Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/87

 of these States. Indeed, the Act went so far as to prohibit the importation of even these articles from any of the foreign West Indian Islands, except in cases of public emergency, when the governors of individual colonies were allowed to relax this prohibition. Similar laws were also passed to prohibit the importation of goods into our North American colonies from the United States, except for similar reasons.

The injurious consequences of such policy, especially in the provocation it gave to the Americans, led to the conclusion, in 1794, of the treaty to which I have already incidentally referred (though, strange to say, even this was disapproved of by many persons in England), whereby American vessels, not exceeding seventy tons burden, were allowed admission into the British West Indies with such articles of United States produce as were not generally prohibited, and, at the same time, permitted to export therefrom to the United States any produce of the West Indies legally exportable thereto in British vessels. Curiously enough, the following proviso was appended to this clause:—"That this liberty only extends to a direct intercourse between the British West Indies and the ports of the United States, and the United States engage to prohibit the carriage of molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, or cotton in American vessels, either from his Majesty's dominions or from the United States to any other part of the world." The treaty also provided for placing the trade between Great Britain and the United States on a permanent footing, it having till then