Benns: BriT^ish West India Carrying-Trade 75 
port of its fellow colonists in Jamaica, by explaining to the 
House of Commons that the condition of the island was “de- 
plorable beyond all former example” and that 
the great and primary causes of this depression, are to be found in the 
restrictions which are imposed upon the intercourse of the British 
West Indies with foreign states . . . whereby the United States of 
America have actually possessed themselves of all the advantages of the 
Carrying Trade. . . 
The assembly of Grenada and the legislature of Antigua con- 
tributed their voices to what was now becoming somewhat of 
a chorus, the latter maintaining that the “most extraordinary 
and painful situation” of their affairs was due, among other 
things, to the restrictions on their commerce with the United 
States. They even went so far as to confess to the King that 
they had 
long entertained the sanguine hope that some arrangement would have 
been made, not incompatible with the great objects of the national policy, 
tending to facilitate the introduction of some of our staple productions 
into the United States of America, and for the easier obtaining our sup- 
plies from thence.®^ 
Finally a new note was introduced into this chorus by the 
legislature of St. Vincent which boldly asserted that they were 
justly entitled to claim a restoration of the commerce with the United 
States, or to a compensation for being deprived of it; without which your 
Memorialists may truly affirm, the present system will prove little short 
of rendering the valuable West India Colonies a sacrifice to the prosper- 
ity of the North American Provinces, where even now, the importation 
of rum is oppressed by vexatious duties, levied in money, while the only 
beneficial object of the trade to the Colonies, is a bare interchange of 
the respective commodities.®^ 
That there was a growing feeling of sectionalism within 
the British empire on the subject of trade seems evident from 
the above petition ; further evidence is found in events in the 
British North American provinces. As soon as the petitions 
of the British West India colonists became known in these 
North American provinces, moves were immediately made to 
counteract them. Early in February, 1822, a general meeting 
was held in Halifax at which it was resolved 
That as the memorials lately transmitted from certain islands in the 
West Indies, to His Majesty’s Government, for opening their ports to the 
St. Christopher Gazette; and Charibbean Courier, Feb. 22, 1822. St. Christopher 
Advertiser, Feb. 19, 1822. Boston Daily Advertiser, June 4, 1822. 
St. Christopher Gazette; and Charibbean Courier, April 5, 1822. 
^^Ibid., July 5, 1822. 
