The sound maxims of Franklin and others were unrespected: but we have little hesitation in saying, that the fallacious commercial system of the United States, would not have been maintained, were it not for the example, as well as the conduct, of England towards America, after the acknowledgment, by the former, of the independence of the latter.

If the governments of England and America had been wise, when, and after, the crown of England had acknowledged the independence of the United States, they might have established, between both countries, as valuable, and important a commercial system, based altogether upon liberal principles and mutual interests, instead of upon jealous prejudices-as could have been maintained, if the regions now forming the United States, and the people constituting the citizens, had continued, as provinces, and as subjects of the sovereign of England.

Under a liberal commercial system, Great Britain might have enjoyed every possible trading advantage with the United States, which could have been desirable, or at least just, to possess, if they had continued under British domination. All these peaceable, and profitable, advantages might, assuredly, have been may admit of dispute, the desire of adorning ourselves with fine clothes, possessing fine furniture, with elegant houses, &c., is not, by strongly inciting to labour and industry, the occasion of producing a greater value than is consumed in the gratification of that desire.

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The agriculture and fisheries of the United States are the great sources of our increasing wealth. He that puts a seed into the earth is recompensed, perhaps, by receiving forty out of it, and he who draws a fish out of our water, draws up a piece of silver.

"Let us (and there is no doubt but we shall) be attentive to these, and then the power of rivals, with all their restraining and prohibiting acts, cannot much hurt us. We are sons of the earth and seas, and like Antæus in the fable, if in wrestling with a Hercules we now and then receive a fall, the touch of our parents will communicate to us fresh strength and vigour to renew the contest.

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"Several of the princes of Europe, having of late, from an opinion of advantage to arise by producing all commodities and manufactures within their own dominions, so as to diminish or render useless their importations, have endeavoured to entice workmen from other countries by high salaries, privileges, &c. Many persons pretending to be skilled in various great manufac tures, imagining that America must be in want of them, and that the Congress would probably be disposed to imitate the princes above-mentioned, have proposed to go over on condition of having their passages paid, lands given, salaries appointed, exclusive privileges for terms of years, &c. Such persons, on reading the articles of confederation, will find that the Congress have no power committed to them, or money put into their hands, for such purposes; and that if any such encouragement is given, it must be by the government of some separate state. This, however, has rarely been done in America; and when it has been done, it has rarely succeeded so as to establish a manufacture, which the country was not yet so ripe for as to encourage private persons to set up; labour being generally too dear, and hands difficult to be kept together, every one desiring to be a master, and the cheapness of land inclining many to leave trade for agriculture. Some indeed have met with success, and are carried on to advantage; but they are generally such as required only a few hands, or wherein great part of the work is performed by machines. Goods that are bulky, and of so small a value as not well to bear the expense of freight, may often be made cheaper in the country than they can be imported; and the manufacture of such goods will be profitable wherever there is a sufficient demand.

"The farmers in America, indeed, produce a good deal of wool and flax, and none is exported -it is all worked up; but it is in the way of domestic manufacture, for the use of the family. The buying up quantities of wool and flax with the design to employ spinners, weavers, &c., and form great establishments, producing quantities of linen and woollen goods for sale, has been several times attempted in different provinces; but those projects have generally failed, goods of equal value being imported cheaper. And when the governments have been solicited to support such schemes by encouragements, in money, or by imposing duties on importation of such goods, it has been generally refused on this principle,—that if the country is ripe for the manufacture, it may

secured, without the unavoidable expense of governing, restricting, or overawing them.

The trade, and navigation, of the United States might have, in like manner, derived every commercial, and maritime, advantage that could have been, upon the most liberal understanding, obtained from the mother country, without being subjected to the, possible, incapacity of a colonial office; to the maladministration of colonial governors, to the interference of a British parliament, or to the obstinate exercise of the sovereign prerogative. We lament that there ever should have been causes to warrant separation; and we grieve that, when that separation was effected, the family relations between both countries were not established upon more just principles, and more kindly feelings. Unfortunately, wisdom did not pervade the councils of either England or America, upon the subject of international trade-during so favourable an opporunity, as the peace of 1783, for establishing the foundation of a commercial system, between England and America, which must have attained an unexampled magnitude :-a trade, and navigation, which would have formed durable bonds of friendship, and of peace, which the reciprocal interests of the people of the one, and of the other, country, would render too powerful for any government to violate.

In justice to Mr. Pitt, we must absolve him from any share of illiberality in regard to such a commercial intercourse with the United States.

be carried on by private persons to advantage; and if not it is folly to think of forcing nature. Great establishments of manufacture require great numbers of poor to do the work for small wages; those poor are to be found in Europe, but will not be found in America till the lauds are all taken up and cultivated, and the excess of people who cannot get land want employment. "MAXIMS.-1. All food, or subsistence for mankind, arises from the earth or waters.

