Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/404

 much as she could both belligerents, and especially Great Britain. England, as is well known, had constantly refused the Americans permission to trade directly between the colonies of the enemy and the mother-country, but had tolerated the indirect communication above mentioned, on the supposition that the goods so transmitted had been intended originally for American consumption, and would not have been re-exported, but for want of a market in the United States.

"It is now distinctly understood," said his Majesty's Advocate-General, in a report officially communicated by Lord Hawkesbury to the American government, and transmitted to all the Vice-Admiralty Courts aboard, "and so decided by our highest tribunals, that the produce of the colonies of the enemy may be imported by a neutral into his own country, and may be re-exported from thence, even to the mother-country of such colony; and in like manner the produce and manufactures of the mother-country may, in this circuitous mode, legally find their way to the colonies. The direct trades, however, between the mother-country and its colonies have not, I apprehend, been recognised as legal, either by his Majesty's government, or by his tribunals. What is a direct trade, or what amounts to an intermediate importation into a neutral country, may sometimes be a question of some difficulty: a general definition of either, applicable to all cases, cannot well be laid down. The question must depend upon the particular circumstances of each case. Perhaps the mere touching at a neutral country to take fresh