CHAPTER II. THE UNITED STATES RESORTS TO 
RETALIATION 
The Peace of Ghent found the British colonial system 
practically intact in the Western Hemisphere so far as it con- 
cerned the United States. By the regulations of that system 
only an enumerated list of American products could be im- 
ported into the British colonies in the West Indies and North 
America, and then only in British vessels. With the exception 
of St. George and Hamilton on the island of Bermuda, not a 
British port in the New World was legally open to American 
vessels. These regulations, to be sure, were no more restrict- 
ive than they had always been; in fact they were somewhat 
more favorable, for not even Bermuda had legally been open 
to American shipping prior to the War of 1812. But it was 
not the letter of the British navigation law which concerned 
American merchants so much as the spirit of its administra- 
tion, and in the latter there was a profound change with the 
return of peace. For laxness of execution during the Euro- 
pean wars was now substituted the most rigorous enforcement. 
And it was this new severity of administration of the British 
colonial system which, in the years immediately following the 
Peace of Ghent, produced a radical change in the American 
attitude toward that system. 
The first indication of the change in British policy was an 
order in council curtailing to four months a previous order in 
council which had extended for six months the right of the 
British West Indies to admit American products in American 
vessels.^ And events soon proved that the British Govern- 
ment was determined to enforce its new order. When govern- 
ors of these islands ventured upon their own responsibilities 
to permit the entry of American vessels with produce after the 
expiration of the allotted time — a power which they had exer- 
cised almost at will during the preceding two decades — Lord 
Bathurst, British minister for the colonies, took them severely 
to task, expressed the “decided disapprobation” of the British 
Government, and ordered that in the future under no circum- 
stances should they assume the power to authorize the admis- 
sion of vessels and cargoes which were excluded by the gen- 
eral law of the empire.^ 
^ St. George’s Chronicle and Grenada Gazette, Nov. 1, 1815. 
2 Lord Bathurst’s letter in Niles’ Register, IX, 64. Southey, Chronological History 
of the West Indies, III, 582, 583. 
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