A. D. 1783. 9 



* ceive amid the commercial diftreffes of the laft war. There was an 



* evident tendency in our traffic to rife in 1779, till the Spanifh war 



* irapofed an additional burden. There was afimilar tendency in 1780, 

 ' till the Dutch war added in 1781 no inconfiderable weight. And the 

 ' year 178 1, accordingly, marks the lowed degree of depreffion, both 



* of our navigation and our commerce, during the war of our colonies. 



* But, with the fame vigorous fpirit, they both equally rofe in 1782, as 



* they had rifen in former wars, to a fuperiority over our navigation 



* and commerce during the year, wherein hoftilities with France be- 



* gan *.' 



It is perhaps not faying too much to aflert, that, of all the European 

 powers concerned in the war, Great Britain fuffered the leafl in the 

 event of it, efpecially in a commercial view. France, the chief of the 

 confederacy, and the actuating foul of the whole, was obliged to facri- 

 fice, or at leafl fufpend, her maritime commerce in order to man her 

 navy, which, after all, never effeded any thing very confiderable, and, 

 in a few months after figning the preliminary articles, to withhold pay- 

 ment of the bills drawn by her commiflaries in America. The com- 

 merce of the United flates, an objed, which infpired the French merch- 

 ants with the mofl fanguine hopes, was found immediately upon the 

 trial to be delufive and ruinous to the adventurers f . And though, even 

 after the conclufion of the war, there remained fome veftige of French 

 trade in America, it was very languid, and was foon totally extin- 

 guifhed |. 



Spain, being fcarcely to be regarded as a mercantile nation, need not 

 be confidered at all in a commercial view. What the effeds may be of 

 bringing the independent flates of America to be the bordering neigh- 

 bours of their own colonifts, and of thereby fetting the example of co~ 

 lonial independence clofe before their eyes, it is for the politicians of 

 the mofl jealous mother-country in the world to confider. 



The Dutch, by involving themfelves in the war, threw up thofe ad- 

 vantages, which they might fairly have enjoyed as carriers of tolerated 

 merchandize, and as fadors, between the nations at war. Neither does 

 it appear, that the commercial houfes, they have eflablilhed in various 

 parts of America, have been very fuccefsful. 



* Thefe obfervations may be illuftrated by the I fay nothing of the French revolution, the origia 

 compan'fon of the annual tables of tlie imports and of which fome people afcribe to the interference of 

 exports, (hipping, &c. remembering that in fuch France in the American war. 

 cafes the effefts are not inflantaneous, and there- J The French traders, having neither the pre- 

 fer frequently appear more confpicuous in the ac- vious knowlege, nor the opportunities, requlfite for 

 counts of the next following years, than of thofe afForting their cargoes, carried many articles which 

 which produced them. were unfultable, the lofs of which fwallowed up any 



f See the account of the French trade to Ame- profits they made upon the proper articles of the:jr 



rica by Raynal, a French writer. \_HiJl. ph'ilof. et trade. 

 politiqu!, V. ix, />. 211, or above, ^ iii, />. 591.] 



Vol. IV. B 



