[306] It is now certain that Soult, feeling sure of beating Wellington at Toulouse, had received the news of the entrance of the Allies into Paris four days before he fought the final battle of the great war, on April 10, 1814.—Alison, xi. p. 309.
CHAPTER X.
United States of America—Her independence recognised, 1783—Commercial rights—Retaliatory measures—Threatening attitude of Massachusetts—Constitution of the United States—Good effects of a united Government—Maritime laws and laws respecting Neutrals—Feeling on both sides the water—Treaty between Great Britain and United States—The right to impose a countervailing tonnage duty reserved—Difficulty of the negotiation—Remarkable omission respecting cotton—Indignation in France at the Treaty—The French protest against its principles—Interest of England to have private property free from capture at sea—Condemnation of ships in the West Indies and great depredations—Outrages on the Americans—Torture practised by French cruisers—The advantages of the war to the Americans—Impulse given to shipping—Progress of American civilisation—Advances of maritime enterprise—Views of American statesmen—The shipwrights of Baltimore seek protection—Great Britain imposes countervailing duties—Effect of legislative measures on both sides—Freight and duty compared—Conclusions drawn by the American shipowners—Alarm in the United States at the idea of reciprocity—Objections to the British Navigation Act—Threatened destruction to American shipping—Popular clamour—Opinions in Congress—Great influence of the shipowners—Early statesmen of the United States—Their efforts to develop maritime commerce—First trade with the East—European War of 1803—Its effect on their maritime pursuits.
United States of America.
A brief exposition has already been given of the trade and navigation of the British colonies of North America, which in 1776 declared their independence, and after an unwise and ineffectual resistance on the part of Great Britain, achieved their object, and became, in 1783, the now great transatlantic republic, known as the United States of America.
Her independence recognised, 1783.
For some time after their independence had been acknowledged, the people of the infant republic were slow in recovering from the extraordinary efforts they had made to secure their position as a nation. There were domestic as well as foreign obstacles to overcome. Each of the thirteen States at first contended for its own immediate interests. Some of them declared for a system of free-trade; others were in favour of protection. When a five per cent. ad valorem duty on foreign produce was proposed by Congress, with a view to pay off the debt of the federation, the opposition of one State alone, that of Rhode Island, was sufficient to defeat the project. And when the State of Pennsylvania levied a duty on foreign produce, New Jersey, equally washed by the waters of the Delaware river, admitted the same articles brought by foreign merchant vessels free of duty, the result being that goods could be easily smuggled into one State from the other. Nor did the troubles of the new States end here.
Commercial rights.
Retaliatory measures.
No sooner had their independence been acknowledged than there arose, as we have seen, in Great Britain a controversy respecting the extent of the commercial rights which it would be advisable to concede to the republic; the main point in contention being whether the vessels of the United States should be excluded from her West Indian settlements, as the vessels of all other nations were by the Navigation Act, and from a commerce at that time constituting the most valuable branch of the whole British trade. As this view of the question prevailed, Congress, in 1784, recommended to the legislatures of the different States the adoption of a law prohibiting for fifteen years the importation and exportation of every species of merchandise in any vessels belonging to foreign powers which had not connected themselves with the government of the United States by commercial treaties. The recommendation of retaliatory measures, as has too frequently been the case in all ages and with all nations, found ready favour with the New England States, whose people were almost exclusively engaged in maritime pursuits. The merchants and shipowners of Boston, who had played so determined and conspicuous a part in the great revolution, were highly exasperated by their exclusion from the ports of the West Indies, and by the regulations adopted with regard to British fisheries in the American seas. They viewed also with alarm the establishment of British factors in their country.