traded as Merchants &s;everal Years; their chief Trade has been with their Country, and have from time to time exported great Quantities of the Woollen Manufactures of this Kingdom in return of the Goods they imported out of their own Countries.</P>
<P>They mo&s;t humbly hope your Honours will think fit to reject the &s;aid Clau&s;e, that Trade may have its free Cour&s;e, conformable to the re&s;pective Treaties of Commerce between this and all other Trading Nations.</P>
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