CHAPTER X.

United States of America—Her independence recognised, 1783—Commercial rights—Retaliatory measures—Threatening attitude of Massachusetts—Constitution of the United States—Good effects of a united Government—Maritime laws and laws respecting Neutrals—Feeling on both sides the water—Treaty between Great Britain and United States—The right to impose a countervailing tonnage duty reserved—Difficulty of the negotiation—Remarkable omission respecting cotton—Indignation in France at the Treaty—The French protest against its principles—Interest of England to have private property free from capture at sea—Condemnation of ships in the West Indies and great depredations—Outrages on the Americans—Torture practised by French cruisers—The advantages of the war to the Americans—Impulse given to shipping—Progress of American civilisation—Advances of maritime enterprise—Views of American statesmen—The shipwrights of Baltimore seek protection—Great Britain imposes countervailing duties—Effect of legislative measures on both sides—Freight and duty compared—Conclusions drawn by the American shipowners—Alarm in the United States at the idea of reciprocity—Objections to the British Navigation Act—Threatened destruction to American shipping—Popular clamour—Opinions in Congress—Great influence of the shipowners—Early statesmen of the United States—Their efforts to develop maritime commerce—First trade with the East—European War of 1803—Its effect on their maritime pursuits.

A brief exposition has already been given of the trade and navigation of the British colonies of North America, which in 1776 declared their independence, and after an unwise and ineffectual resistance on the part of Great Britain, achieved their object, and became, in 1783, the now great transatlantic republic, known as the United States of America.

For some time after their independence had been acknowledged, the people of the infant republic were slow in recovering from the extraordinary efforts they had made to secure their position as a nation. There were domestic as well as foreign obstacles to overcome. Each of the thirteen States at first contended for its own immediate interests. Some of them declared for a system of free-trade; others were in favour of protection. When a five per cent. ad valorem duty on foreign produce was proposed by Congress, with a view to pay off the debt of the federation, the opposition of one State alone, that of Rhode Island, was sufficient to defeat the project. And when the State of Pennsylvania levied a duty on foreign produce, New Jersey, equally washed by the waters of the Delaware river, admitted the same articles brought by foreign merchant vessels free of duty, the result being that goods could be easily smuggled into one State from the other. Nor did the troubles of the new States end here.

No sooner had their independence been acknowledged than there arose, as we have seen, in Great Britain a controversy respecting the extent of the commercial rights which it would be advisable to concede to the republic; the main point in contention being whether the vessels of the United States should be excluded from her West Indian settlements, as the vessels of all other nations were by the Navigation Act, and from a commerce at that time constituting the most valuable branch of the whole British trade. As this view of the question prevailed, Congress, in 1784, recommended to the legislatures of the different States the adoption of a law prohibiting for fifteen years the importation and exportation of every species of merchandise in any vessels belonging to foreign powers which had not connected themselves with the government of the United States by commercial treaties. The recommendation of retaliatory measures, as has too frequently been the case in all ages and with all nations, found ready favour with the New England States, whose people were almost exclusively engaged in maritime pursuits. The merchants and shipowners of Boston, who had played so determined and conspicuous a part in the great revolution, were highly exasperated by their exclusion from the ports of the West Indies, and by the regulations adopted with regard to British fisheries in the American seas. They viewed also with alarm the establishment of British factors in their country.

Massachusetts consequently passed an Act for the regulation of navigation and commerce, whereby they prohibited the exportation of any American produce or manufacture from their ports in vessels owned by British subjects after the 1st of August, 1785; with a provisional exception in favour of those British settlements whose governors should reverse their proclamations against the admission of American vessels into their ports. They also levied several extra duties to be paid by vessels belonging to foreigners, and especially by British subjects. There was, however, a proviso, containing a permission for newly-built vessels constructed in Massachusetts, though partly or wholly owned by British subjects, to take in cargoes upon equal terms with the citizens of the United States, but only for their first departures.

Several States, following the example of Massachusetts, levied duties of various kinds on foreign tonnage. In some of the States 1s. per ton was imposed, while in others foreign vessels were subjected to a tax of from 3s. to no less than 5s. per ton, counterparts, in many respects, to the ancient navigation laws of England. However prejudicial to other nations, these high and conflicting rates led to a general misunderstanding among the States themselves, which contributed about as much as any foreign competition would then have done to check the progress of American navigation. But a common interest soon made it manifest to the people of the United States that these differential, or rather protective duties could not be maintained, and that some general regulations were essential to the safety and welfare of the Union, and to the development of its trade and navigation. In short, the different States found it absolutely necessary to part with a portion of their individual liberty in order to secure the combined and wholesome action of the entire Union. Indeed they soon perceived the necessity of confiding to Congress alone the power of regulating and controlling their intercourse with foreign nations; and, with this object in view, a convention was called to revise the articles of the confederation.

