Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/407

 *signable and transferable security for money, capable of being recovered by a summary process; and if the importer failed, enjoyed a priority before all private demands. The result of the whole operation, therefore, was that the government lent to the private credit of the merchant the character of a public security, in lieu of his bonds deposited at the custom-house, and received three and a half per cent. on the amount of these bonds in return for the accommodation it afforded. Now, however admirable this system may be in reference to the trade of the United States, it utterly broke down when adduced as evidence of a bonâ fide importation, or as a proof that the duties had been paid or secured in the United States according to law; as, in point of fact, the merchant gained by repeating the transaction.

The English courts, therefore, acting in perfect consistency with the principle of their former decisions, when these facts were made known to them, refused any longer to admit the payment of duties in America as a proof of a bonâ fide operation. On the other hand, the merchants of America, without looking at the legal grounds of former decisions, had trusted to Lord Hawkesbury's communication made during the previous war, which led the American government to believe that "landing the goods and paying the duties legalised the trade," and had consequently embarked their capital and ships in a commerce they felt assured was a legal and permitted trade. When, therefore, they saw their vessels captured by the British cruisers, without any previous warning, and brought into the Vice-Admiralty Courts for adjudication, they naturally complained of the violent and