CO885(1-2) — Page 240

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

1PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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ultimately passed an Act for placing the trade between the United States and the British Colo- nies on a permaneut footing. The main provi- sions of this Act (28 Geo. Ill, c. 6) were, that no goods should be imported into the West Indies from the United States, except about thirty enumerated articles, being of the produce of the United States, and those only in British ships; that none of those enumerated articles should be imported from any of the foreign West Indies, except in cases of public emergency, when the Governors of colonies might relax this pro- hibition; that all exports from the West Indies to the United States should be in British ships; and that no goods might be imported into our North American Colonies from the United States, except in cases of emergency.

The injurious consequences of this policy, whether in provoking the Americans, or in inju- ring our own colonies, led at last to the conclu- sion, in 1794, of a treaty, by which American vessels not exceeding 70 tons burden, were to be admitted into the British West Indies with arti- cles of United States' produce, not being such as were generally prohibited, and were to be allowed to export therefrom to the United States any produce of the West Indies legally exportable thereto in British vessels. To this clause' was appended the following curious proviso:

"But this liberty only extends to a direct in- tercourse between the British West Indies and the ports of the United States; and the United States engage to prohibit the carriage of molasses, sugar, coffee, cacao or cotton, in American ves- sels, either from His Majesty's islands, or from the United States, to any other part of the world."

This treaty provided also for placing the trade. between Great Britain and the United States on

a permanent footing, it having till then been re- gulated by Order in Council. It gave great dis- satisfaction in the United States, and was not ratified by Congress till 1796. The Act for giv- ing effect to it was passed in this country in 1797. That Act, however, makes no provision for the admission of American ships into our colonies. It simply provides that United States' ships may

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import into Great Britain such produce of the United States as was admissible in British ves- sels, imposing, however, a tonnage duty on the ships, and a discriminating duty on the goods imported by them, in order to countervail the duties levied in the United States on British ships. The provisions of the Treaty, as to open- ing the trade of the West Indies, apparently fell

to the ground. An Additional Article to the Treaty of 1794 stipulates that the Article con- taining those provisions shall be suspended ; and a later Treaty (of 1806) contains a recital, that the two High Contracting Parties had been una- ble to arrange the terms on which the commerce between the United States and the West Indies was to be carried on. They did not in fact come

to any arrangement till the United States passed their retaliatory Acts in 1817 and 1820, and even then it took more than ten years to settle the question.

The only alterations of any importance made between this period and the passing of the Ame- rican Navigation Act in 1817, were the opening

of the trade between the United States and our North American colonies in 1807, and the con- clusion of a treaty in 1815, abolishing the differ- ential duties levied by the two countries on the ships of each other in respect of direct voyages between them. In 1817, as has been already remarked, the retaliatory Navigation Act of the United States

was passed, briefly enacting that no goods shall be admitted into the United States from any foreign country unless in ships of the country of which the goods are the produce and from which they are imported; with a proviso, that this law was not to apply to countries which had not adopted,

or should not adopt, a similar regulation. In 1818 this Act was followed up by another

pro- hibiting British vessels trading between the United States and any British Possessions of which the ports are ordinarily closed against vessels of the United States, and in 1820 the prohibition was extended to all intercourse between the United States and any of the British Possessions in Ame- rica or the West Indies, either by way of export or import. It was not till the year 1822 that G

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