By the constitution of the United States (Art. 1, Sec. 8, 9, 10), Congress was vested with the power of regulating commerce with foreign nations. It was therefore stipulated, on the recommendation of the convention, that no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State; that “no preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over that of another;” and that no vessels bound to or from one State should be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another. Further, that “no State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any impost or duty on imports or exports except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its respective laws; that the net produce of all duties or imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the treasury of the United States, and that all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of Congress.”

The adoption of this paper constitution, as yet not quite in force to its legitimate extent in some of the Southern States, conferred upon the United States the sovereign attributes of a great nation. It secured the domestic tranquillity then so much required, and laid the foundation for amicable treaties of commerce and navigation with foreign powers. Placed as the people of the United States were, without any relations of amity with other nations, but happily unshackled with any trading monopolies to limit their free action, it was obviously to their interest to invite other countries to their shores, and to form with them friendly alliances of commerce and navigation. Accordingly their then Secretary of State, seeing that some of the States were opposed to protection, proclaimed with great wisdom the principles of free-trade; and in his manifesto on this subject[307] remarked that “instead of embarrassing commerce under piles of regulating laws, duties, and prohibitions, it should be relieved from all its shackles in all parts of the world. Would even a single nation,” he continued, “begin with the United States this system of free commerce, it would be advisable to begin with that nation.”

Unfortunately other nations, and more especially Great Britain, as well as the Northern States of America, were not then prepared to adopt, pure and simple, the principles he propounded; and although American vessels were then admitted to the British possessions in the East Indies upon the most favoured footing, the great majority of the English people had no inclination to yield one iota of their ancient navigation laws without an equivalent, as they considered these laws to be the chief, if not the sole cause of their maritime success and supremacy. Nor would the English government make any concessions with regard to Light dues and Local charges, of which the shipowners of the United States justly complained, and have still, though to a much less extent, some cause for complaint. The Board of Trade contended that these charges were of ancient establishment and the property of private persons or of corporate bodies, and that the funds arising from them were in many instances applicable to public works or charitable purposes.

With regard to maritime regulations an intimation was given by the Lords of the Council that Great Britain might consent to insert in a commercial treaty with the United States all the articles of maritime law which had of late years been inserted in her commercial treaties with other foreign powers; expressly excepting, however, any article allowing the ships of the United States to protect the property of the enemies of Great Britain in time of war, which should on no account be admitted. On the other hand, the more violent partisans in America for unrestricted trade with the West Indies threatened to break off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain unless their demands were complied with. In this controversy it is amusing to observe that grave members of the English Council actually gave an authoritative opinion: “That the articles which the people of the United States now send to European markets are but few, and can be obtained in equal perfection from other countries; and,” they added, “IT IS MORE LIKELY that the demand for them from thence should in future DIMINISH RATHER THAN INCREASE.” If these short-sighted mortals could but have opened the book of the future, and could have contemplated the prodigious supply of cotton, and corn, and other raw produce which have been derived from the United States since the resources of its fertile and varied soil have been developed, they would have paused before they hazarded such crude and altogether erroneous vaticinations. They, moreover, decried the trade in grain as precarious, and asserted that no system of foreign commerce permanently profitable could be founded upon it.

Happily, however, a treaty of amity and commerce and navigation was at last concluded between the two nations; but we need only here refer to those portions of it which more especially affected their navigation. By this treaty it was arranged that during the continuance of the French war, and for two years after its termination, the citizens of the United States might carry in vessels of their own, not exceeding the burthen of seventy tons, to the British West Indies, all such produce or manufactures of the United States as could be lawfully carried from the States to the islands by British vessels; and also that American vessels might carry back from the islands to the States all such West Indian produce as British vessels might carry to the same quarter; the same duties being levied by each government on the ships of the one country as on those of the other engaged in this trade. The United States were, however, expressly debarred from carrying molasses, sugar, coffee, cotton, etc., the produce of the West Indies, to any other part of the world.

The liberty of continuing to trade to the ports of the territories of Great Britain in the East Indies was confirmed to American vessels; the government of the United States engaging that such vessels should carry the goods brought away by them from India to no part of the world except their own ports in America. By the 15th article it was agreed that no higher duties should be charged in the ports of either country upon vessels belonging to the other than were paid by the like vessels on merchandise of all other nations; nor should any prohibition be imposed upon the exportation or importation of any articles to and from the territories of the two contracting parties respectively, which should not equally extend to all other nations.[308] But the British government reserved to itself the right of imposing on American vessels entering into the British ports in Europe a tonnage duty equal to that which was payable by British vessels in the ports of America; and also such duty as might be adequate to countervail the difference of duty payable on the importation of European and Asiatic goods, when imported into the United States in British or in American vessels. Both parties further agreed to treat with regard to a more exact equalisation of duties. If a vessel should be taken or detained on suspicion of having enemy’s property on board, or of carrying contraband articles, it was stipulated that only the illegal portion of the cargo should be condemned and made prize.

