84 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



affairs had already culminated in Massachusetts in the passage of an 

 act of navigation by that State, showing the tendency of the times, and 

 that the action of England would have much to do in arresting that 

 prejudice; that the five hundred ships employed in the commerce of the 

 United States in 17S4 might easily be compelled to become the property 

 of American citizens and navigated wholly by American seamen; that 

 the simple passage of an old English statute, " that none of the King's 

 liege people should ship any merchandise out of, or into the realm, but 

 only in ships of the King's liegance, on pain of forfeiture," modified to 

 suit the American form of government, would effect this ; that thenation 

 had the legal right to govern its own commerce; that the ability of the 

 Americans to build ships and the abundance of material they had for 

 that purpose could not be doubted ; and that whatever laws England 

 might make, she would be glad to receive and consume considerable 

 American produce, even though imported through France or Holland, 

 and sell us as many of her manufactures as we could pay for, through the 

 same channels. The conversation finally introduced the subject of ships 

 and oil, and Mr. Pitt said to Mr. Adams the Americans " could not think 

 hard of the English for encouraging their own shipwrights, their man- 

 ufactures of ships, and their own whale-fishery." To which Mr. Adams 

 replied, " By no means, but it appeared unaccountable to the people of 

 America, that this country should sacrifice the general interests of the 

 nation to the private interests of a few individuals interested in the 

 manufacture of ships and in the whale-fishery, so far as to refuse these 

 remittances from Am erica in payment of debts, and for manufactures 

 which would employ so many more people, augment the revenue so 

 considerably, as well as the national wealth, which would, even in other 

 ways, so much augment the shipping and seamen of the nation. It was 

 looked upon in America as reconciling themselves to a diminution of their 

 own shipping and seamen, in a great degree, for the sake of diminishing 

 ours in a small one, besides keeping many of their manufacturers out of 

 employ, who would otherwise have enough to do; and besides greatly 

 diminishing the revenue, and, consequently, contrary to the maxim 

 which he had just acknowledged, that one nation should not hurt itself 

 for the sake of hurting another, nor take measures to deprive another 

 of any advantage without benefitting itself."* From the questions of 

 comparative gains or losses to either power, and the relations in which 

 France would stand to both, Mr. Pitt led Mr. Adams into a lengthy and 

 useless conversation on the whale-fisheries of the three countries, refer- 

 ring specially to the efforts of M. de Calonne to introduce this pursuit 

 into France, asking suddenly the question u whether we had taken any 

 measures to find a market for our oil anywhere but in France." To this 

 Mr. Adams replied: "I believed we had, and I have been told that 

 some of our oil had found a good market at Bremen ; but there could 



*5th Richard, ii, ch. 3. 



