1GO AMERICAN PREFERRED TO PROVINCIAL SHIPS. 



it on the American shores. In the State of Maine, such 

 speculations in wood-land have long been a great source 

 of mercantile competition and excitement. Many of 

 their leading men have been involved in them ; and they 

 are said to have had a great share in the violence dis 

 played by the people of Maine on occasion of the disputes 

 in reference to the boundary with New Brunswick. 



Second, Another reason is, that American ships bear 

 a higher character in the southern ports, and obtain 

 freights at New Orleans or elsewhere, in preference to 

 Provincial ships. They can also be insured as American 

 ships at a lower rate in Boston, than they can as New 

 Brunswick ships at St John. Thus, it is for the interest 

 of the St Stephens merchants to build their ships on the 

 Calais side of the water. Though no better in quality, 

 they are now American ships, and enjoy all the benefits 

 in the ports of the Union which bond fide country ships 

 possess. Were there as large a country, and as extensive 

 and rich a seaboard behind St Stephens as there is 

 behind Calais, this state of things would not exist ; and 

 although, on the whole, a very much wider field for 

 commercial enterprise is presented to the British 

 merchant in the vast extent of the home and colonial 

 empire, yet, to a young and rising port, it is chiefly the 

 coasting-trade which is of importance. The ability to 

 build large ships, and to engage in foreign commerce, is 

 a work of time, and is found only in places where con 

 siderable prosperity has already been attained, and 

 considerable wealth accumulated. 



The above circumstances explain why the shipping of 

 the St Croix River should be found chiefly on the 

 western side ; but it is in favour of St Stephen that its 

 taxes are lighter. I was informed that they were so in 

 the ratio of 10 to 1 that a person who, in St Stephens, 

 pays only 100 dollars of taxes would, with the same 

 property, in Calais, pay 1000. This may be an 