By the 21st article the two governments bound themselves not to permit their subjects or citizens to accept commissions from the enemies of the other, nor to permit such enemies to enlist any of their subjects or citizens into the military service; any subject or citizen acting contrary to this article being made punishable as a pirate. By subsequent articles the contracting parties agreed that neither would permit privateers, commissioned by the enemies of the other, to arm or to trade in their ports, still less allow a vessel belonging to the other to be taken within any of its bays, or within cannon-shot of its coasts. In case of a rupture between the two countries, the subjects or citizens of the one residing in the dominions of the other were secured the privilege of remaining and continuing their trade, so long as they committed no offence against the laws; and even if their conduct should induce the government to order them to depart from the country, they were allowed twelve months to remove their families and effects.

These were the chief articles of this treaty. The disaffected on both sides the water found, however, as has almost invariably been the case in commercial treaties, great fault with it. The shipowners of the United States complained of the restrictions put upon their shipping intercourse with the West Indies; while the cavillers in Great Britain looked upon the permission to use vessels of seventy tons in the trade between the United States and these islands as equivalent to the creating a nursery of seamen for the use of America. But the treaty, in spite of these cavillings, was signed by Lord Grenville and Mr. Jay on the 19th of November, 1794. It was not, however, until the 25th of October, 1795, that the ratifications between the two governments were exchanged. The House of Representatives in the United States did not sanction this treaty till the 30th of April, 1796, nor was the Act for carrying its provisions into effect passed in the British Parliament till the 4th of July, 1797.[309] Throughout the whole negotiation Mr. Jay admits that he was apprehensive of giving umbrage to France; but while he is eloquent about the British spoliations on American commerce, he was forced to admit that British vessels had been captured by French privateers, illegally armed in American ports, and that some of them had actually been taken in the waters of the United States. The obligation of the United States to make compensation for these captures was also admitted by Washington. But the great difficulty of bringing the negotiation to a satisfactory issue cannot be better described than in the words of Mr. Wm. Jay.[310]

“On his arrival in England, the revolutionary frenzy in France was at its height. Robespierre was revelling in all the wantonness of unbridled power, and the French people, the unconscious vassals of a bloody tyrant, were perpetrating acts of cruelty and impiety which excited the astonishment and abhorrence of all who duly estimated the claims of humanity and the obligations of religion. With this people the British monarch was waging a war, in which he was supported by the enthusiastic co-operation of his own subjects,[311] and by the alliance of Russia, Austria, Spain, and Sardinia. Although in this war the United States were professedly neutral, yet it was well known that the sympathies of a large portion of their citizens were enlisted on the side of France, and that they were with difficulty restrained by their government from violating the duties of neutrality. The late proceedings of Congress, also, had tended but little to conciliate the goodwill of England. The American war, and the consequent independence of her colonies, had moreover wounded the pride of Britain, and engendered feelings towards the United States unpropitious to the negotiation. The extent of her resources, the number of her allies, the nature of the war in which she was engaged, and her resentments towards the United States, all combined to indispose Great Britain either to acknowledge the wrongs she had committed or to make reparation for them.”

It was in this treaty that Mr. Jay proposed to insert a clause “that if it should unfortunately happen that Great Britain and the United States should be at war, there shall be no privateers commissioned by them against each other.” Unhappily the clause was considered inadmissible by Lord Grenville, and in fact, although the proposition is embraced in Mr. Jay’s original instructions, the American government have receded from the views they then propounded unless other nations exempt private property from capture at sea.[312]

It may seem singular that the American minister should have consented to prohibit the exportation of cotton, one of the articles enumerated in the clause relating to the West Indian trade. The explanation is curious. In the original draft of the treaty, the United States minister stipulated to prohibit during the continuance of the article in force, all “West Indian productions and manufactures.” The expression was, on reflection, deemed to be too general, and it was agreed to specify the prohibited articles, and accordingly “cotton” was inserted as a West Indian production; the cotton then used in the United States being almost wholly brought from the West Indies.[313] A few months prior to Mr. Jay’s departure for England, Mr. Jefferson, the Secretary of State, in a report to Congress on the commerce of the United States, enumerated the exports of the country, but made no mention of cotton. It was not, in fact, then known as a production of the United States, although it now requires for its transport a greater amount of shipping than almost any other article in the whole range of commerce.

The treaty so satisfactorily concluded between Great Britain and the United States, having been undoubtedly a successful effort of diplomacy in bringing together two nations which had been torn asunder by revolution, was viewed in France with the most profound alarm and indignation. The resentment of the French scarcely knew any bounds. They were full of the idea that the Americans owed their national independence to the aid rendered by them to the revolted colonies, a support which, as already explained, was furnished with a view less to promote the cause of freedom in the United States than to aim a blow at the maritime power of England.

So loud and clamorous were the complaints against the treaty, that if the voice of the French had been listened to, an open rupture must then have ensued. They publicly declared that it violated in a positive and hostile manner the treaty they had concluded “in favour of the Americans in the year 1778, by which the United States agreed to guarantee the possessions of France in the West Indies; whereas, by this treaty, the very furnishing of provisions to the French islands was pronounced illegal.”[314] They alleged that it “deprived France of all the advantages stipulated in a former treaty;” and they charged the Americans with “the abandonment of their neutral rights, to the injury of France,” in not maintaining the pretended principle of the modern law of nations, that free ships make free goods, and that timber and naval stores for the equipment and armament of vessels are not contraband of war.

