Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/393

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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."

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