[1038] 3 Sept. 1783
Petition of  T. Galbreath re. Linseed Oil imported from New York; order of 3 Sept.; second petition 13 Sept.; and letter from the Custom House to the Clerk of the Council 19 Sept.

Pot-ashes are admitted duty free if accompanied by a certificate that they are the produce of America; but not so linseed oil. Even if such a certificate had been produced, the duty would still be payable.

The second petition represented that "before this period linseed oil was never known to come from America (this being the first instance ever known), whereas linseed [presumably seed] has been exported from time to time regularly in great quantities from America to Great Britain, duty free." But owing to the late war the American linseed was not sent to market : therefore it was manufactured into oil. The duty exacted is almost prohibitive (the same as on foreign oil, nearly £25 per ton). If the practitioner has to pay this, it will take away most of the value of the remittance, by means of which he intended to pay his debts. Owing to the part he took in the war, he lost property in America to the value of over £2,000, and has been prescribed by the Americans as a spy. He has had to pay the duty and enter the goods at present in order to prevent a prosecution for detention of the vessel.

Source - Acts of the Privy Council (Colonial) Vol. 6 - pg. 608.