If we allow them a short time, our expedients will be of little benefit to the nation, which is every day impoverished by the exportation of the necessaries of life, in such quantities, that in a few weeks the law, if it be passed, may be without penalties, for there will be no possibility of disobeying it.

Impoverished in resources, exhausted by the loss of the flower of their youth, demoralized by the reaction from feverish strife, the forces of disintegration had set in in the United States between 1783 and 1787.

In 1738 a petition was presented to Parliament stating that 'in evasion of this Act buttons and button-holes were made of horse-hair to the impoverishing of many thousands and prejudice of the woollen manufactures.'