Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 35 
fined to the direct voyage between England and the colonies, 
would necessarily have had to go out nearly empty, and of 
course have earned little freight. The indirect route, on the 
other hand, afforded them two freights.^® 
But another advantage which this triangular route gave 
British merchants could not be overlooked : it enabled them to 
compete in the direct carrying-trade between Great Britain 
and the United States on terms which were ruinous to Ameri- 
can merchants. Rather than permit their ships to lie idle 
during the commercial depression which followed peace in 
Europe, they preferred to take almost nominal freights for 
cargoes from Great Britain to American ports especially in 
view of the fact that, after landing their cargoes in America, 
they then had two voyages home in neither of which they had 
any foreign competition. On the other hand, American ves- 
sels were limited to a direct trade only with the possessions 
of Great Britain in Europe. Whereas the bulky supplies fur- 
nished by America might require, perhaps, one hundred ves- 
sels for transport to England, the less bulky articles which 
they received in return might be brought back in a compara- 
tively few ships. This fact, together with the underbidding 
of freight by the British merchants, compelled a great many 
American vessels to return in ballast.'^^ And the legality of 
this triangular trade route in at least the first two years after 
the commercial convention of 1815 was assured by a ruling of 
the United States Secretary of the Treasury, a ruling which 
the British consulates in America took pains to have published 
' broadcast in the newspapers. According to this decision, a 
British ship making a voyage from the British West Indies 
to a British European port and thence to the United States had 
to be admitted, under the commercial convention, without dk- 
crimination, on the ground that its voyage had been broken.^^ 
The effect of this one-sided competition is noticeable in the 
figures for British and American tonnage, in foreign trade, 
which entered American ports for the years 1815, 1816, 1817, 
respectively:^^ 
29 Pitkin, Statistical Vietv of Commerce of U.S., 190. . 
29 Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, V, 500. Boston Commercial Gazette, Feb. 
22, 1816. 
21 Speech of Senator Barbour, Annals of Cong., 15 Cong., 1 Sess., 318. 
‘22 Notice of Brit. Consulate in Baltimore, in Alexandria Gazette, Dec. 30, 1816. 
9® Bates, American Navigation, 183. 
