36 
Indiana University Studies 
Year 
British 
American 
1815.. 
145,364 tons 
700,500 tons 
1816 
212,426 tons 
877,462 tons 
1817 
174,935 tons 
780, 136 tons 
While the total American tonnage engaged in foreign trade in 
the year following the commercial convention increased 25 per 
cent, that of Great Britain entering American ports jumped 
46 per cent. And altho the depressed state of navigation thru- 
out the world was reflected in the figures for 1817, even in that 
year the British total showed an increase of 20 per cent over 
the year 1815, while that of the United States was maintained 
at only 11 per cent over the same year. A still better indica- 
tion of the benefits which British shipping derived from this 
triangular route is seen in the figures for 1819, the year fol- 
lowing the destruction of that route by the American naviga- 
tion act of 1818. The total British tonnage entering the 
United States in 1819 fell to the small amount of 36,333 tons,-^^ 
a decrease of over 75 per cent from the total for 1815, the 
year preceding the commercial convention, thus showing clear- 
ly the connection between the British West India intercourse 
and that between the United States and Great Britain. 
Not all these facts could, of course, be known immediately 
upon the conclusion of the convention of 1815, but during the 
following year its effects began to be seen in the unemploy- 
ment of seamen and the numerous classes of mechanics con- 
nected with navigation, the depreciation of American vessels, 
and the almost total cessation of ship-building and all the en- 
livening pursuits associated with its prosperity.^® Many 
American seamen were compelled to seek employment under 
foreign flags ; ship carpenters, in many cases, were obliged to 
go into the British provinces of New Brunswick and Nova 
Scotia “to cut lumber even for the royal navy of England and 
to build vessels to carry it to Great Britain’’. Hundreds of 
others were reduced to poverty, while many of the towns and 
villages which once flourished by commerce and navigation 
began rapidly to decay. Within a year after the convention 
went into effect, it was reported that more than one-half of 
American tonnage was “useless, dismantled at the wharves. 
Bates, American Navigation, 183. 
Aurora, Dec. 16, 1816, and Jan. 23, 1817. 
