Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 31 
tioii to the British Government to violate its own consummate 
policy, and to wound deeply the interest of the nation”. For 
itself, it believed the best policy of England was “to cripple 
the commercial intercourse of a Power which otherwise may 
endanger her sovereignty of the sea!”® Barbados papers 
maintained that “nothing but the extremity of distress ought 
to induce a wish for the Americans to be permitted into our 
ports”, and predicted that with a little patience and forbear- 
ance they would receive every necessary supply “without any 
reference to the aid of the Republicans of America”.® Another 
paper regretted that Antigua possessed a body of “most re- 
spectable men” who knew so little of their mother country as 
to adopt such resolutions, and lamented that just when a num- 
ber of merchants had been induced to embark their capital 
in trade, relying on the protective policy of the British Gov- 
ernment, any innovation should occur to nip this growing 
commerce in the bud."^ The various islands of the West In- 
dies were, therefore, divided in their attitude toward the de- 
cision of the British Government to tighten its colonial system. 
But American vessels were not only excluded from ports 
of the British West Indies; they were even seized and con- 
demned for anchoring longer than twenty-four hours off some 
of the ports from which American commerce was excluded.® 
And Bermuda, too, became subject to more stringent regula- 
tions from the home government. This island, strictly speak- 
ing, was not regarded as one of the West Indies, but as a mere 
entrepot to which American vessels on paying port charges 
and duties of 5 or 5% cent were allowed to carry certain 
specified articles. By new rules, merely having prohibited or 
non-permitted articles on board, whether meant to be landed 
or not, involved the forfeiture of the vessel together with the 
articles.® In one case, after the governor and custom house 
had permitted an American sloop to land a cargo of hams 
which were not on the list of articles enumerated by Act of 
Parliament, the vessel was seized by an officer of the British 
5 Quoted in St. George's Chronicle and Grenada Gazette, Nov. 11, 1815. 
6 Ihid. 
^ Ibid., Sept. 9, 1815, and Nov. 1, 1815. 
® Quoted from Charleston City Gazette by Alexandria Gazette, Dec. 18, 1816. 
® Notice of British Vice-Consul in Boston in Boston Daily Advertiser, Dec. 24, 1816. 
Comment of Columbian Centinel, Jan. 1, 1817, on notice of British Vice-Consul in North 
Carolina. 
