Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/92

 *dent, extending the provisions of the Act to the British colonies therein specified, and which had been opened to American vessels. Finally, a British Order in Council of the 5th November of that year, repealing the various Orders passed between 1823 and 1827, was issued, authorising vessels of the United States to import into British possessions abroad any produce of the United States from those States, and to export goods from the British possessions abroad to any foreign countries whatever.

Subsequently to the failure of Mr. Pitt's measure respecting the trade of the United States, no great effort was made for many years to modify grievances with other nations, which every one felt were caused by the Navigation Laws. Protection had become so thoroughly engrafted on the whole policy of the nation, that the question of the repeal of these laws could only be approached by degrees, the country being so impressed with their necessity, that any attempt during the first quarter of this century to sweep them away would have proved a signal failure. Indeed, at the close of the French war, when modifications were offered, conditionally, to other countries, it is not surprising that such foreign nations as believed the prosperity of England to be due to her protective system were not satisfied of the honesty of her intentions: most of them, in fact, looked with suspicion on proposals which, in the dawn of sound commercial knowledge, were not unnaturally thought by them inimical to the interests of England. Foreign nations were slow to recognise that the comparative freedom of her constitution, her vast mineral resources, the skill and