In so far there probably was a general substantial agreement in Great Britain. The Americans had been consumers to over double the amount of the West Indies before the war, and it was desirable to retain their custom. Nor was the anticipation of success deceived. Nine years later, despite the rejection of Pitt's measure, an experienced American complained "that we draw so large a proportion of our manufactures from one nation. The other European nations have had the eight years of the war (of Independence) exclusively, and the nine years of peace in fair competition, and do not yet supply us with manufactures equivalent to half of the stated value of the shoes made by ourselves."[67] In the first year of the government under the Constitution, from August, 1789, to September 30, 1790, after seven years of independence, out of a total of not quite $20,000,000 imports to the United States, over $15,000,000 were from the dominions of Great Britain;[68] and nearly half the exports went to the same destination, either as raw material for manufactures, or as to the distributing centre for Europe. The commercial dependence is evident; it had rather increased than diminished since the Peace. As regards American navigation, the showing was somewhat better; but even here 217,000 tons British had entered United States ports, against a total of only 355,000 American. As of the latter only 50,000 had sailed from Great Britain, it is clear that the empire had retained its hold upon its carrying trade, throughout the years intervening between the Peace and the adoption of the Constitution.
As regards the commercial relations between the two nations, these results corresponded in the main with the expectations of those who frustrated Pitt's measure. He had conceived, however, that it was wise for Great Britain not only to preserve a connection so profitable, but also to develop it; to multiply the advantage by steps which would promote the prosperity and consequent purchasing power of the communities involved. This was the object of his proposed concession. During the then recent war, no part of the British dominions—save besieged Gibraltar—had suffered so severely as the West Indies. Though other causes concurred, this was due chiefly to the cessation of communications with the revolted colonies, entailing failure of supplies indispensable to their industries. Despite certain alleviations incidental to the war, such as the capture of American vessels bound to foreign islands, and the demand for tropical products by the British armies and fleets, there had been great misery among the population, as well as financial loss. The restoration of commercial intercourse would benefit the continent as well as the islands; but the latter more. The prosperity of both would redound to the welfare of Great Britain; for the one, though now politically independent, was chained to her commercial system by imperative circumstances, while of the trade of the other she would have complete monopoly, except for this tolerance of a strictly local traffic with the adjoining continent. As for British navigation, the supreme interest, Pitt believed that it would receive more enlargement from the increase of productiveness in the islands, and of consequent demand for British manufactures, than it would suffer loss by American navigation. More commerce, more ships. Then, as at the present day, the interests of Great Britain and of the United States, in their relations to a matter of common external concern, were not opposed, but complementary; for the prosperity of the islands through America would make for the prosperity of Great Britain through the islands.
This, however, was just the point disputed; and, in default of the experience which the coming years were to furnish, fears not wholly unreasonable, from the particular point of view of sea power, as then understood, were aroused by the known facts of American shipping enterprise, both as ship-builders and carriers, even under colonial trammels. John Adams, who was minister to Great Britain from 1785 to 1788, had frequent cause to note the deep and general apprehension there entertained of the United States as a rival maritime state. The question of admission to the colonial trade, as it presented itself to most men of the day, was one of defence and of offence, and was complicated by several considerations. As a matter of fact, there was no denying the existence of that transatlantic commercial system, in which the former colonies had been so conspicuous a factor, the sole source of certain supplies to an important market, reflecting therein exactly Great Britain's own position relatively to the consumers of the European continent. The prospect of reviving what had always been an imperium in imperio, but now uncontrolled by the previous conditions of political subjection, seemed ominous; and besides, there was cherished the hope, ill-founded and delusive though it was, that the integrity of the empire as a self-sufficing whole, broken by recent revolt, might be restored by strong measures, coercive towards the commerce of the United States, and protective towards Canada and the other remaining continental colonies. It was believed by some that the agriculture, shipping, and fisheries of Canada, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, despite the obstacles placed by nature, could be so fostered as to supply the needs of the West Indies, and to develop also a population of consumers bound to take off British manufactures, as the lost colonists used to do. This may be styled the constructive idea, in Sheffield's series of propositions, looking to the maintenance of the British carrying trade at the expense of that of the United States. This expectation proved erroneous. Up to and through the War of 1812, the British provinces, so far from having a surplus for export, had often to depend upon the United States for much of the supplies which Sheffield expected them to send to the West Indies.
