Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/254

 agricultural produce. The expectation of benefit entertained by the Canadians from the repeal of the Navigation Laws had, in the opinion of the shipowners, as little real foundation as those the West Indians had first entertained, but subsequently abandoned. Their Committee expressed doubt of any beneficial reciprocity from the United States, especially as any commercial treaty must be controlled by two-thirds of the Senate. They treated the power of re-imposing restrictions as in principle opposed to every prudent rule of State policy. The coasting-trade clauses, of course, met with condemnation. If, they asserted, the censure cast upon shipmasters was deserved, the injustice to the owner was flagrant. If unmerited, the measure was sustained by cruel calumny.

But the most notorious as well as the most important and disqualifying inconsistency was the compulsion on a British shipowner to man his ship with British seamen. This was magnified into a stupendous grievance. It was said to force the shipowner to conduct his affairs contrary to his conviction of his own interest, and according to the arbitrary dictates of an inconsistent and tyrannical Act of Parliament. The Committee, kindling with indignation at the mere recital of their grievances, averred that if the Navigation Laws were repealed, a British registry must be regarded as a badge of