University of Virginia Library

5715. NAVIGATION, French and English hostility.—

The difference of sixty-two
livres ten sols the hogshead established by
the National Assembly [of France] on tobacco
brought in their and our ships, is such
an act of hostility against our navigation,
as was not to have been expected from the
friendship of that nation. It is as new in its
nature as extravagant in its degree; since it
is unexampled that any nation has endeavored
to wrest from another the carriage
of its own produce, except in the case of their
colonies.—
To William Short. Washington ed. iii, 274. Ford ed., v, 362.
(Pa., 1791)