On this question, of such paramount importance to England, considering the vast amount of her maritime commerce, much has been said and written, and every view of the subject has been argued with great care and consummate ability. No doubt the feeling of nations is becoming more in favour of the principle of making all goods not contraband of war exempt from capture at sea, and the views of the more modern English statesmen are inclining in that direction; but it is only by taking a retrospective view of the measures unscrupulously adopted by both France and England during their mighty struggle that a conjecture can be formed of what will be the future effect of such or similar compacts. While waging internecine war against each other, the people of England and France were famishing alike for want of food. Should such circumstances again arise, it is not easy to suppose, much less to hope, that nations so powerful at sea as Great Britain, with their people thus suffering, would be bound by any compact that stopped the supply from America or elsewhere; and it is almost as futile to hope that they would relinquish their power of hampering their enemies’ commerce at sea unless it were stipulated that neutral nations are bound to enforce the compact. Though England still stands first as a maritime power, and has consequently at her disposal the most extensive means of destroying an enemy’s maritime commerce, she has, on the other hand, by far the largest amount of property of any nation at all times afloat, and must therefore be the largest sufferer in the event of hostilities with any power which can equip a fleet of privateers. Consequently, it was hoped by a large portion of the English people, when the American government in 1856 declined to become parties to the declaration of the European Powers assembled in conference at Paris, unless all private property was made free from capture at sea, that Great Britain would have readily acquiesced in the proposal.

This policy did not, however, suit France in 1797; and to show in a practical manner their displeasure at the treaty into which the United States had entered with England, the French republic issued in the same year the circular, already incidentally noticed, in which they announced that the conduct of France towards neutrals would be regulated by the manner in which they should suffer the English to treat them, thus opening a wide door to spoliation, in defiance of subsisting treaty obligations. At Malaga and Cadiz the French consuls interpreted this unprincipled notification or decree as an authorization to capture and condemn all American merchantmen for the single circumstance of their being destined to a British port. But the most disastrous effect was produced in the West Indies, whose seas swarmed with privateers and gun-boats; which were stimulated into active operation by the latitude allowed to their depredations by the indefinite terms of that decree, and the explanatory orders of the agents of the French directory at Guadaloupe and St. Domingo. These agents captured and confiscated American vessels under the most shameless and contradictory pretexts. All neutral vessels bound to certain enumerated ports, which it was pretended in the decree had been given up to the English, were unceremoniously condemned. The fact of an American vessel being bound to an English port sufficed for her sweeping condemnation, and not unfrequently for that of her cargo. Any informality in a bill of lading; any irregularity in the certified list of the passengers and crew, the supercargo being, for instance, by birth a foreigner, although a naturalised citizen of the United States; the destruction of a paper of any kind soever, and the want of a sea letter, were deemed sufficient to warrant the condemnation of American property, even when the proofs of the property were indubitable.

In the West Indies the most audacious scenes of depredation were exhibited; so much so that the conduct of the public agents and of the commissioned cruisers surpassed all former examples. American vessels were not only captured under the French decrees, but when brought to trial in the French tribunals, they with their cargoes were condemned, without admitting the owners or their agents to make any defence. Indeed a system of spoliation seems to have been brought into practice for the obvious purpose of insuring condemnations. By a monstrous abuse in judicial proceedings, frauds and falsehoods, as well as flimsy and shameless pretexts, passed unexamined and uncontradicted, and were made the foundation of sentences of condemnation. American citizens were beaten, insulted, and imprisoned; and even their prisoners of war were exchanged with the British for Frenchmen. American property going to or coming from neutral ports was seized, and in many cases forcibly taken when destined for France, or actually in French ports, without any pretence whatever, except that the French required it for their own purposes.

Nor did their wanton and outrageous conduct against the Americans stop here. Many accounts are extant of attempts to effect condemnations by bribing the officers and seamen of the American vessels to swear falsely; and it was further reserved for those days, when offered bribes were refused, and threats despised, to endeavour to accomplish the object by torture. In a protest set forth by Captain Martin, master of the Cincinnatus, a vessel of about two hundred and twenty-nine tons, belonging to Baltimore, the fact of torture having been resorted to by the French cruisers appears to be placed beyond all doubt.[315] In this protest he states that while on his voyage from Baltimore to London he was boarded by a French armed brig under English colours, when he with five of his crew were taken on board, and though the vessel’s papers when examined left no doubt of the nationality of his ship and cargo, being American, the officer in command of the French brig insisted that the cargo was English property, and assured Martin that if he would admit the fact, and formally acknowledge it, his full freight should be paid, and he should have a present of one thousand pounds. But the overture was spurned, the master declaring the whole to belong solely to Aquilla Brown of Baltimore, merchant. “Whereupon the French officers thumb-screwed the said master in the cabin of their said brig, and kept him in torture to extort a declaration that the said cargo was English property, for nearly four hours, but without the desired effect.” A vessel heaving in sight, Martin was liberated, but it was not until the Cincinnatus reached the English Channel that she was relieved by H.M.S. Galatea, and finally reached Dover. Mr. Rufus King, minister of the United States in London, personally examined Captain Martin’s thumbs, and said “they still bear the marks of the torturing screws, and the scars will go with him to the grave.”[316]

