1831.] Ships, Colonies, and Commerce. 411 



facturing town in the kingdom, clamorously petitioning for the restoration 

 and protection of our colonies, and colonial trade ! and we shall, in 

 the decay of our naval power and financial resources, see abundant 

 reason to lament that these ultra free-trade opinions were not timously 

 opposed. 



It has been a favourite argument with the advocates for the system 

 alluded to, that it was only necessary to shew rival nations that we were 

 actuated by a liberal spirit in these matters, to induce them to adopt our 

 views, and subscribe to a system of reciprocity but what has been the 

 result of our experience ? Mr. Powlet Thomson, in his official capa- 

 city, has been forced to declare a few days ago, on one of those points 

 which incidently came under discussion, that " correspondence upon 

 correspondence has passed upon this subject, but we have not the power 

 to compel other countries to adopt other systems than those which from rea- 

 sons of their own they are at present disposed to adhere to;" or, in other 

 words, they wisely for themselves adhere to those regulations which they 

 have found to be the most advantageous, they avail themselves of our 

 errors, and are year by year trenching upon some valuable branch of 

 our trade. Even the United States, which, from the free nature of 

 their institutions, might be expected to entertain generous notions of 

 commercial reciprocity have adopted, and strictly a'dhere to a closely 

 exclusive system of commercial regulations. For the encouragement and 

 protection of their own produce and manufactures they levy prohibitive, 

 or at least heavy duties on our colonial and other products ;* and although 

 their decidedly English habits, and the cheapness of some British manu- 

 factures, induce them to take our goods to a considerable extent annually, 

 they nevertheless encourage, as far as circumstances will admit, their 

 own rising establishments, and are keenly using every exertion to make 

 themselves entirely independent of us. 



Under all these circumstances it would seem to be nothing unreason- 

 able to expect that our rulers should pause in their attempts to enforce 

 their ruinous theories, until, at least, they had time to consider and dis- 

 cuss their ultimate consequences ! But what has been the fact ? Instead 

 of endeavouring to relieve our sugar colonies from that distress which 

 is admitted by all parties to be of the most overwhelming description, 

 and instead of fostering and encouraging those other colonies in which 

 our surplus population finds a ready asylum they have recently pro- 

 posed to place two of them namely, the Canadas, and the Cape of 

 Good Hope, in a situation of similar misery with our sugar colonies, by 

 imposing ruinous duties on their staple commodities a measure which 

 would have been a benefit to the Norwegians, the Swedes, Prussians, 

 French, Spaniards, and Portuguese who take very few goods from us 

 but which would have had the effect not only to destroy a great part 

 of the capital engaged in the trade, agriculture, &c. of the colonies in 

 question, but would also have thrown some thousands of British ship- 

 ping and seamen entirely out of employment ! 



*. d. 



* On our Raw Sugars they exact about 15 per cwt. 



Coffee 250 ditto. 



Rum , 3 8 per gallon. 



Molasses 6 ditto. 



Salt 200 per cent. 



3 G 2 



