Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 79 
If the Atlantic States, which are almost exclusively interested in 
the continuance or dissolution of the exciting system of control, feel 
nothing for the encouragement of ship building, for the object of giving 
employment to sailors, and thereby laying up means for the efficacy of 
the navy — if they are willing that those advantages should be passed 
over to a foreign rival or rivals, and to send along with them the profits 
of freighting — then ought the clamors we hear, to silence “the still small 
voice of reason”, and the interest and mistakes of a few to bear sway 
over important views of the public good/“^ 
But the ship-owners and merchants of the North were not 
content to let their defense rest in the hands of the news- 
papers. Soon after news of the movement in the South reached 
the chief shipping centers of the country, the forces of those 
favoring the American restrictive system began to be mar- 
shaled. New York and Boston led the counter-attack. A 
public meeting held in Merchants’ Hall in the latter city re- 
solved that the navigation acts had been “highly beneficial” 
to the agricultural, manufacturing, and shipping interests; 
that their repeal “would be destructive of the carrying trade, 
and highly prejudicial to the best interests of the whole com- 
munity”; and “would not increase the Trade and Commerce 
of the United States”.^®® The New York Chamber of Com- 
merce took the same general point of view.^®® And not many 
days later the merchants and ship-owners of Portsmouth and 
Salem joined the movement.^®^ 
The situation in the United States at this time regarding 
the American navigation acts was analyzed with a fair degree 
of accuracy by the editor of a New England paper, who wrote 
that 
The citizens of seaports North of Baltimore appear to be in favor of the 
continued exclusion of British vessels from their colonies, unless Amer- 
ican vessels are admitted to those colonies. The citizens of seaports 
South of Baltimore seem to be in favor of an admission of British ships 
without the other condition.^®® 
The following editorial from the Salem Gazette presents what 
might be called, perhaps, a more scholarly view of the situa- 
tion: 
Quoted in New England Palladium and Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 1, 1822. 
105 American Statesman and Evening Advertiser, Jan. 28, 1822. Columbian Centinel, 
Feb. 2, 1822. Am. State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, II, 623-625. 
American Statesman and Evening Advertiser, Jan. 29, 1822. 
^07 Portsmouth Journal, Feb. 23, 1822. Am. State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, 
II, 629-630. Salem Gazette, Feb. 26, 1822. Essex Register, Feb. 27, 1822. 
"^^^Nexo England Palladium and Commercial Advertiser, Feb. 8, 1822. 
