ally affect the trade between the two countries, is proved by the table here given. After peace was declared trade was renewed on an even larger scale. One result of this was to show that political control was not necessary to secure the trade of a country.

The following is an account of the imports into England from the United States, and exports to the United States from that country in sterling money, from 1784 to 1790, taken from the English customhouse books — viz.

II. EFFECTS OF THE FAILURE TO NEGOTIATE A COMMERCIAL TREATY

A. Trade between the West Indies and North America before 17741

One of the most lucrative and mutually advantageous branches of trade carried on by the colonists was that with the West Indies. To the planters in those islands it was absolutely essential, while to the American colonies it was less vital but not less profitable. After American independence was acknowledged trade between the North American states and the English West Indies was of course impossible under the navigation acts, which permitted colonial trade to be carried on only in British ships. The impossibility of renewing this trade had disastrous consequences. Edwards was governor of Jamaica and wrote a very valuable book on the West Indies.

It may, I think, be affirmed, without hazard of contradiction, that if ever there was any one particular branch of commerce in the world, that called less for restraint and limitation than any other, it was the trade which, previous to the year 1774, was carried on between the planters of the West Indies and the inhabitants of North America. It was not a traffick calculated to answer the fantastick calls of vanity, or to administer gratification to luxury or vice; but to procure food for the hungry, and to furnish materials (scarce less important than food) for supplying the planters in two capital objects, their buildings, and packages for their chief staple productions, sugar, and rum. Of the necessity they were under on the latter account, an idea may be

1 The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. By Bryan Edwards (4th edition, London, 1807), II, 485-6.

formed from the statement in the preceding chapter of the importation of those commodities into Great Britain; the cultivation of which must absolutely have stopped without the means of conveying them to market.

For the supply of those essential articles, lumber, fish, flour, and grain, America seems to have been happily fitted, as well from internal circumstances, as her commodious situation; and it is to a neighbourly intercourse with that continent, continued during one hundred and thirty years, that our sugar plantations in a great measure owe their prosperity.

B. The West Indies should not be Opened to American Trade, 17831

It was proposed by Pitt to open the West Indies to trade with the American states, and against this Lord Sheffield argued warmly, urging that all necessary supplies could be furnished by Nova Scotia, by Ireland, and by England.

It should seem, that there must be some other object in reserve, which is not yet acknowledged, besides the cheapness of lumber and provisions, and a market for rum, to account for the eagerness, which some express, for opening the navigation of the West Indies. The assertion, that our islands must starve if they are not opened to American shipping, is a curious instance of the slight ground on which men will be clamorous: . . . If our islands are so helpless, and would rather sacrifice our marine than make so small an effort as to fit our vessels in addition to those of Bermuda, and our remaining colonies, sufficient to supply themselves with provisions and lumber, they deserve to suffer or to pay an extraordinary price.

C. American Vessels should be Admitted to Trade with the West Indies, 17842

In reply to Lord Sheffield's arguments many rejoinders were written, from one of which a brief extract may be given. In this it was urged that Great Britain would profit most by the proposed arrangement.

It is expedient however to examine still more fully, what the grand leading argument that Lord Sheffield adduces in favour of the necessity of totally excluding them from a participation in the

1 Observations on the Commerce of the American States. By Lord John Sheffield (2d edition, London, 1784), 146–7.

be written by William Bingham (Philadelphia, 1784), 10-11.

British West India trade, amounts to. He is fearful that they will thereby become the carriers of the produce of the islands to the place of its consumption, which will create an interference of foreign vessels, thereby lessening the number of seamen, and consequently the naval force of the country.

But, if in addition to all that I have already said, I answer, that in return for this accommodation which he may call indulgent, but which I have clearly evinced to be the interest of Great Britain, consulting the welfare of her islands, to grant.

I say, if in return for this accommodation, her subjects may be admitted to a free ingress and egress to and from the ports of the United States What reply will the advocates for this system make? - What will become of Lord Sheffield's reasoning, when weighed in the scale of comparative proportion? I only wish them to comprehend the magnitude of the advantage. Men of weak or limited understandings, will be incapable of extending their ideas, so as to embrace the vast field it opens to an enlightened mind.

In the first place, they will not assuredly deny, that the productions of the United States, to the transportation of which, from the proposed arrangement, they are freely to be admitted, will furnish twice the quantity of bulky materials, that the exports of the West Indies do, and will consequently employ twice the quantity of shipping. To stamp conviction in regard to the truth of this assertion, let them take a view of the rice, indigo, and lumber of Georgia and South Carolina; - the naval stores, lumber, and tobacco of North Carolina; the tobacco, wheat, Indian corn, &c. of Virginia and Maryland; the flour, lumber, corn, and various provisions of Pennsylvania, Delaware, Jersey and New-York; - the fish, lumber, live stock, &c. of the New England States.

