Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/195

 were desirous to give satisfaction to all parties interested. So far no intention was expressed of tampering with these laws; and we have seen that Mr. Robinson, on scrutinising the terms of the Queen's Speech in November, acquiesced in its propriety, no suspicion having entered his mind, that, already, these laws were foredoomed by Ministers, still less that, the very day before Parliament met, they had communicated their intentions to a foreign maritime Power—a nation, too, which, at that moment, was straining every nerve to wrest from us the supremacy of the ocean. Under such circumstances as these, the following article, first published in the 'Washington Union,' created intense astonishment. Nor is it surprising that it should have done so:—

"Repeal of the Navigation Laws.—A correspondence has taken place between the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs and our Minister at that Court relative to the repeal of the Navigation Laws of Great Britain. Mr. Bancroft applied to Viscount Palmerston early in November to learn whether Ministers would consent to establish with the United States a perfect system of reciprocity, in making all vessels of either country, fitting out from any port of the world, free to trade to any port of the other nation, whether home or colonial. Viscount Palmerston, after the lapse of some weeks (it was just fourteen days), replied that, although her Majesty's Ministers did not feel at liberty to advise her Majesty at once to make such a change in the commercial system as was asked by Mr. Bancroft without the consent of Parliament, yet as soon as that body