But with all these drawbacks to the progress and success of American shipping, and the great disadvantages to which neutrals are exposed during a state of war, which often counterbalance the advantages they enjoy of seizing upon the carrying trade of the world, it cannot be denied that the memorable revolution of France in 1789, and the wars consequent upon the events, created a vast demand for American exports, and secured for the Americans a very considerable portion of the carrying trade of Europe. They not only carried the colonial productions to the several parent states, but they also became the purchasers of them in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies. A new era was indeed established in their commercial history, and their merchants and shipowners increased in numbers to an extent out of all proportion to the general state of the population.

Many persons who had realised moderate capitals from mercantile and other pursuits now become daring adventurers as carriers by sea [there being no trading companies, whose monopolies have a withering effect upon individual enterprise], the practice became common for Americans to frequently change their pursuits, a practice springing out of a native energy of the people still prevailing. Foreigners were admitted without reservation to all the privileges of the citizens of the United States, although the government carefully excluded them from any participation ostensibly in the benefits arising from the possession of ships. No aliens were permitted to be either sole or part owners of American vessels. The predominant spirit of that period had a powerful effect in determining the character of the rising generation, and the brilliant prospects held out by maritime enterprise led them to neglect for a time the mechanical and manufacturing branches of industry.

By this greatly extended intercourse with other nations the Americans not only augmented their material wealth, but became acquainted with the habits, manners, science, arts, resources, wealth, and power of those countries with which they carried on a profitable trade. They were thus enabled to avail themselves of all the stock of accumulated experience and wisdom which the elder nations of Europe had slowly, and, at the cost of so much labour, bloodshed, and incessant struggles, secured. With some modification of the English constitution, the Americans, having as yet no ancient aristocracy, chose an elective republican form of government; but the well-framed body of English laws formed the basis on which the whole framework of society rested. In almost everything relating to the conduct of commercial and maritime affairs the English code was adopted, and became transplanted and firmly rooted in the hearts of the American people. In a natural desire to appear free and original, they affected some changes, but these were merely partial; and, both in theory and practice, English laws relating to shipping, with such prudent modifications as the change of position and circumstances required, were adopted, and formed the model of American practice and legislation.

With these incalculable advantages, a rich soil, an enterprising and free people, a country indented with harbours and bathed by magnificent navigable rivers, it is scarcely a matter for wonder that their maritime enterprise made rapid advances. The capital of the shipowners being thus suddenly augmented, they were enabled to explore new sources of wealth. The entire globe was circumnavigated with a view to open new markets. Merchants who had been long engaged in trade were confounded by the changes so rapidly effected. The less experienced considered the newly acquired advantages as matters of right which would remain to them. They did not contemplate a period of general peace, when each nation would carry its own productions in its own vessels; when the jealousy of rivals would suggest the imposition of differential or practically prohibitive duties; when foreign commerce would be again fettered and limited by “enumerated articles,” and when, with reduced profits on shipping transactions, a much greater amount of circumspection would be necessary.

It was in the midst of this career of prosperity in the United States that many far-seeing American statesmen urged on the then reluctant attention of those of their countrymen who dwelt along the sea-board the paramount necessity of dedicating their surplus capital to the extension of agricultural industry. These men urged that the food heretofore exported by America to foreign countries might not be required for European consumption, and that many of the hands then engaged in active hostilities, either for defence or conquest, would be required for agriculture. Instead of there being always a deficiency of food in Europe, it was quite possible that there might be a surplus of provisions, the many thousands in their armies and fleets being added to the productive classes, and thus diminishing the chief branch of freight enjoyed by the United States shipping.

The experience of the interval from 1783 to 1791, when American trade was so much depressed, had not been lost upon keen and calm observers, and many able American writers incessantly pointed to the vast, rich, fertile uncultivated lands in the south and west of the Union, as the inexhaustible mine of wealth from which the future greatness and power of the States must be derived, and urged their countrymen to encourage and direct their efforts to that branch of domestic industry. This salutary advice was not altogether lost at that time upon the Americans; but it has since been ardently pursued, with what success the exports of the articles of corn and cotton alone will fully establish.

