The document is one of a number of petitions submitted to Parliament whose signers are unknown.
All restrictive acts contain some subtly hidden eflect. In this statement of the colonial position, the author indicates that the terms of the Iron Act prohibited the colonials from manufacturing finished iron prod ucts for their fellow colonials. The Iron Act as passed did include such a `clause, but it is doubtful whether the colonials honored it. It is significant that the terms of the act were considered "to bear hard on the common Rights and Liberties of Mankind."