[286] The amounts given are those known as the "official values," assigned arbitrarily to the specific articles a century before. The advantage attaching to this system is, that, no fluctuation of price entering as a factor, the values continue to represent from year to year the proportion of trade done. Official values are used throughout this chapter when not otherwise stated. The "real values," deduced from current prices, were generally much greater than the official. Thus, in 1800, the whole volume of trade, by official value £73,723,000, was by real value £111,231,000. The figures are taken from Macpherson's Annals of Commerce.
[287] The French will not suffer a Power which seeks to found its prosperity upon the misfortunes of other states, to raise its commerce upon the ruin of that of other states, and which, aspiring to the dominion of the seas, wishes to introduce everywhere the articles of its own manufacture and to receive nothing from foreign industry, any longer to enjoy the fruit of its guilty speculations.—Message of Directory to the Council of Five Hundred, Jan. 4, 1798.
[288] Message of Directory to Council of Five Hundred, Jan. 4, 1798.
[289] The act imposing these duties went into effect Aug. 15, 1789. Vessels built in the United States, and owned by her citizens, paid an entrance duty of six cents per ton; all other vessels fifty cents. A discount of ten per cent on the established duties was also allowed upon articles imported in vessels built and owned in the country. (Annals of Congress. First Congress, pp. 2131, 2132.)
[290] Am. State Papers, vol. x. 502.
[291] Ibid., p. 389.
[292] Ibid., p. 528.
[293] Ibid., p. 584.
[294] Macpherson's Annals of Commerce, vol. iv. 535.
[295] Am. State Papers, vol. i. 243.