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One or two were milder in their views. The New York 
Albion, thru the eyes of its English editor, saw in the act 
the emancipation of the colonial commerce from a bondage of two cen- 
turies, the elevation of the colonists, in a commercial point of view to 
their just rank of equality with their fellow subjects, and the opening 
to them a free trade with the whole world.®^ 
Its contemporary, the New York American, tho it doubted the 
advantages of the act for the United States, considered the rule 
laid down in it “as equally sound in theory and consonant” 
to American policy, and presumed it would be acquiesced in 
by the United States Government.®® These papers were taken 
vigorously to task, however, by a third New York paper which 
expressed itself as follows : 
We are utterly disgusted at the boisterous claims of British agents 
and not less so at the unnatural countenance they receive from some 
presses in this city, in circulating the grossest impositions under the 
canting appellation of free trade. Can we, we ask the English agent, 
we ask the American patron of English agents, can we — we ask these 
city printers whose cauldrons are always ready to receive and cork up 
the British materials or ingredients — having, under the free trade act, 
visited the English colonies, purchased and paid for what we wanted — 
can we, as Jonathan says, go where “we have a mind to”? Nothing 
of the sort, yet this is what is called unrestricted commerce ... A 
new state of affairs exists in the Southern nations of America, and to 
that state, England accommodated her old system of commercial law, 
and this is called CHANGE by the interested sycophants of the Ameri- 
can press, and the British nincompoops who employ them, and pay 
them — alack a day.^^ 
It even resorted to ridicule and pun in its attack on the Brit- 
ish act, as is seen in the following editorial of a later date: 
Amongst the articles which are prohibited under the unrestricted 
colonial system lately devised by England we observe Beef, Pork, Bacon, 
Gunpowder, Arms, Fish, Oil, Fins or Skins, in fact everything that is 
the produce of creatures who have their domicile in the ocean! John 
will continue master of the ocean, and to avoid all whining about the 
new system, blubber of every sort is specifically interdicted . . 
The great mass of American newspapers, however, whether 
because of doubt as to the exact meaning or probable operation 
of the British acts, or because of lack of interest in the ques- 
tion as a whole, expressed no opinion of the new regulations. 
In spite of the evident confusion and ambiguity involved 
Quoted in Daily National Intelligencer, Sept. 7, 1825. 
s® ATew York American (for the country), Aug. 12, 1825. 
The National Advocate, Aug. 24, 1825. 
88 /bid.. Sept. 3, 1825. 
