Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 59 
its being referred to the American Government.^' When the 
British plenipotentiaries submitted their proposals they stated 
that they could not consent to sign any article regarding the 
West India trade unless the American plenipotentiaries were 
prepared at the same time to accede to articles putting the 
trade between the United States and Bermuda, Novia Scotia, 
and New Brunswick upon the footing contemplated in articles 
offered earlier by the British plenipotentiaries, a footing pre- 
cisely opposed to that advanced by the American plenipotenti- 
aries in their former proposals.^^ The latter declared that 
they were not authorized to sign any such articles as those pro- 
posed by the British but agreed to take the whole question ad 
referendum to their Government.^® 
The negotiation being thus kept open in respect to the 
British West India trade, the American plenipotentiaries 
agreed to an article continuing the commercial convention of 
1815 in force for ten years. This was incorporated in a gen- 
eral convention signed October 20, 1818.®® It was fully under- 
stood on both sides, however, that if no agreement should be 
ultimately concluded with respect to the colonial trade, no 
ground of complaint would arise on account of any restrictive 
measures which the United States might adopt on that sub- 
ject.®^ 
The convention, when it became known in the United 
States, occasioned very little comment on the part of the news- 
papers. Only rarely was the absence of an article regarding 
the British West India trade noted, and even when it was, 
the fact was usually merely mentioned. The shipping inter- 
ests of the country apparently were ready to try conclusions 
in a contest between the restrictive regulations of the two 
countries, and the other interests in America were in general 
evidently willing to give the shippers their support — at least 
for a time. The following editorial, however, reflected the 
glow of a spark of sectional feeling which had already begun 
to smolder in Norfolk, and which was later to spread from 
there thruout the South: 
It will be perceived that the Treaty is perfectly silent upon the sub- 
ject of the West India trade, the great desideratum with the Southern 
Am. State Papers, For. ReL, IV, 382. 
See above, pp. 48, 49, 56, 57. 
Am. State Papers, For. ReL, IV, 897. 
20 /bid., IV, 406. 
21 /bid., IV, 381. 
