A pamphlet by Lord Sheffield,[235] and another by Mr. Chalmers,[236] urged that the remaining loyal continental colonies sufficed to supply the British West India Islands with lumber and provisions, which the advocates on the opposite side of the question denied. Great discussions arose, in which all the controverted points of free trade and exclusion were again urged in innumerable publications; and, as usual, glaring exaggerations were resorted to on both sides. In the sequel, the English government adopted a middle course. A proclamation of the 2nd of July, 1783, by the King in council, permitted British subjects to carry in British vessels all kinds of naval stores, lumber, live-stock, corn, &c., from the United States of America to the West India Islands, and also to export rum, sugar, molasses, coffee, cocoa, &c., from the Islands to the States under the same regulations and duties as if these commodities had been cleared out for a British possession. This concession naturally satisfied neither parties; Great Britain and the United States alike regarding it with either alarm or disdain. The West India planters apprehended instant ruin if there were any check on the free and unrestricted intercourse with the continent; while the Americans carried their resentment to an extent sufficient to induce three of the States to make a requisition to Congress that all commercial intercourse with England should be prohibited. The British government, however, vigorously supported by the shipping interest, remained inexorable in its restrictive policy.
In this matter the American people, moved, as it would seem, entirely by an instinctive sense of self-interest, became the champions of a free-trade policy in shipping, while their shipowners, relying on the provisions of the Navigation Act, assumed the character of exclusionists. Thus the antagonistic interests of the shipowners of the two countries disturbed the friendly feelings which might otherwise have prevailed. Three temporary Orders in Council were issued, relating to the importation of tobacco, and payment of duties: a matter of no little difficulty before the organisation of the English warehousing system. The third of these “Orders” renewed that of the 2nd of July, regulating the intercourse between the United States and the West Indies, but relaxed the previous regulations for the British trade so far as to permit the importation of any unmanufactured goods not prohibited by law, except oil, pitch, tar, turpentine, indigo, masts, yards, and bowsprits, being the produce of the United States, either by British or American subjects, and either in British or American vessels. This arrangement, having received parliamentary sanction, was continued annually with little alteration throughout the next five years; but the Americans during this period persisted in urging their claims to have both trades placed on a more liberal system.
In 1784 Congress recommended to the legislature of the different States the adoption of a resolution prohibiting, for fifteen years, the importation and exportation of every species of merchandise, in vessels belonging to any foreign powers not provided with a commercial treaty with the United States. The people of Boston had been highly exasperated by the exclusion of their vessels from the ports of the West Indies, and by the high duties on rice, oil, and tobacco, while their shipping had also suffered by the British regulations of her fisheries along the American coasts.
Changes produced by the Navigation Laws consequent on the separation.
They overlooked the great fact that the independence of the North American colonies necessarily placed them in the same relative position to Great Britain as other countries affected by the English navigation laws, and thereby excluded them from the ports of the British Colonies, a result deeply prejudicial to the shipping interests of Boston, as their cheap ships could no longer trade with the West India Islands.[237] The high differential duties on rice, oil, and tobacco which had been enforced against them, regulations combined with the fishery, led to retaliatory measures being resorted to by the people of Massachussetts; hence, after the 1st of August, 1785, the exportation of American produce and manufactures was altogether prohibited, and vessels owned by British subjects prohibited from entering the ports of that State. A proviso was indeed added to meet the case when the governor of any British settlement might be willing to rescind the proclamations against American vessels. In fact a new warfare of prohibitions and restrictions, with retaliatory and conciliatory measures to counteract or aid the contending parties as the case might be, was commenced by various States, the end of which was not foreseen upon either side the water. Unfortunately the States of the North of the Union had commercial interests antagonistic to those of the South, and hence arose a complex system which on all sides greatly increased the difficulties of the navigation laws, and became the parent of endless strife and animosity, which in after years assisted in some measure to bring about the terrible civil war that raged from 1860 to 1865 between the Northern and Southern States.
Concessions were however soon made, and afterwards, in 1788, an Act was passed, permanently permitting the importation into the West Indies, in British vessels, of tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, horses, cattle, &c., the produce of the United States, and the exportation from the West Indies to the States of all goods or produce lawfully exportable to European countries. The commercial jealousies and animosities between the two countries now gradually subsided, though British shipowners still adhered to the principle of their Navigation Laws, and excluded American vessels from the colonial and inter-colonial trade, all such goods imported and exported being required to be carried in British bottoms.
New disputes.
English Orders in Council.
Negotiations opened between Mr. Jay and Lord Grenville.
Thus matters went on until the war broke out with France in 1792, when new disputes arose with the United States. In order to obtain the produce of their West India Islands, the French despatched their sugars and other produce to the continent of America, whence it was conveyed in American neutral vessels to France. Here is a striking illustration of a friendly power professing neutrality, yet enriching itself by a carrying trade for the benefit of one of the belligerents. Accordingly an English Order in Council was issued for seizing all vessels conveying to France the produce of the French colonies, or supplies from France for the use of those colonies. No wonder that under such circumstances the Americans set up the demand that “free ships should make free goods,” which was echoed through the whole world at a later period. No fewer than six hundred American vessels were seized, or detained in English ports, under this order between the 6th of November, 1793, and the 28th of March, 1794, a proceeding which naturally excited much alarm among merchants connected with the United States, lest there should be an immediate rupture between the two countries. The American government took up the matter, and after having, on the 26th of March, 1794, laid an embargo for thirty days on all British merchant vessels in their ports, sent Mr. Jay as Envoy Extraordinary to London, in order to obtain redress. Upon this the English Order in Council was revoked, and friendly negotiations were entered into with the view of placing the maritime relations of the two countries upon a more satisfactory footing; the result being the conclusion, in 1794, of a treaty of amity, commerce, and navigation, to which we shall hereafter more fully refer.