Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/85

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in which this power of the Crown should be exercised. The West Indians, on the one hand, represented the ruinous position in which they would be placed if they were forbidden to trade with the United States: while, on the other, the loyalists of the remaining North American Colonies pleaded that they were quite able to supply the people of the West Indies with all they required, and prayed that the monopoly the war had given them should not be abrogated. These views were maintained by the shipowners of Great Britain, on the plea that, if American vessels were allowed to export West Indian produce, they would convey it to foreign countries as well as to the United States, thus securing a materially improved position as carriers by sea; and, after this case had been fully argued before the Board of Trade, the shipowners and the loyalists unfortunately won the day.

Exasperated by such conduct, three of the American States made a requisition to Congress to prohibit all commercial intercourse with the British colonies; and, before Congress met in 1789, no less than nine of these States had demanded retaliatory measures on British commerce and navigation. The result was that two Acts of Congress were immediately passed: one imposing a tonnage duty of six cents on all American built and American owned vessels, of thirty cents on vessels built in the United States but owned by foreigners, and of forty cents on foreign vessels; while the other imposed a tariff of duties in the ordinary form, and provided for the remission of 10 per cent. of such duties in case