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Indiana University Studies 
Again, it had assuredly not been the intent of the British 
act of 1822 to open the intercourse between the United States 
and the West Indies to American vessels alone. British ship- 
ping was expected to gain its proportionate share of the trade. 
And yet Great Britain soon discovered that, due to the oper- 
ation of the American act of 1823, “nearly the whole of the 
supplies from the United States . . . were conveyed in 
American vessels’\®^ Their discovery is fully substantiated 
by American figures for navigation, as the following table 
discloses 
Year Ending September 30 
Tonnage Entering 
American Ports 
from the British 
West Indies 
Tonnage Departing 
from American Ports 
for the British 
West Indies 
American 
British 
American 
British 
1822. 
33,719 
71,346 
93,933 
101,604 
715 
9,520 
6,501 
6,907 
28,720 
68,350 
91,637 
93,967 
101 
8,654 
7,567 
6,742 
1823 
1824 
1825.. 
This apparent®^ growth of American shipping alarmed Brit- 
ish statesmen who had always understood that the primary 
object of the navigation laws was to maintain for Great 
Britain a great commercial marine, and that the next great 
principle of those laws “was to prevent too great a share of 
the foreign carrying trade being engrossed by any one partic- 
ular country''.®® 
The logical course to pursue, based upon these principles, 
was, obviously, “to invite such powers as Prussia, Denmark, 
Sweden, the Hanse Towns, etc. to participate, with the United 
States in the trade" which had been opened to the latter in the 
British West Indies.®"^ Would it not be more politic to allow 
similar advantages to those European states “whose increase 
of naval power by that privilege would, in case of a war, be 
Hansard's Parliamentary Debates (2d series), XVII, 646. 
Figures compiled from Table No. 7 in each of the following; State Papers, 17 
Cong., 2 Sess., IV, No. 62 ; 18 Cong., 1 Sess., IV, No. 73 ; 18 Cong., 2 Sess., V, No. 90 ; 
19 Cong., 1 Sess., IX, No. 148. 
55 This growth was not so real as appeared for there was a corresponding decrease 
in American tonnage engaged in trade with British North America and the Swedish, 
Danish, and Dutch West Indies. For the year 1822-23, this decrease was 65,524 tons 
from the total for 1821-22. 
56 Huskisson in Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (2d series), XVII, 646. 
57 Ibid. 