"2. Necessaries of life that are not food, and all other conveniences, have their value estimated in the proportion of food consumed while we are employed in procuring them.

"3. Fair commerce is where equal values are exchanged for equal, the expense of transport included. Thus if it cost A in England as much labour and charge to raise a bushel of wheat as it costs B in France to produce four gallons of wine, then are four gallons of wine the fair exchange for a bushel of wheat; A and B meeting at half distance with their commodities to make the exhange. The advantage of this fair commerce is, that each party increases the number of his enjoyments, having, instead of wheat alone, or wine alone, the use of both wheat and wine.

"OF AN OPEN TRADE-Perhaps in general it would be better if government meddled no further with trade than to protect it, and let it take its course. Most of the statute or acts, edicts, or arrests, and placards of parliaments, princes, and states, for regulating, directing, and restraining of trade, have, we think, been either political blunders or jobs obtained by artful men for private advantage under the pretence of public good. When Colbert assembled some of the wise old merchants of France, and desired their advice and opinion how he could best serve and promote commerce, their answer, after consultation, was in three words only- Laissez nous faire ;- Let us alone.' It is said by a very solid writer of the same nation, that he is well advanced in the science of politics who knows the full force of that maxim, Pas trop gouverner,'-' not to govern too much; which perhaps, would be of more use when applied to trade than in any other public concern. It were therefore to be wished that commerce were as free between all the nations of the world as it is between the several counties of England; so would all, by mutual communications, obtain more enjoyments. Those counties do not ruin each other by trade, neither would the nations. No nation was ever ruined by trade, even seemingly the most disadvantageous.

"Wherever desirable superfluities are imported, industry is excited,and thereby plenty is produced. Were only necessaries permitted to be purchased, men would work no more than was necessary for that purpose."-Franklin's Essays.

In March, 1783, he brought into Parliament a bill for the temporary regulation of this intercourse.

By this bill vessels belonging to citizens of the United States were to be admitted into the ports of the West India islands, with goods, or merchandise, of American growth or produce; and they were to be permitted to export to the United States any merchandise or goods whatever; subject only to the same duties and charges as if they had been the property of British natural born subjects, and had been exported and imported in British vessels.

Violent opposition was made to this bill by the British shipping interest, headed by Lord Sheffield; and the Pitt administration being soon after dissolved, the bill itself was laid aside; and the power of regulating the commercial intercourse between the two countries was, by the succeeding administration, lodged with the king and council. By orders in council soon after issued, " American vessels were entirely excluded from the British West Indies; and some of the staple productions of the United States, particularly fish, beef, pork, butter, lard, &c., were not permitted to be carried there, even in British bottoms."

But we must admit, that if there were an absence of wisdom, in respect to commercial policy, in the general, as well as in each state government, there was manifested in the policy of England a far more lamentable spirit. When Mr. Adams, the United States minister at the court of St. James's, proposed, in 1785, to place the navigation and trade between all the dominions of the crown of England and all the territories of the United States of America, upon a basis of perfect, and liberal, reciprocity, this generous proposal was not only positively rejected, but he was given to understand that no other would be entertained.*

* The British government refused to accede to this or any other commercial treaty. Mr. Adams, in his letter to the American Secretary of Foreign Affairs (Mr. Jay), dated London, the 21st of October, 1785, referring to this subject, says-"This being the state of things, you may depend upon it the commerce of America will have no relief, at present, nor, in my opinion, ever, until the United States shall have generally passed navigation acts. If this measure is not adopted, we shall be derided; and the more we suffer, the more will our calamities be laughed at. My most earnest exhortations to the states, then, are, and ought to be, to lose no time in passing such acts."

Some of the states passed acts of the character recommended by Mr. Adams; but the others not concurring, they were unavailing, and were repealed.

The acts

This was one of the principal causes of the adoption of the present constitution. passed by the first Congress that met under the new form of government, imposing the discriminating tonnage, and other duties, did not escape the particular notice of British statesmen. Their injurious effects, upon the navigating interest of Great Britain, were at once perceived by them. They saw that American commerce was no longer at the mercy of thirteen distinct legislative bodies, nor subject to the control of the king and council. As early as the 30th of September, 1789, therefore, the acts imposing those duties were referred to the lords of the committee of the board of trade.

The same committee was afterwards instructed to consider and report, "what were the proposals of a commercial nature it would be proper to be made by their government to the United States."

In January, 1791, this committee made a report, not only upon the subject of the American duties, but also upon the general subject of the commercial relations between the two countries. report was drawn up by Lord Liverpool; and on the subject of a commercial treaty, espe8 E

This

VOL. II.

Instead of acting wisely, and scorning an offer which would have been so beneficial to the empire, it was, by strong sovereign will, decreed, that the full measure of stringency, provided for in the Navigation Act, should be extended to the ships, the trade, and the citizens of the United States.

