Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/90

 North American and West Indian possessions, while power was given to the President to remove the differential duties levied on goods so imported, on receiving information that similar privileges had been conceded in such British colonial ports to the vessels of the United States. The Act, however, required all goods so imported to be the produce of the colony whence they came and to have been imported thence direct. It further enacted that such British ships might take back produce of the United States, provided they gave bonds to land it directly at the port for which they cleared out. As the provisions of this Act were, however, to depend on the continuance of those enacted by the British Legislature in 1822 (3rd Geo. IV., cap. 44), and, as the vessels of the United States were not placed on precisely the same footing in the ports of the West Indies as British ships, this power of the President was never exercised, and a British Order in Council in opposition to it was subsequently issued on the 21st July, 1823. Here again arose another war of tariffs, for this Order levied countervailing duties on vessels of the United States and their cargoes in the ports of the British North American and West Indian possessions from the ports in the United States to the extent of 4s. 3d. per ton, as well as a discriminating duty of 10 per cent. on imported articles.

In 1825, when the consolidation of the Customs Laws was under consideration, as well as the extension of treaties with other countries, negotiations were again renewed with the United States, but they were not successful, and another Order in Council