Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/194



place our commercial intercourse in regard to the matters to which your note refers on the most liberal and comprehensive basis with respect to all countries which shall be willing to act in a corresponding spirit towards us.

(Signed) ""

It thus appears that the English Ministers communicated their intentions formally and explicitly to the American Government, and, through that Government to the American people, a day before they chose to inform the English Parliament and the nation, somewhat vaguely, in the Queen's Speech, of the course they might, eventually, be led to pursue. A year previously, on the 21st of December, 1846, the Shipowners' Society of London had had an interview with Lord Clarendon at the Board of Trade. On that occasion, as appears from the Minutes of the Society, they were graciously received, and assured in distinct language, that no intention was entertained on the part of her Majesty's Government of making any alteration in these laws. Three months later, on the 15th March, 1847, these gentlemen, entertaining a feeling of mistrust in the then governing powers, went again to the Board of Trade and asked the same question, and were once more assured that there was no intention on the part of Government to interfere with the fundamental principles of the Navigation Laws; that an individual member, Mr. Ricardo, had indeed mooted the subject of a committee, which Government could not refuse, but that the committee should be a fair one, with Mr. Milner Gibson as chairman, as they