AMERICAN TRADE
(Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, IV, p. 10)
The Consequences resulting to Great Britain from the independence of the American States, may, with great truth, be called advantages.... A great and obvious advantage was the relief from governing and protecting them ... relief from the payment of bounties ... the recovery of the valuable trade of shipbuilding ... sacrificed to the zeal for promoting the prosperity of the Colonies.
It was said ... that Great Britain possessed the whole of the American trade before the revolt.... It is well known that before the war the Americans carried a considerable proportion of their trade to other nations, contrary to law. Now they are at liberty to deal with other nations or with Britain; and for that reason alone some of them will choose to deal with Britain.... Experience has fully shown that there was no real cause to apprehend any decay of the British commerce in consequence of the new order of things in America: and moreover, what must effectually silence all controversy on the subject, the official accounts of the Custom House demonstrate that there has been a greater and more rapid increase in the general commerce of Great Britain, and especially of the commerce with America, since the era of American independence than ever there was.