Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 95 
from the same ports or goods imported therein; (3) that until 
such proof should be given, British vessels coming from the 
colonial ports should continue to pay the foreign tonnage duty 
and the discriminating duty of 10 per cent upon their cargoes ; 
(4) that vessels coming directly from the enumerated British 
colonial ports might import only articles of the growth, prod- 
uce, or manufacture of those colonies, and such articles might 
be imported only in vessels coming directly from those colonial 
ports; (5) that goods of the United States might be exported 
to any of the enumerated colonial ports in British vessels, 
provided the vessels had come directly from one of those ports. 
Minor points of the act provided that the acts of 1818 and 1820 
were only suspended, that the act would continue in force only 
so long as the enumerated British colonial ports were open to 
American vessels, and that any other British colonial port 
which might subsequently be opened to American vessels 
should have the profit of this act.^^ 
The vital point of this act was the word "‘elsewhere’' in the 
second section. By the Administration this word was in- 
tended to mean “anywhere else”, including other British pos- 
sessions and even Great Britain herself. In plain words, the 
act meant that until proof should be given that American ves- 
sels and cargoes from the United States were admitted into 
the British colonial ports on the same terms as British vessels 
and cargoes from Halifax, for instance, or from London, Brit- 
ish vessels entering the United States from British colonial 
ports must continue to pay the foreign tonnage duty and the 
discriminating duty of 10 per cent upon their cargoes. Thus, 
once more, the American Government put forth the claim, 
covert to be sure, that American vessels and goods should be 
admitted into the British colonial ports on the same terms as 
British vessels and cargoes from other parts of the British 
empire. This had been for some time a strong contention 
of Adams who believed that discriminating duties were nec- 
essary to secure to American vessels their full share of the 
British West India carrying-trade. This view was also held 
by Rufus King.23 But, as Huskisson later pointed out, it 
was a pretension unheard of in the commercial relations of independent 
states. It was just as unreasonable as it would be on our part to re- 
quire that sugar or rum, from our West India islands, should be ad- 
Public Statutes at Large, III, 740-742. 
Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, VI, 493. 
