1828.] Mr. Huskissons Colonial Trade Bill, 1825. 267 



found to contain much more of speciousness than solidity. In ignorance 

 that, though annoying their enemies, they were, at the same time, much 

 more grievously injuring themselves, nations, when they have gone to 

 war with each other, have invariably closed their ports against the pro- 

 duce of the hostile country and of its dependencies. But this is only an 

 act of voluntary self -deprivation ; and if, under such circumstances, an 

 apprehension should reasonably enough exist of a deficiency of supply, 

 we apprehend it is sufficiently to be accounted for in the absurdity of a 

 system which would compel a nation to point the guns of its batteries as 

 much against the merchant vessel which came to supply its wants, as 

 the ship of war that was attempting the entrance of its ports only to 

 exterminate its inhabitants. Were the ports of a country to continue 

 open to the merchants of another, notwithstanding the existence of war 

 between them, the ordinary motives to interchange would induce the 

 merchants of the latter to bring thither all the produce of their own 

 country or of their dependencies of which the former could stand in need; 

 and the experience of all commercial history amply proves, that to 

 attempt, by restrictions on exportation, to prevent them would be the 

 most futile of all frivolous attempts. But supposing the old system were 

 to continue, and nations, refusing to avail themselves of the benefits 

 which each was capable of yielding to the other, simply because eager 

 to inflict on the other all the mischief in its power, were still to make the 

 commencement of hostility the signal for closing their ports, we should 

 be glad to know what is the description of foreign supply, the cutting off 

 of which is thus exciting alarm? The answer is obvious Colonies being 

 proposed as the remedy, the description of supply known under the term 

 colonial produce must necessarily be the subject of apprehension. Now 

 it happens truly enough, that the cutting off of this description of supply 

 has, to every country possessing colonies, been very justly a ground of alarm 

 in all the wars in which she has engaged. But why ? Simply because that 

 supply being the produce of her possessions, has been the property of a part 

 of her community, and therefore it was, by the laws of war, the legitimate 

 prize of the enemy whenever its fleets could accomplish the capture. 

 During the late French war, had our West-India colonies, instead of 

 forming a part of our possessions, been independent states, their pro- 

 duce would have found its way into our harbours, in their unarmed mer- 

 chantmen, with just as much security and certainty as when they came 

 under the pompous protection of convoying fleets. An attempt to con- 

 trol the trade of a neutral country can only end in involving the meddler 

 in a war with that neutral country : to pirate the neutral ships trading to 

 the country with which another might happen to be at war, would be 

 to invoke the hostile combination of all the powers of the globe possessed 

 of a merchant navy. Yet the " possibilitas remotissima," as the lawyers 

 term it, of a nation being at war with all the countries capable of sup- 

 plying this colonial produce, is urged as a reason for our availing our- 

 selves of the agency of dominion to command a supply from some. To 

 what extent this agency is capable of application, we leave our readers 

 to judge in the experience of our American colonies. Assuming, how- 

 ever, that colonies would continue, like dutiful children, to yield obe- 

 dience to the mother country so long as the parent chose to exact it, we 

 will examine what demand this extraordinary state of circumstances 

 would create for colonial dominion. Now, remote as is this assumed 

 possibility, we conceive the greater improbability of a country being 



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