nations being no longer content to witness with tame indifference our exclusive system, began to counteract this selfishness on our parts by retaliation on theirs.

The example was first set by the United States, which after the peace again laid restraints on British commerce; not, however, as before, with the hope of injuring our prosperity, but on the fair and wise ground of not granting facilities to us, which we refused to them. When this plan was adopted by the United States there were only three courses open to the Government: 1. The adoption of a system of reciprocity; 2. Maintaining the old system of restraint; 3. The imposition of additional restrictions. With respect to the last, it certainly would have been most unwise to have entered into a contest, which, if mutually persevered in, must have ended in the annihilation of the trade of both parties. And with respect to the last but one, it is obvious that that one of the two countries would have suffered the most, which had the largest commercial marine; and, that as ours was the largest, we should have been the greatest sufferers.

Our Government, therefore, judiciously resolved to adopt the only remaining alternative, and accordingly considerable alterations were made in our Navigation Laws in favour of the United States in their direct trade with this

country. In the course of a few years the other Powers of Europe began to follow the example which had thus been set them. The effect of their so doing we had evidently began to feel before the year 1821; for in that year, we find Mr. Wallace *, who was then Vice-President of the Board of Trade, introducing into the House of Commons a new Navigation Act, and marking his strong sense of our altered position by the following very just observations: "We "are now," he said, "in a situation extremely "different from that in which we were placed "some years ago. We have not now the undi"vided empire of the sea, we cannot now com"mand the navigation of the ocean, we must "therefore be content to proceed on a fair sys"tem of competition, and to carry on our deal"ings under strict commercial rules."

In conformity with these sentiments, Mr. Wallace not only introduced this new Navigation Act, but likewise that same session brought forward another, called the Warehousing Act, which, however, did not pass the legislature till the following Session. Mr. Robinson (who was President of the same Board) also brought in two acts changing the regulations of our colonial intercourse; which acts were by no means inferior in importance to the two first mentioned.

* Vide his Speech, June 25. 1821.

The old Navigation Law, although made solely for the benefit of British shipping, as a whole, subjected individual ships to many inconvenient restrictions. The great objects of it were, first, to forbid the importation of the production of the three distant continents, except from the particular one of which they were the production: - secondly, to prevent any one European State from becoming the general carrier of European goods. These two objects were not lost sight of in the new law, the chief alterations effected by which consisted; first, in permitting the goods of Asia, Africa, or America, which before could only come from that particular quarter of the world where they were produced, to be imported indifferently from either of the three quarters; and next, in permitting certain European goods, commonly denominated "the "enumerated articles," which before could only be imported in British ships, or in ships of the country of their production, (and some of which were altogether prohibited, if exported from Germany or the Netherlands,) to be imported from any place either in a British ship, or in a ship of the country of their production, or in a ship of the country from whence the exportation was made.

Thus the new law left to the ordinary course of things to effect the two chief purposes which the old sought to accomplish by positive enact

ment. For the For the expense of double voyages will prevent the goods of Asia, Africa, or America being carried from one to the other in any considerable quantities, prior to their being brought to this country; and the like expense will prevent the formation of intermediate depôts of the bulky goods of Europe upon an extensive scale. Still, however, when, among the various transactions of the commercial world, such previous removal of goods have incidentally occurred, the power to bring them on will be more serviceable to the shipping interest than would be the restraint. The new Act, indeed, while it is more simple, and less restrictive to all shipping than the old, is, at the same time, more calculated to encourage British ships, than to open new channels of trade to foreign ones.

The new Act, it should be remembered, did not interfere with the Revenue, for it left all the discriminating duties on goods in foreign ships in full force.

The most material change in point of principle made by the Warehousing Act was that it permitted manufactured, as well as unmanufactured goods, to be deposited in this country, waiting a market here and abroad: it also permitted even prohibited goods of all sorts to be warehoused for exportation. This proposition to extend the system met with considerable opposition from the manufacturing interests, who were apprehen

sive that we should lose our command of foreign markets for our own goods, if the exporting merchants were enabled to make shipments of foreign manufactures from this country. The delay occasioned by this opposition prevented the Act from passing in the Session of 1822, but it was passed in the next Session, under the auspices of its author, Mr. Wallace. Provisions, shackling the transit trade, in some cases removed a part of the objections; and the rest were dissipated by the opinion, which has since acquired still greater force, that the opportunity of selection from a copious assortment of goods for foreign adventure would tend to introduce into the general markets of the world more of our own goods than would be excluded by the occasional rivalry of particular articles.

The Act is framed with great consideration for the trade and a perfect knowledge of its wants, at the same time that it secures the safety of the revenue by confining the higher advantages of the system to well situated warehouses of superior structure and arrangement.

Of Mr. Robinson's two Acts, the first related to the trade of our American possessions with other places in America: the second related to their trade with other parts of the world. Both these Acts permitted the importation from foreign countries of certain goods, which before had only been allowed to be imported from this