University of Virginia Library

COLONIAL TRADE.

It may reasonably be expected that on this subject the
British Government will not persist in attempting to place
the United States on a worse footing than Russia. In
agreeing to consider the storing for a month, and changing
the ship, as a naturalization of the property, the concession
would be on our side, not on theirs; and in making this a condition
on which alone we could trade with enemy Colonies
even directly to and from our own ports, beyond the amount
of our own consumption, we should make every sacrifice
short of a complete abandonment of our principle, while
they would retain as much of their pretension as is compatible
with any sacrifice whatever, a pretension too, which they
have in so many ways fairly precluded themselves from now
maintaining. In addition to the many authorities for this
remark, already known to you, you will find one of the highest
grade in 5th vol. of Tomlin's edition of Brown's cases in
Parliament, p. 328—Hendricks and others against Cunningham
& others, where it was expressly admitted by the
House of Lords, in a war case before them, "it is now established

by repeated determinations, that neither ships nor
cargoes, the property of subjects of neutral powers, either
going to trade at or coming from the French West India
Islands, with cargoes purchased there, are liable to capture:
and therefore when a ship and cargo so circumstanced are
seized and condemned, the seizure and condemnation shall
be reversed and the value of the ship and cargo accounted
for and paid to the owners by the captors."

As it has generally happened that the British instructions
issued to the Vice Admiralty Courts, and naval Commanders
have not come first to light in British prints, I
inclose one of Novr 14, which has just made its appearance in
ours. As it relates to the present subject, it claims attention
as a proof that all questions as to the legality of the voyage,
in a Russian Trade with the enemies of Great Britain is excluded,
by limiting the right of capture to cases where innocence
or ownership of the Articles, are questioned. The
instruction may at least be considered as coextensive in its
favorable import with the Article in the Russian Treaty, which
you have been authorized to admit into your arrangements;
and in that view, as well as on account of its date, the instruction
may furnish a convenient topic of argument or
expostulation.

If the British Government once consent that the United
States may make their ports a medium of trade between the
Colonies of its enemies and other Countries belligerent as
well as neutral, why should there be a wish to clog it with
the regulations suggested? Why not in fact consent to a
direct trade by our merchants, between those Colonies and
all other Countries? Is it that the price may be a little
raised on the consumers by the circuit of the voyage, and
the charges incident to the port regulations? This cannot
be presumed. With respect to the enemies of Great Britain
the object would be unimportant. With respect to her
neutral friends, it would not be a legitimate object. Must
not the answer then be sought in the mere policy of lessening

the competition with, and thereby favoring the price of
British and other Colonial productions reexported by British
Merchants, from British ports; and sought consequently not
in a belligerent right, or even in a policy merely belligerent;
but in one which has no origin or plea but those of commercial
jealousy and monopoly.