Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 4.djvu/110

100 but to encourage British trade, was, according to Canning, the object of this "political" weapon.

Thus Perceval, in the debate of Feb. 5, 1808, in discussing the policy of his order, affirmed that the British navy had been "rendered useless by neutral ships carrying to France all that it was important for France to obtain." The Rule of 1756, he said, would not have counteracted this result,—a much stronger measure was necessary; and it was sound policy "to endeavor to force a market." Lord Bathurst, a few days afterward, very frankly told the House that "the object of these orders was to regulate that which could not be prohibited,—the circuitous trade through this country,"—in order that the produce of enemies' colonies might "be subjected to a duty sufficiently high to prevent its having the advantage over our own colonial produce;" and Lord Hawkesbury, in the same debate, complained that neutrals supplied colonial produce to France at a much less rate than the English paid for it. "To prevent this," he said, "was the great object of the Orders in Council." James Stephen's frequent arguments in favor of the orders turned upon the commercial value of the policy as against neutrals; while George Rose, Vice-President of the Board of