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Referring to existing treaties, the Committee remarked that, though the Government of the Netherlands placed the ships of England, ostensibly, on the same footing as Dutch vessels, English vessels, however, in consequence of the regulations of the Dutch East India Company, were practically prevented from trading with the valuable settlements of the Dutch in the Eastern seas.

When directing attention to the different nations who still withheld from British ships the advantages of their coasting trade, they could not fail to notice the often repeated fact, that the United States of North America not only shut out British vessels from the carrying of goods in the vast coasting trade of their Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards, but that British vessels running between New York and Aspinwall, and between Panama and San Francisco, were denied the ordinary privileges enjoyed by the American national flag; and that, thus, the indirect carrying trade between the eastern and western coast of the United States was, practically, confined to American shipping, as well as the coasting trade proper.

With regard to British colonial possessions the Committee stated that, while the coasting trade had been thrown open to foreign vessels in the British East Indies, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and Victoria, the coasting trade of our North American colonies was still confined to British vessels; foreign ships being, however, permitted to carry on the inter-colonial trade with our various possessions,

The Committee, especially, noticed the entire unanimity of the witnesses whom they had examined