Nevertheless, the shipowners of the United States were at the earliest period of their existence as a nation infected with the principles of self-protection on which the English Navigation Act had been founded; for in the very first session of Congress, 1789, the shipwrights of Baltimore and South Carolina, in rehearsing their grievances to the House of Representatives, copied identically the numerous complaints urged on this side the water. They pointed out the diminished state of ship-building in America, and the ruinous restrictions to which their vessels were subject in foreign ports; and, among the advantages looked for from the national government, was the increase of the shipping and maritime strength of the United States of America by laws similar in their nature and operation to that Act. Whichever way they looked, they perceived that the United States ought soon to become as powerful in shipping as any nation in the world. They insisted that, upon the closest examination of the subject, they were better prepared for a Navigation Act than England had been when the British Navigation Act was passed in 1660. They argued that though the registered tonnage of that kingdom did not then exceed ninety-six thousand tons, it had reached close upon eight hundred thousand tons in 1774, an increase, in little more than a century, of about seven hundred and four thousand tons. Why, therefore, exclaimed the Baltimore shipwrights, why should not we adopt a similar wise policy?

Arguments such as these, reiterated over and over during a course of years, produced in time their effect upon Congress, many of whose members had been strongly opposed to the treaty with England. French influence was also brought to bear in every conceivable way against it, and at last the protectionists of the United States were enabled to carry a measure through the Legislature sanctioning certain differential duties in favour of their own vessels as against those of England trading with their ports. From this time commenced that war of retaliation which, in one shape or other, continued between the two nations for nearly half a century.

In the fifteenth article of the treaty of commerce and navigation the British government had reserved the right of countervailing these discriminating duties, and the United States had bound themselves not to impose any new or additional duty on the tonnage of British ships or vessels, or to increase the then subsisting difference between the duties payable on the importation of any article in British American ships; so that when Congress imposed increased duties, the English Parliament exercised the reserved right stipulated in the treaty, and thus by the Act of Geo. III., c. 97, countervailing duties were imposed, payable on the importation of American goods in American vessels, in addition to the duties payable on their importation in British ships.[317] Additional duties were also imposed upon certain specified articles, and three per cent. ad valorem upon enumerated articles.

Such, then, was the legislation on both sides, as it most materially affected merchant shipping. The American shipowners and merchants looked upon every proceeding on the part of the British Legislature as levelled especially against themselves; and, jealous of everything which militated against their own interest, they contended that the Parliament of Great Britain had exceeded the fair intent and meaning of the treaty of 1794, and had secured for the British shipowners the exclusive carriage to Great Britain, in time of peace, of some of the most important objects of American exportation. They pointed out that the English had selected fish, oil, and tobacco, articles of great bulk, as objects on which the highest countervailing duties had been imposed. They alleged that in consequence of this countervailing duty upon oil, a British ship of two hundred and fifty tons register, carrying two hundred and fifty tuns of oil to great Britain from the United States, would pay 453l. 15s. sterling less duty thereon than the same oil would pay if imported into Great Britain in an American ship. By a similar operation, a British ship of two hundred and fifty tons, carrying four hundred hogsheads of tobacco, of one thousand two hundred pounds each, to Great Britain from the United States, would pay 360l. sterling less duty than would be payable on the same quantity of tobacco imported in an American ship; the whole freight, at 35s. sterling per hogshead, would only amount to 700l. sterling, which, after deducting the countervailing duty of 360l., would leave to the American a net freight of only 344l. 1s. sterling.

It was further pointed out that rice, when imported into Great Britain in an American ship, was charged with a duty of 8d. per hundredweight more than when imported in a British ship; and that an extra duty amounting on a tierce of rice to 3s. 9d. sterling, the freight of a tierce of rice being then about 12s. sterling, was also demanded. It was said that no person would give 15s. 9d. freight in an American when he could have the same carried for 12s. in a British ship. Pot and pearl ashes were made to pay a countervailing duty of 9d. per barrel; and as the freight of such a barrel was presumed to be 5s. to 5s. 6d. sterling in times of peace, a difference of 9d. sterling would effectually give the carrying trade to British ships of all the ashes exported from the United States to Great Britain.

From such arguments as these the shipowners of the United States drew the conclusion that Great Britain, by her countervailing Act, secured effectually the carrying, for her own wants and foreign commerce, of the American fish-oil, tobacco, pot and pearl ashes, rice, indigo, and cotton; and, having obtained the carriage of these bulky articles, all minor objects, except naval stores, not being sufficiently important to form entire cargoes, would also, of necessity, be carried in British ships. The small export duty imposed by the British Parliament, of one-half per cent. on all goods, wares, and merchandise of the growth or manufacture of Great Britain on their exportation to any port in Europe within the Straits of Gibraltar, and of one per cent. on similar goods when exported to any place not being in Europe or within the Straits of Gibraltar, subjected the United States to a duty on exports double that which was paid by the nations of Europe. Of course this extra duty, small as it was, but utterly wrong in principle, served to make a new grievance, and the Americans contended that this discriminating, or, more properly, this differential, duty was in contradiction to the spirit of the treaties which subsisted between the United States and Great Britain.

Two modes were proposed to the American Legislature to obviate the disadvantages resulting to the carrying trade of the United States from these countervailing and differential duties. The one was, to increase the American discriminating[318] (differential?) duties, so as to counteract the injury they experienced from the operation of the countervailing duties of other nations. The other was, to relinquish the American duties (so far as they related to goods, wares, and merchandise, the growth, produce, or manufacture of the nations to which the ship in which these were imported belonged) in favour of such foreign nations as would agree to abolish such of their discriminating duties as were in their operation injurious to the interests of the United States.

