Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/389

 Great Britian 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