The admission of foreign ships, however, was not unconditional: it was made to depend upon reciprocal or equivalent liberality towards our trade and navigation on the part of the countries profiting by the advantages of it; but a power was given to the King in Council to relax the rigour of the Law, if occasion should, in any particular cases, seem to require it. By the same act, the privileges of warehousing were extended to the chief trading ports of the Colonies; a measure, which was well adapted to promote the creation of entrepôts in those places, for the general barter trade of that quarter of the globe.
Independently of all these measures of internal legislation, Treaties of Commerce, founded on the principles of reciprocity, were negotiated with Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, the Hanse Towns, three of the new States of Spanish America, and lastly with France. In the case of Prussia, the power with whom the first of these Treaties was made, it may be said that, it was fairly forced upon this country. It certainly was not the wish of our Government unnecessarily to stir the question. But "the Prussian ship-owners were all going to ruin," and the Prussian Government very wisely resolved not to give to British ships privileges which the British Government denied to Prussian ships. When once foreign powers began to adopt that course, against which we could not justly remonstrate, it has been already shewn that the only safe and wise way was to meet it with concession. Prussia having therefore thus attained her object, to have manifested any unwillingness to treat other powers on the same footing, would have been inconsistent with the principle of our navigation law, which, acting upon the principle "divide et impera," was more anxious for an equal distribution of foreign shipping, than for its diminution.
[PORTUGUESE APPEAL FOR AID AGAINST SPAIN (1826).]
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. p. 219.
The King's Message.
"George R.—His Majesty acquaints the House of Commons that His Majesty has received an earnest application from the Princess Regent of Portugal, claiming, in virtue of the ancient obligations of alliance and amity between His Majesty, and the Crown of Portugal, His Majesty's aid against an hostile aggression from Spain.
"His Majesty has exerted himself for some time past, in conjunction with His Majesty's Ally, the King of France, to prevent such an aggression, and repeated assurances have been given by the Court of Madrid of the determination of his Catholick Majesty, neither to commit, nor to allow to be committed, from his Catholick Majesty's territory, any aggression against Portugal; but His Majesty had learned, with deep concern, that notwithstanding these assurances, hostile inroads into the territory of Portugal have been concerted in Spain, and have been executed under the eyes of Spanish Authorities, by Portuguese Regiments, which had deserted into Spain, and which the Spanish Government had repeatedly and solemnly engaged to disarm, and to disperse.
"His Majesty leaves no effort unexhausted to awaken the Spanish Government to the dangerous consequences of this apparent connivance.
"His Majesty makes this communication to the House of Commons with the full and entire confidence, that his faithful Commons will afford to His Majesty their cordial concurrence and support in maintaining the faith of treaties, and in securing against foreign hostility the safety and independence of the kingdom of Portugal, the oldest ally of Great Britain.