In consequence of this wretched policy, on the part of the then sovereign and ministers of England, the government and Congress of the United States, on the adoption of the constitution, passed also a Navigation act, which, as regards British trade and shipping, contained the same provisions as the navigation law of England.

In 1789 a tariff of duties on foreign goods was imposed, upon the principle of creating, maintaining, and protecting domestic manufactures.

As a revenue tariff, this tariff was based on an utter disregard of fixed principles. It may be said to have been continued until 1816-meantime, what was the conduct of the government?

Foreign countries always complained of the British navigation laws; but during the war the circumstances detailed, in the first part of this article, rendered any countervailing legislation, on the part of European nations, of little injury to British trade or shipping. This circumstance did not, however, apply to the maritime and commercial relations between the British empire and the United States of America. These considerations, led finally to the adoption of the reciprocity system, which was first argued, and advocated, as well as the system of countervailing and protective duties, by the celebrated Alexander Hamilton.

In the American navigation laws, countervailing duties were imposed, upon all foreign vessels trading to the United States, of half a dollar per ton duty beyond what should at any time be paid by American ships (the duty was soon after doubled); and, further, that goods imported in foreign vessels should pay a duty of ten per cent over and above, what was payable on the same description of goods when imported in American vessels.

These countervailing duties were directed against the navigation of Great Britain, and grounded on the same principles as the British navigation laws. Various cially in reference to navigation, it states-" After full consideration of all that has been offered on the subject of navigation, the committee think that there is but one proposition, which it would be advisable for the ministers of Great Britain to make, on this head, to the government of the United States, in a negotiation for a commercial treaty between the two countries, viz. that British ships, trading to the ports of the United States, should be there treated, with respect to the duties on tonnage and imports, in like manner, as the ships of the United States shall be treated in the ports of Great Britain."

The committee add, however-." If Congress should propose (as they certainly will) that this principle of equality should be extended to the ports of our colonies and islands, and that the ships of the United States should be there treated as British ships, it should be answered that this demand cannot be admitted, even as a subject of negotiation."

As to the advantages this circuitous trade would secure to British shipping, the same committee say" Many vessels now go from the ports of Great Britain, carrying British manufactures to the United States; there load with lumber and provisions for the British islands, and return with the produce of these islands to Great Britain. The whole of this branch of trade," they add, "may also be considered as a new acquisition, and was attained by your majesty's order in council beforementioned, which has operated to the increase of British navigation compared with that of the

United States."

measures to counteract the American system were devised by the British government, and they failed upon the principle of our continuing to maintain in full force the navigation laws. To all intelligent men it became evident that we had engaged in an unequal struggle, and that the real effect of our policy was to give a bounty on the importation of the manufactured goods of other countries into the United States, to the gradual exclusion, both of our manufactures, and ships, from the ports of America. By a commercial treaty agreed upon between Great Britain and the United States in 1815, it was stipulated that in future equal charges should be imposed on the ships of either country in the ports of the other, and that equal duties should be laid upon all articles, the produce of the one country, imported into the other, whether such importation were effected in the ships of the one or the other, and further that no higher duties should be levied upon the produce of, or manufactures, of the one, or the other, than upon the produce or manufactures of the most favoured nation.

This is usually considered the first English reciprocity treaty: but such is not the fact. Our early treaties with Spain and Denmark were reciprocity treaties : in the trade with which countries England, however, had always contrived to obtain the chief advantages.

The Americans continue to complain that, as far as the British colonial trade is open to them, although the letter of the treaty is extended to them, that the full principle of reciprocity is not faithfully observed: inasmuch as a British ship can carry a full cargo, or part of a cargo, from a British to a colonial port,discharge the whole, or part thereof, there; then proceed, reladen, to any port in the United States, and from thence carry a cargo, from the United States, to any other part of the world: or, a British ship may sail with a cargo in the first instance from a British possession to the United States, then with another cargo to a port in the United States,-there re-lade, and then proceed to any part of the world; while an American ship can only import a cargo direct from the United States to a British port; and although an American ship may re-lade in England and sail to any foreign port, it cannot sail from England to any British possessions -the East Indian territories excepted.

We admit this legal inequality; and we are convinced that it would be for the interest of both nations to place the trade of every port in the United States, and every port of the British empire, for the ships of both countries, upon the footing of an unrestricted coasting trade. There is no one could deny the immense increase of the carrying trade, which, under a liberal tariff, would follow. The shipping of both countries, instead of being injured, would benefit by such a truly great measure. If the countries, constituting the United States, had continued to this day British possessions, this would have been the present state of the trade and navigation between those countries and every other part of the British empire. To deny this, would be the same as saying it would be wise, commercial, policy to place the navigation between the different ports of the United