Ee 
HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
parliament, was the act to permit 
the free interchange of every 
species of grain between Great Lri- 
tain and Ireland, without any 
bounties or duties or any restraints 
whatsoever. By the operation of 
this law the corn trade between 
Great Britain and Ireland was plac- 
ed on the same footing as the corn 
trade between the diiferent pro- 
vinces of England; andas no one 
could doubt of the wisdom, or ob- 
ject to the policy of this measure, 
the bill, after a few words from 
Mr. F oster, passed without opposi- 
tion. 
RA singular contrast to this in 
every respect was furnished by the 
_ bill, which we are next to take into 
_ consideration. 
The American in- 
tercourse:bill, the one to which we 
allude, differed not more remarka- 
bly from the corn intercourse bill, 
in the comparative unimportance of 
- its enactments, than in the violent 
and unreasonable opposition it was 
destined to-encounter. Ever since 
the commencement of the war in 
1793, it had-been found impossible 
to supply our West India islands 
with lumber and provisions from the 
continent of North America by 
British shipping alone. 
gence of governmentin not furnish. 
ig: convoys: to merchantmen, and 
the superior profits of the trans- 
port service, induced the British 
ship owners, at the breaking out of 
the late war, to withdraw them: 
selves, in a great meastire, from this 
inch of the carrying trade: upon 
which the colonial governors, in or- 
der to save the islands. under their 
tare from the misery and distress, 
to which any want or even: scarcity 
of articles of such indispensable ne- 
The negli- 
81 
cessity must have reduced them, 
ventured to dispense with the navis 
gation acts, and open to neutrals the 
supply of the colonies’ with commo- 
dities so essential to their subsis- 
tence. For these violations of law, 
which the necessity and urgencyof 
the case'amply justified, bills of inv 
demnity had been repeatedly, and. 
for many years annually passed by 
parliament;-and the trade, though 
illegal and inconsistent with the 
whole principles and provisions of 
our colonial and maritime law, had 
been suffered, during the whole of 
the last and’ present war, to pro. 
ceed without interruption and ale 
most without complaint. . At length, 
in the beginning of Mr. Pitt’s second 
administration, the shipping interest 
of Great Britain, which had been 
reduced by various causes to a state 
of great depression, began to com. 
plain of this intercourse, which the: 
West India islands enjoyed, with: 
neutrals, on the ground, that it was 
contrary to our navigation laws, and 
injurious and ruinous to British 
shipping ; and such was the in. 
fluence of their representations on 
the government, which happened at 
that time to be at variance with the 
assembly of Jamaica.on points of a 
totally different nature, that instruc- 
tions were seut out to the gover- 
nors of the West India colonies, 
‘6 not to open the ports of the 
islands over’ which they presided 
for the admission of articles from 
the American states, which were 
not allowed to be imported. by law, 
except in cases of real and, very great 
necessity*.”? la consequence of these. 
instructions, the governor and 
council of Jamaica revoked their 
former permission to neutrals, of 
_* Lord Camden’s letter to the lieut, governor of Jamaica, dated-Sept.5, 1804. 
G 
Vor. XLVIII. 
importing 