The proposition was strongly supported also by a wish to aid the American loyalists, who, to the number of many thousands, had fled from the old colonies to take refuge in the less hospitable North. These men, deprived of their former resources, and having a new start in life to make, desired that the West India market should be reserved for them, to build up their local industries. Their influence was exerted in opposition to the planters, and the mother country justly felt itself bound to their relief by strong obligation. Conjoined to this was doubtless the less worthy desire to punish the successful rebellion, as well as to hinder the growth of a competitor. "If I had not been here and resided here some time," wrote John Adams, in 1785, "I should not have believed, nor could have conceived, such an union of all Parliamentary factions against us, which is a demonstration of the unpopularity of our cause."[69] "Their direct object is not so much the increase of their own wealth, ships, or sailors, as the diminution of ours. A jealousy of our naval power is the true motive, the real passion which actuates them. They consider the United States as their rival, and the most dangerous rival they have in the world. I can see clearly they are less afraid of the augmentation of French ships and sailors than American. They think they foresee that if the United States had the same fisheries, carrying trade, and same market for ready-built ships, they had ten years ago, they would be in so respectable a position, and in so happy circumstances, that British seamen, manufacturers, and merchants too, would hurry over to them."[70] These statements, drawn from Adams's association with many men, reflect so exactly the line of argument in the best known of the many controversial pamphlets published about that time,—Lord Sheffield's "Observations on the Commerce of the American States,"—as to prove that it represented correctly a preponderant popular feeling, not only adverse to the restoration of the colonial privileges contemplated by Pitt, but distinctly inimical to the new nation; a feeling born of past defeat and of present apprehension.
Inextricably associated with this feeling was the conviction that the navigation supported by the sugar islands, being a monopoly always under the control of the mother country, and ministering to the entrepôt on which so much other shipping depended, was the one sure support of the general carrying trade of the nation. "Considering the bulk of West India commodities," Sheffield had written, "and the universality and extent of the consumption of sugar, a consumption still in its infancy even in Europe, and still more in America, it is not improbable that in a few ages the nation which may be in possession of the most extensive and best cultivated sugar islands, subject to a proper policy,[71] will take the lead at sea." Men of all schools concurred in this general view, which is explanatory of much of the course pursued by the British Government, alike in military enterprise, commercial regulation, and political belligerent measures, during the approaching twenty years of war with France. It underlay Pitt's subsequent much derided, but far from unwise, care to get the whole West India region under British control, by conquering its sugar islands. It underlay also the other measures, either instituted or countenanced by him, or inherited from his general war policy, which led through ever increasing exasperation to the war with the United States. The question, however, remained, "What is the proper policy conducive to the end which all desire?" Those who thought with Pitt in 1783 urged that to increase the facilities of the islands, by abundant supplies from the nearest and best source, in America, would so multiply the material of commerce as most to promote the necessary navigation. The West India planters pressed this view with forcible logic. "Navigation and naval power are not the parents of commerce, but its happy fruits. If mutual wants did not furnish the subject of intercourse between distant countries, there would soon be an end of navigation. The carrying trade is of great importance, but it is of greater still to have trade to carry." To this the reply substantially was that if the trade were thrown open to Americans, by allowing them to carry in their own vessels, the impetus so given to their navigation, with the cheapness of their ships, owing to the cheapness of materials, would make them carriers to the whole world, breaking up the monopoly of British merchants, and supplanting the employment of British ships.
A few statesmen, more far seeing and deeper reasoning,—notably Edmund Burke,—came to Pitt's support, and the West India proprietors, largely resident in England, by their knowledge of details contributed much to elucidate the facts; but their efforts were unavailing. Their argument ran thus: "Only the American continent can furnish at reasonable rates the animals required for the agriculture of the islands, the food for the slaves, the lumber for buildings and for packing produce. Only the continent will take the rum which Europe refuses, and with which the planter pays his running expenses. Owing to irreversible currents of trade, neither British nor island shipping can carry this traffic at a profit to themselves, except by ruinously overcharging the planter. Americans only can do it. Concede the exchange by this means, and the development of sugar and coffee raising, owing to their bulk as freight, will enlarge British shipping to Europe by an amount much beyond that lost in the local transport. Of the European carriage you will retain a monopoly, as you will of the produce, which goes into your storehouses alone; whence you reap the advantage of brokerage and incidental handling, at the expense of the continental consumer, while your home navigation is enlarged by its export. Refuse this privilege, and your islands sink under French and Spanish competition. French Santo Domingo, especially, exceeds by far all your possessions, both in the extent of soil and quality of product." Very shortly they were able also to say that the French allowed ships to be bought from Americans; and, although in their treaty with the United States they had refused free intercourse to American vessels, a royal ordinance of 1784 permitted it to vessels of under sixty tons' burden.