The mere intimation of a design to inaugurate something like a policy of reciprocity, if not of entirely free-trade, struck alarm into the minds of the shipowners and shipbuilders of the United States. They held meetings, in which their patriotic feelings of indignation, as seems to have been the case in other countries as well, were singularly intermingled with a keen sense of self-interest, not perhaps very wisely directed. But, carried away by popular clamour, engendered but too often by parties who had only a very limited view of their own and of the national interests, the great mercantile bodies of New York, Boston, and Philadelphia strenuously opposed any remission of the American differential tonnage duties. They insisted that, taking anterior years as a guide, the loss to the revenue would not be less than $450,000 per annum. They viewed the project with alarm, believing that if carried out it must essentially injure the commerce of the United States; as its immediate effect, by opening the market for freight to the lowest bidder, would be to shift the carrying trade from the hands of their own merchants to those of foreigners. In this way the American shipowners argued that foreigners would build cheaper, equip cheaper, and sail their vessels at less cost than they could, at the same time intimating that Europeans were generally satisfied with a less profit than the American merchant could afford to receive.

Accordingly, they contended that to meet the advances of Great Britain and to repeal the American countervailing Acts, would not be to place the two nations on an equal footing, so long as England retained her Navigation Act. The mutual repeal of differential tonnage duties they urged would not establish a perfect system of reciprocity; as the Americans, in that case, would thus permit Great Britain to carry to the United States, not only goods the growth or manufacture of that country, but of all others, while by maintaining in force her Navigation Act, the Americans would be expressly confined in their trade to the carriage of goods the growth or manufacture of the United States. British vessels would accordingly bring goods from England to America, take a freight in one of the ports of the United States to the British colonies, where American vessels are not admitted, and thence a third, home, making three freights in one voyage; so that foreigners would crowd their wharves, underbid their freight, monopolize their markets, and “leave American vessels idly to rot in their docks.”[319]

Such was the almost universal feeling against the measure entertained by the shipowners of the United States, who endeavoured to enlist the agricultural and mechanical classes on their side, and employed for this purpose arguments which have been repeated over and over again in our own generation. They asserted that although, generally speaking, freight is paid by the consumer, and that, therefore, it may be said it is immaterial to the farmer how high or how low it may be, nevertheless this is not the case when the demand ceases or slackens; it then falls back on the husbandman. In this point of view, to transfer the American trade to foreigners would, it was alleged, lessen very much the certainty of the demand.

They went farther, and told the agriculturists that the active enterprise of the American merchants and shipowners was constantly on the alert in looking abroad to every part of the world for a market, and if it was anywhere to be found, or if there existed only a reasonable presumption that it might be found, the farmer was thereby secured a ready vent for his produce. Perhaps the calculation of the merchant might be disappointed, perhaps not even a freight would be earned, and he might be ruined; nevertheless, this misfortune did not reach the farmer, who had secured the benefit of a good market. But, in the event of American vessels disappearing, he must then be left at the mercy of chance adventurers for a market; and when the demand is not very great, the price of the freight would be deducted from the article itself. This serious contingency, it was argued, must tend necessarily to lessen essentially the value of the farmer’s produce. As nothing less than the total annihilation of the American merchant navy was anticipated, it was pointed out to the mechanic that those numerous bodies connected with shipbuilding, the carpenter, the blacksmith, the sail-maker, the rope-maker, and others would of course all be thrown out of employment; their labour would be neither wanted nor paid for. The American ships, being, under these circumstances, banished from their native shores, would no longer furnish a nursery for seamen, but that valuable class of citizens would be driven to seek for their bread in other countries, and finally, in any future European wars which might supervene, and which were constantly liable to happen, the American people would find themselves denuded of seamen and ships, and would not be able to avail themselves of that neutral position which reflection and experience equally warranted them in calculating upon, as one of the “blessings” allied to their remote and secure geographical position.

The history of these struggles shows that however enlightened the members of Congress may have been, it was, even at that time, impossible to run counter to popular clamour, although this may have been instigated by perhaps an erroneous view of the self-interests of the parties primarily concerned. The consumer did not feel the same deep immediate interest in the controversy as the shipowner, whose voice was loudly heard in Congress through the representatives of the great ports and maritime towns.

Upon a consideration of all the circumstances, Congress was led to consider that any retaliatory legislation imposing heavier discriminating duties on foreign tonnage or goods would in its consequences materially tend to increase the commercial warfare, and render more serious the war of tariff between the United States and foreign nations. The reflecting, far-seeing members perceived that if the United States were to increase her differential duties, there was every probability that England and other foreign nations would also augment theirs in every instance, and that at every time the United States pursued their plan of increase, foreign nations would repeat the same process. But they were met at all points, as we have seen, by the almost universal opposition of the American shipowners, who were as eager to maintain a protectionist policy in shipping as any of their rivals in the same business on this side the Atlantic.

