155 



fectl}^ underslnnd what is due to propriety; you have all your life per- 

 forn ed your duties. I pray you to consider how j^ou propose to fulfil 

 those which are due to the King." 



The policy of England towards the people "who assumed an inde- 

 pendency which separated them from her sovereignty" was soon devel- 

 oped. An order in council was promulgated by proclamation in Jul}^, 

 17S3, prohibiting American fish from being carried to the British West 

 Indies. This order was regarded as the result of loyalist or "tory" 

 influence. It was probably so, and was not only aimed at our fish- 

 eries, but intended to encourage those of Nova Scotia and other British 

 possessions north and east of the United States. An extensive trade 

 was thus destroyed. While colonies, the New England States had 

 bartered their "West India fish" for sugar, rum, and molasses, with 

 the planters of the British islands, with profit to all parties. Congress 

 declared that retaliatory measures were necessary, in order that Amer- 

 ican commerce should not pass into the hands of foreigners ; and asked 

 to be invested with powers from the States to provide for the exigency. 

 But no adequate authority was or could be conferred upon the confed- 

 eracy. The restrictive policy thus commenced was long continued; 

 nor was the vexed question of our commercial relations with the pos- 

 sessions of England in this hemisphere adjusted for nearly half a cen- 

 tury. ■ 



We pass to notice the proceedings of the convention that framed the 

 constitution of the United States. Those relating to our subject, though 

 transmitted in mere allusions, are still significant and important. 



Thus upon the proposition that "no treaty shall be made without the 

 consent of two-thirds of the members present," and upon Mr. Madison's 

 suggestion to " except treaties of peace," Mr. Gerry was of the opinion 

 that in such treaties a greater, rather than a less, proportion of votes 

 should be required, for the reason that, in terminating hostilities, our 

 ^^ dearest interests will he at stake, as the fisheries, territories,'''' t^c. So, too, 

 Mr. Gouverneur Morris* expressed the sentiment that " if two-thirds of 

 the Senate should be required for peace, the legislature will be unwill- 

 ing to make one for that reason, on account of the fisheries or the Missis- 

 sij)pi — the two great objects of the Union.'''' 



The records of the discussions in the conventions of the different 

 States for the adoption or rejection of the constitution are less frag- 

 mentary. In that of South Carolina, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, in 

 reply to some ill-natured remarks against New England, generously s- id 

 that, in the Revolution, "the eastern States had lost everything but their 

 country and freedom ;" that "it was notorious that some ports at the 

 eastward which used to fit out one hundred and fifty sail of vessels do 

 not now fit out thirty ; that their trade of ship-building, which used to 

 be very considerable, was now annihilated ; that their fisheries were 

 trifling, and their mariners in want of bread ;" and that the South were 



* Hon. Gouveraeur Moms was a son of Lewis Monis, one of the signers of the Declaration of 

 Independence. He was a member of the Continental Congress, and of the convention which 

 framed the constitution of the United States. In Washington's administration he was minister 

 to France. He died at Morrisania, New York, in 1816, aged 64. He possessed the confidence 

 of Washington. 



