Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 21 
American shipping interests during this period had no cause 
to complain. 
In the midst of these prosperous conditions came the sud- 
den and unexpected rumor of peace in Europe, sudden and un- 
expected to Americans, at least. Almost three months before 
the formal peace was signed, Secretary of State Madison wrote 
to Rufus King, the American minister at London, explaining 
the shock which the return of peace would bring to American 
navigation. He desired that no time might be lost in stating 
to the British Government the light in which their navigation 
acts were viewed in America, and in endeavoring to obtain 
some change that might produce a real equality to the naviga- 
tion of the two countries.®'^ 
The American minister followed his instructions at once, 
and early in 1802 received assurances from Lord Hawkesbury 
that the subject of the British West India trade would be im- 
mediately put in line for examination.^® In the course of the 
conversations which followed, King maintained that the United 
States might reasonably expect to find, in return for the ex- 
tensive market which it offered to all sorts of British goods, 
a market in the British West Indies for certain articles which 
it was in its power to supply with advantage, but which Great 
Britain had hitherto prevented. He also advanced a claim to 
the right of American vessels to participate in the trade with 
the British West Indies, maintaining that when a trade is 
opened between a colony and a foreign country, the foreign 
country becomes a party, and has a reciprocal claim to the 
use of its ships in the trade with that colony. King was here 
introducing a new note in American diplomacy, for previously 
both Washington and Hamilton had spoken only of the privi- 
lege of trading with these islands. In support of this new 
principle, however. King cited the practice of other nations 
in Europe, not one of which, he claimed, had refused, when- 
ever a trade was permitted at all between its colonies and a 
foreign country, to make the carriage common to the vessels 
of both.®® 
Lord Hawkesbury delayed committing himself for some 
time, but being pushed by the American minister, finally, in 
Am. State Papers, For. Rel., II, 497. 
^^Ibid., II, 498. 
II, 498, 499. 
