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Indiana University Studies 
a year, opposed legislative action to meet the British regula- 
tions, and postponed negotiations for still another year, only 
in the end to adopt the terms offered by Great Britain in 1824, 
and recognized as plausible by Clay as early, as June, 1825. 
The American Government apparently believed that, since 
Great Britain had been forced to break down her colonial sys- 
tem in 1822 because of the great dependence of the British 
West Indies upon the United States for supplies, and since that 
dependence still existed, it might be used as a lever to gain fur- 
ther advantages in the colonial trade for American shipping. 
Consequently it had attempted to force a claim which, altho 
it would undoubtedly have been a great advantage to the ship- 
ping interests of the United States, was unjustifiable then and 
would be equally so today. Failing to grasp the favorable 
terms which it might have obtained, persisting in the effort to 
gain greater privileges for its shipping, the American Gov- 
ernment finally overreached itself, and lost nearly all the priv- 
ileges which its shipping already possessed in the British 
colonial trade. 
