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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 į 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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the restrictions which provoked this retaliation on the part of the Americans were even partially removed from the trade of the West Indies.

Meanwhile changes had been taking place in other parts of America, which rendered some modification of our law necessary. Under the several Free-port Acts which had from time to time been passed, very considerable pri- vileges had been gradually given to foreign ships, in the way of allowing them to import the produce of their own countries into our colonies; but as it was not intended that the United States should benefit by these advantages, they were always confined to "Colonies in America belonging to a foreign European Sove- reign or State." The disruption of the Spanish and Portuguese Colonial Empires rendered it necessary to adopt some new rule, unless we intended to debar Mexico and Brazil from the trade to which we had admitted them in times past. Notoriously it was rather the policy of this country at that time to encourage intercourse with these new countries. This, then, was one way in which the dissolution of those empires tended to break up our colonial system. Ano- ther was still more important. During the maintenance of the Spanish dominion, foreigners had (to speak generally) been rigidly excluded from the ports of her colonies. The only ways in which we could import their produce, were either through the illicit trade with our West Indies, or through the ports of Spain, from which, under an exceptional proviso in our Navi- gation Law, it was admissible,-contrary, of course, to the general rules of that law. But when the intercourse between the mother-coun- tries and their colonies was interrupted; when the Court of Portugal removed to Brazil, and Spain began to relax her prohibitory system; and when, finally, the colonies came to make themselves independent; a change necessarily took place, we ceased to draw the colonial mer. chandize through the mother-countries, and we began to receive it directly from the place of its production. Thus we opened a new market for produce, which was raised by foreigners in rivalry

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with our own colonists. This made the restric- tions with which we had burdened the latter no longer endurable. They had been endured so long as our colonists had something like a mo- nopoly of our market; but that monopoly had been secured to them, not only by our legisla tion, but by the legislation of Spain and Portu-

gal. When the Spanish and Portuguese systems broke

up, ours was no longer tenable.*

The stages by which our original rule as to importations from Asia, Africa, and America, was broken down, were as follows. In 1797 iť

was made legal by Act of Parliament for United States' ships to bring the produce of their own country to England. This, however, had been previously permitted by orders in council. 1808, and more fully in 1810, a similar privi- lege was granted to the Portuguese dominions

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in South America. In 1822, it was extended

to countries in America, being, or having been, under the dominion of Spain. At the first Con- solidation of the Customs Laws in 1825, the exception was converted into the rule, and im- portations from Asia and Africa were placed on a footing similar to that of importations from America.

We must now return to the effect of the Act of 1822 upon the intercourse between the West Indies and the United States. That Act al- lowed a considerable number of articles to be imported into the free ports of the West Indies from any foreign country in America, in ships of such country. It reserved to the King the power of prohibiting such intercourse with any foreign country that might not treat British shipping with equal favour. Shortly before the passing of this Act, the Congress of the United States had empowered the President to open the ports of the United States on equal terms to British as to United States' vessels, when coming from any British port in the West Indies which had been opened to vessels of the United States on equal terms with British vessels.

• See Mr. Huskisson's speech on Colonial Policy, March 21, 1825.