1831.] Ships, Colonies, and Commerce. 413 



digiously increased, and still active trade, should be considered a home 

 trade. There is no doubt that the home trade should be preferred to 

 foreign trade ; but that position which, in argument or in fiscal arrange- 

 ment, would consider the colonial trade not to be a home trade, brings 

 the colonial interest under a wrong denomination. 



Let us now see in what way this matter is viewed by the government of 

 the United States. It appears* that the population of the British Provinces 

 increased, between the years 1806 and 1825, more than 113 per cent., 

 whilst that of New England increased only 27 per cent. ; that the imports 

 of the British Colonies have been almost quadrupled in amount, and the 

 exports considerably more than doubled in that time ;t while the exports 

 and imports of the United States in 1828 were about the same in amount 

 as they were in 1807; that while the whole foreign trade of the 

 United States, with every part of the world, has remained stationary for 

 fifteen years, the navigation of the British Colonies, with the mother- 

 country alone, has increased, as the Report states, from 88,247 to 

 400,841 tons, J or about one half of all the American tonnage employed 

 in its foreign trade, which in 1828 was only 824,781 tons, being an 

 increase of only 253,528 tons, or a fraction less than 3 per cent, on what 

 it was in 1820 ; while the increase of the foreign navigation of Great 

 Britain, from 1815 to 1827, was 741,840 tons, or nearly equal to the 

 whole foreign tonnage of the United States in 1828 ! Again, the whole 

 tonnage of the United States with the British empire had, in 1828, 

 declined by 32,000 tons since 1815 ; whilst British tonnage employed 

 in the direct trade between the United States and Great Britain had, in 

 1828, increased 38 per cent ! 



Having stated these, and many other remarkable facts, which bear, 

 most forcibly, upon this subject, the Report proceeds to state, " that the 

 rise or decline of navigation is the index of national prosperity and 

 power that the great object of a statesman, in a maritime nation, should 

 be to lay the foundations of a great naval power in a hardy and exten- 

 sive commercial marine ; and that to prepare for war, it is palpably 

 inconsistent for a maritime nation to attempt to accomplish that object 

 by a policy destructive of its commercial marine, the most efficient 

 instrument of war, whether offensive or defensive." 



Sir Howard then proceeds to argue, and to shew that the proposed 

 doubling of the duties on the Canadian, and lowering those on Baltic 

 timber, would completely destroy the only scale by which it is pos- 

 sible to continue the trade, upon which not only so much of our ship- 

 ping depends for employment, but also our emigrant population for their 

 first chance of success. The poor emigrant begins his labour with the 

 axe ; and his greatest, his chief resource in earning money, wherewith 

 to buy what he wants, is in manufacturing shingles, or staves, or in fell- 

 ing timber. Let this measure pass let the British North American 

 trade languish let the inter-colonial trade with the West Indies be 

 unprotected, and the miseries and the distresses, which the emigrant may 

 have endured as a pauper at home, would be nothing to those to which he 

 would be consigned in the wilds to which he has been removed. We have 



* Report on the Commerce and Navigation of the United States, by Mr. Cam- 

 breleng, p. 28. 



f Report, p. 28. 

 $ Report, p. 27. 

 Report, p. 26. 



