7874. SHIPS, Passports.—[further continued].
Before the receipt of
* * * the form of your passports, it had
been determined here, that passports should be
issued in our own ports only, as well to secure
us against those collusions which would be
fraudulent towards our friends, and would introduce
a competition injurious to our own vessels,
as to induce these to remain in our own
service, and thereby give to the productions of
our own soil the protection of its own flag in its
passage to foreign markets.—
To Thomas Pinckney. Washington ed. iii, 550.
Ford ed., vi, 242.
(Pa.,
May. 1793)