Within a month of the introduction of Pitt's bill the ministry to which he then belonged fell. The one which followed refrained from dealing at all with the subject, except by recourse to an expedient not uncommon with party leaders, dealing with a new question of admitted intricacy. They passed a bill leaving the whole matter to the Crown for executive action. Accordingly, in July, 1783, a proclamation was issued permitting intercourse between the islands and the American continent, in a long list of specified articles, but only by British ships, owned and navigated as required by the Navigation Act. American vessels were excluded by omission, and while most necessaries for food, agriculture, and commerce were admitted, one staple article, salt fish, urgently requested by the planters, was forbidden. This was partly to encourage the Newfoundland fisheries and those of Great Britain, and partly to injure American. Both objects were in the line of the Navigation Act, to foster home navigation and impede that of foreigners; fisheries being considered a prime support of each. A generation before, the elder Pitt had inveighed against the Peace of Paris, in 1763, on account of the concession of the cod fisheries. "You leave to France," he said, "the opportunity of reviving her navy." Before the separation, the near and great market of the West India negro population had consumed one-third of the American catch of fish. So profitable a condition could no longer be continued. Salt provisions also, butter, and cheese, were not allowed, being reserved for Irish producers.[72]
The next December the enabling bill was renewed and the proclamation re-issued. At this moment Pitt returned to office. A few months later, in the spring of 1784, Parliament was dissolved, and the ensuing elections carried him into power at the head of a great majority. He made no immediate attempt to resume legislation favoring the American trade with the West Indies. The disposition of the majority of Englishmen in the matter had been plainly shown, and other more urgent commercial reforms engaged his attention. Soon after the receipt of the news in America, some of the states passed retaliatory measures, on their own account, or authorized the Continental Congress so to act for them. The bad feeling already caused by the non-fulfilment, on both sides, of certain stipulations of the treaty of peace was particularly exasperated by this proclamation; for anticipation, aroused by Pitt's proposed measure, had been nursed into confident expectation during the four months' interval, in which intercourse had been openly or tacitly allowed. It was at this period that Nelson first came conspicuously into public notice, by checking the connivance of the West Indian governors in the infractions of the Navigation Laws; the Act authorizing commanders of Kings' ships to seize offending vessels, and bring them before the Court of Admiralty.[73] It is said also that his experience had much to do with shaping subsequent legislation upon the same prohibitory lines. In America disappointment was bitter. Little concern was felt in England. Concerted action by several states was thought most unlikely, and a more perfect union impossible. While Massachusetts, for example, in 1785 forbade import or export in any vessel belonging in whole or in part to British subjects, the state then next to her in maritime importance, Pennsylvania, in 1786 repealed laws imposing extra charges on British ships, and admitted all nations on equal terms with her sister states. "The ministry in England," wrote Adams, "build all their hopes and schemes upon the supposition of such divisions in America as will forever prevent a combination of the States, either in prohibition or in retaliatory duties."[74]
Effective retaliation consequently was not feared, and as for results otherwise, it was doubtless thought best to await the test of experience. Proclamation, annually authorized and re-issued, remained therefore the mode of regulating commerce between the British dominions and the United States up to the date of Jay's treaty. Once only, in 1788, Parliament interfered so far as to pass a law, confining the trade with the West Indies to British-built ships and to certain enumerated articles, in the strict spirit of the Navigation system. Otherwise, intercourse with the United States was throughout this period subject at any moment to be modified or annulled by the single will of the Executive; whereas that with other nations, fixed by statute,—the Navigation Act,—could be altered only by the legislature.[75]
Of this British commercial policy, following immediately upon the recognition of independence, Americans had not the slightest reason to complain. They had insisted upon being independent, and it would be babyish to fret about the consequences, when unpalatable. It was unpleasant to find that Great Britain, satisfied that the carrying trade was the first of her interests, upon which depended her naval supremacy, rigorously excluded Americans from branches of that trade before permitted to them; but in so doing she was simply seeking her own advantage by means of her own laws, as a nation does, for instance, when it imposes heavy protective duties. It is quite as legitimate to protect the carrying trade as any other form of industry; and the Navigation Act was no new device, for the special annoyance of Americans. It is very possible that the action of Great Britain at this time was so stupid, that, to use words of Jefferson's, the only way to prophesy what she would do was to ascertain what she ought to do, and infer the contrary. The rule, he said, never failed. This particular stupidity, if such it were,—and there was at least partial ground for the charge,—was simply another case of a most common form of human dulness of perception, preoccupation with a fixed idea. But were the policy wise or foolish, as regards herself, towards the Americans it was not a wrong, but an injury; and, consequently, what the newly independent people had to do was not to complain, but to strike back with retaliatory commercial measures. Jefferson, no friend generally to coercive action, wrote concerning this particular situation, "It is not to the moderation or justice of others we are to trust for fair and equal access to market with our productions, or for our due share in the transportation of them; but to our own means of independence, and the firm will to use them."[76]