David White and other merchants, her majesty's subjects residing at Bruges, and other towns in Flanders, crave leave humbly to represent:
THAT whereas the cities of Lisle, Tournay, Menin, Douay, and other new conquests in Flanders and Artois, taken from the French this war by the united forces of her majesty and her allies, are now become entirely under the government of the States-general; and that we her majesty's subjects may be made liable to such duties and impositions on trade as the said States-general shall think fit to impose on us: we humbly hope and conceive, that it is her majesty's intention and design, that the trade of her dominions and subjects, which is carried on with these new conquests, may be on an equal foot with that of the subjects and dominions of the States-general, and not be liable to any new duty, when transported from the Spanish Netherlands to the said new conquests, as to our great surprise is exacted from us on the following goods, viz. butter, tallow, salmon, hides, beef, and all other products of her majesty's dominions, which we import at Ostend, and there pay the duty of entry to the king of Spain, and consequently ought not to be liable to any new duty, when they carry the same goods and all others from their dominions by a free pass or transire to the said new conquests: and we are under apprehension, that if the said new conquests be settled, or given entirely into the possession of the States--
