7879. SHIPS, Purchase of foreign.—[further continued].
With respect to the increase
of our shipping, our merchants have no
need * * * of a permission to buy up foreign
bottoms. There is no law prohibiting it,
and when bought they are American property,
and as such entitled to pass freely by our treaties
with some nations, and by the law of nations,
with all. Such accordingly, by a determination
of the Executive, will receive American
passports. They will not be entitled, indeed,
to import goods on the low duties of
home-built vessels, the laws having confined
that privilege to these only.—
To James Monroe. Washington ed. iv, 7.
Ford ed., vi, 323.
(Pa.,
1793)