D. Effects of the Prohibition of Trade between the West Indies and the United States, 1780-17871

In 1783 Parliament passed an act excluding American vessels from trade with the British West Indies. As a result of the stoppage of this trade the accustomed supplies of fish, breadstuffs, meat, etc., from America, were cut off, and thousands of persons on the islands actually died of starvation. These disastrous effects are vividly portrayed by Governor Edwards.

On the 2d July 1783 the importation into the British West Indies of every species of naval stores, staves, and lumber, live stock, flour,

1 The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies. By Bryan Edwards (4th edition, London, 1807), II, 495–515, passim.

and grain of all kinds, the growth of the American states, was confined to British ships legally navigated; and the export to those states of West Indian productions, was made subject to the same restriction; while many necessary articles (as salted beef and pork, fish, and train-oil) formerly supplied by America, were prohibited altogether, it was considered as a measure merely temporary and experimental; and until a plan of permanent regulation should be agreed to by both countries, it was thought neither impolitick nor unjust, that Great Britain should reserve in her own hands the power of restraining or relaxing her system of commercial arrangements, as circumstances might arise to render the exercise of such a power prudent and necessary.

1

In these reasons the West Indian merchants, and such of the planters as were resident in Great Britain, acquiesced; but on the first meeting of a new parliament, in May, 1784, (another change having taken place in the mean time in the British administration) 1 the business of a commercial intercourse between the West Indies and the States of America, pressed itself on the attention of government with a force which was not to be resisted. Petitions, complaints, and remonstrances, were poured in from every island in the West Indies. Some of the petitioners represented that they had not six weeks provisions in store, and all of them anticipated the most dreadful consequences, if the system of restriction should be much longer persisted in; expecting nothing less than a general revolt of their slaves, in the apprehension of perishing of hunger.

On the whole, the lords of the committee strongly recommended a strict and rigid adherence to the measure of confining the intercourse between our West Indian islands and America, to British ships only, as a regulation of absolute necessity; considering any deviation from it, as exposing the commerce and navigation of Great Britain to the rivalry of revolted subjects, now become ill-affected aliens. . . .

These doctrines and opinions of the lords of the committee of council were unfortunately approved and adopted in their fullest extent by the British government; . . .

But there was this misfortune attending the sugar planters, that their wants were immediate; and of a complexion affecting not only

1 The Right Honourable William Pitt, who had been Chancellor of the Exchequer from 10th July, 1782, to 5th April, 1783, was reappointed to that office, and also nominated First Lord of the Treasury, on the 27th of December, 1783, soon after which the parliament was dissolved.

property, but life. Whatever resources might ultimately be found in the opulence and faculties of the mother-country, it was impossible, in the nature of things, to expect from so distant a quarter an adequate supply to a vast and various demand, coming suddenly and unexpectedly. Many of the sugar islands too had suffered dreadfully under two tremendous hurricanes, in 1780 and 1781, in consequence whereof (had it not been for the casual assistance obtained from prize-vessels) one-half of their negroes must absolutely have perished of hunger. Should similar visitations occur, the most dreadful apprehensions would be realized; and I am sorry to add, that realized they were!

I have now before me a report of the committee of the assembly of Jamaica, on the subject of the slave trade, wherein the loss of negroes in that island, in consequence of those awful concussions of nature, and the want of supplies from America, is incidentally stated. . . .

"We shall now (say the committee) point out the principal causes to which this mortality of our slaves is justly chargeable. It is but too well known to the house, that in the several years 1780, 1781, 1784, 1785, and 1786, it pleased Divine Providence to visit this island with repeated hurricanes, which spread desolation throughout most parts of the island;

...

"We decline to enlarge on the consequences which followed lest we may appear to exaggerate; but having endeavoured to compute, with as much accuracy as the subject will admit, the number of our slaves whose destruction may be fairly attributed to these repeated calamities, and the unfortunate measure of interdicting foreign supplies, and for this purpose compared the imports and returns of negroes for the last seven years, with those of seven years preceding, we hesitate not, after every allowance for adventitious causes, to fix the whole loss at fifteen thousand: THIS NUMBER WE FIRMLY BELIEVE TO HAVE PERISHED OF FAMINE, OR OF DISEASES CONTRACTED BY SCANTY AND UNWHOLESOME DIET, BETWEEN THE LATTER END OF 1780, AND THE BEGINNING OF 1787."

Such (without including the loss of negroes in the other islands, and the consequent diminution in their cultivation and returns) was the price at which Great Britain thought proper to retain her exclusive right of supplying her sugar islands with food and necessaries!