HISTORY OF EUROPE. 
postpone the bill to another session, 
the ship owners had only to state 
their case to the privy council, who 
had no authority by the bill to open 
the West India ports to neutrals, 
but ‘* when the necessity of the case 
should appear to his majesty in 
council to require it.” 
It was next objected to the Ame- 
ricans, that, under pretence of this 
trade, they smuggled great quan- 
tities of East India goods and Ger- 
man linens into the West Indies. 
But Americans, it was replied, 
were not the only traders, whose pro- 
_pensities tosmuggling nothing butthe 
vigilance of the custom-house could 
restrain. British ship masters were en- 
titled to as little confidence upon 
that head as Americans, and there- 
fore if this objection was to belisten- 
ed to, all intercourse between the 
West {ndies and the United States 
must be at once prohibited. But, 
sould the West India islands subsist 
with no other trade, except that 
which they enjoyed with the mo- 
ther country and her colonies? 
Could they derive a stfiicient sup- 
ply of provisions from the United 
Kingdom, or of lumber from the 
British colonies in North America? 
87 
Were they to be feduced to such 
inadequate sources of supply, in 
order to favour the sales of the 
East India company, or prevent the 
introduction of some German linens ? 
It was stated by the assembly of Ja- 
maica, that they obtained only ane 
twelfth of their North American 
supply from British North America ; 
and it may be said without exag- 
geration, that not one-third of the 
provisions which the British West 
India islands annually import, are 
derived from the mother country and 
her colonies. * 
It was argued by a learned judge, 
that though the bill professed to be 
founded on necessity, and though 
that necessity could apply only te 
the importation of lumber and pro- 
visions, yet it gave an unlimited 
power to the privy council, to aa- 
thorize the importation of any ar- 
ticles whatever ; or, as he is made to 
express himself in a printed account 
of his speech, which bears all the 
internal marks of having been re- 
vised by so me one intimately con- 
nected with him, this bill, *‘ with a 
force and conciseness beyond all 
example, strikes out of your statute 
.books, or reduces to a dead letter, 
*It appears from an account of the principal articles of provisions and lumber, 
imported into his majesty’s colonies in the West Indies and on the continent of 
South America, in the years 1804, 1805, and 1806, ordered to be printed February 
15th, 1808, that, of the total importation of the following articles, the proportions 
from the United States of America are as follows : 
Corn, = 65-100 parts, or nearly three-fourths. 
Bread, flour and meal, = 91-100. 
Rice, = 98-100, or nearly the whole. 
Beef and pork, == 49-100, or nearly one haif, 
Dry fish, = 51-100, or more than one half. 
" Pickled fish, = 32-100, or nearly one third., 
Butter, = 14-100, or about one seventh. 
Cows and oxen, == 80-100, or four fifths. 
Sheep and hogs, = 90-100, or nine-tenths. 
Oak and pine boards, and timber, 
Shingles, = 99-100, 
Staves, = 96-100. 
97-100, 
G4 
ail 
