Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/397

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policy would fully justify retaliation, more especially in the case of France and Spain; but the results exhibited in the appended Return show that the trade transferable, by any such measure, from foreign to British ships was comparatively so small, as neither to operate as an inducement to the countries in question to relax their present system, nor to afford any material addition to British shipping. Another Return, also, showing the total amount of British tonnage