Though the shipowners of the Northern States exercised for a time considerable influence over the Legislature, a committee of the House of Representatives passed a resolution which went no further than to recommend to the House, “That so much of the several Acts imposing duties on the tonnage of ships and vessels, and on goods, wares, and merchandise imported into the United States, as imposes a discriminating duty of tonnage between foreign vessels and vessels of the United States, and between goods imported into the United States in foreign vessels and vessels of the United States, ought to be repealed, so far as the same respects the produce or manufactures of the nation to which such foreign ships or vessels shall belong, such repeal to take effect in favour of any foreign nation whenever the President shall be satisfied that the discriminating or countervailing duties of such foreign nation, so far as they operate to the disadvantage of the United States, have been abolished.”

This important resolution, opening the door to reciprocal measures, was declared to be more consistent with the true interest, as well as with the peaceful disposition, of the United States than any retrograde movement. Although no legislative action followed this enunciation of the principles of reciprocity, it formed at a future period the basis of both negotiation and legislation with foreign powers. The time, however, had not then arrived for the avowal and practice of a much wiser and more enlightened policy than that by which nations were guided before, and for some years after, the close of the eighteenth century.

Perhaps no nation of modern times has produced more enlightened statesmen than those who regulated the affairs of the United States for full half a century after the declaration of its independence. They had, as we have seen, numerous difficulties to contend with, both at home and abroad, but these were overcome with a tact and genius which commands our admiration. Though materially assisted in their efforts to extend and develop their shipping by the seafaring habits of the people, by the natural maritime resources of their own country, and by the advantages they derived as neutrals during the war which so long raged in Europe, they were ever ready to encourage increased intercourse with distant nations, in spite of the opposition of the maritime States to those liberal measures which they had so frequently propounded, and in which they had been too often thwarted.

But though the American shipowners, as a body, and as would seem to be the case with the majority of shipowners of all countries, clung to protection, they were individually quite as daring, and even more energetic, than those of Great Britain. So early in their independence as 1785 a vessel from Baltimore in Maryland displayed, for the first time, the American flag in the Canton river, where she discharged a cargo of American produce, and loaded in return a cargo of teas, China ware, silk, and other produce for her own country. In September 1788, Captain Read, the commander of an American merchantman, arrived in Philadelphia from a voyage to China, wherein he had performed the outward passage by stretching from the Cape of Good Hope to the south of New Holland (Australia), and running northwards along the east side of that vast island, until he reached his port of destination. As we have seen, other American merchant vessels had reached the British possessions in India at a time while as yet prolonged voyages to the most distant regions of the globe were deemed such arduous efforts of nautical skill, as only to be performed in safety by a few experienced commanders in the service of Spain, Portugal, Holland, and England, who had been accustomed to the navigation of those distant seas, and were familiar with the routes, and the prevailing periodical winds. So rapid indeed was their progress, that out of the million tons of sea-going vessels owned in the United States at the commencement of this century, no less than seven hundred and twenty thousand were employed in their trade with foreign nations. Although some historians[320] attribute this prosperity in great measure to their protective laws, it will be found mainly due to the facilities which the United States afford for maritime pursuits, the abundance and cheapness of timber suitable for shipbuilding purposes, and especially, as we have just mentioned, to the energy of the people and the advantages they derived as a neutral nation.

When in May 1803, the war again broke out between France and England, the shipowners of the United States, with their characteristic energy, were prepared to avail themselves, to an even greater extent than they had hitherto done, of the numerous advantages which a European war conferred on them as neutrals. Hostilities between two great nations must ever be a most grievous calamity, but it was greatly aggravated in the present instance by the depredations of American privateers hoisting, as might suit their purpose, French or English colours, under men, too, who were almost as reckless and daring in their acts as the English and Dutch buccaneers of the early part of the eighteenth century, some of them frequently making capture of vessels belonging to their own countrymen.

But though an examination of the State papers collected by the Americans themselves furnishes abundant proof of too many unblushing acts of piracy committed by vessels built and equipped in American ports, and frequently manned almost exclusively by citizens of the United States, there is no reason to suppose that their lawless acts were committed by the consent or knowledge of the American government. When the arm of the law is not sufficiently strong, there are always abundance of adventurers of all nations ready to take advantage of its weakness and, in the name of neutrals or under the flag of belligerents, as may best suit their purpose, to fit out from neutral ports cruisers with no other object than plunder; and there were too many of such vessels cruising about the ocean during the last twelve years of the mighty struggle between France and England. The government of the Federation was as yet incapable of controlling the ardour, love of gain, and enterprise which render similar adventures as fascinating as they are profitable; but it exclaimed incessantly against both England and France for alleged breaches of the laws of nations, and did not, or would not, see the violations committed by their own or by professing citizens sailing under the flag of the United States in vessels built and equipped in their own harbours, and especially in the port of Baltimore, at that time, and for some years afterwards celebrated for the construction of vessels of great beauty and symmetry, and of extraordinary speed.