Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 129 
trade was then permitted by the United States was unequal 
and unfair, but dismissed this subject with the assertion that 
‘The objection which the British Government feels to the 
proposition for such partial equalization of conditions, as Mr. 
Gallatin’s instructions appear to be intended to establish, lies 
deeper than Mr. Gallatin’s proposition goes”. The basis of 
this fundamental objection was “the unquestionable right” 
which Great Britain had to reserve to herself the trade with 
her colonies and to relax that reservation only under such 
circumstances and on such occasions as she pleased. As Can- 
ning stated it. 
Our right either to open the ports of our colonies or to keep them 
closed as might suit our own convenience; our right to grant the in- 
dulgence of a trade with those colonies to foreign Powers, wholly or 
partially, unconditionally or conditionally, as we might think proper, 
and, if conditionally, on what conditions we pleased, was clear.^” 
Great Britain, for various reasons, had seen fit to open her 
West India colonial ports to all countries, rather than to the 
United States exclusively. 
The question is now, therefore, no longer what it was in 1820 or 
1822, a question between Great Britain and the United States of Amer- 
ica; it is a question between Great Britain and all the nations of the 
Old and the New World, to all of whom Great Britain has tendered 
access to her colonies on conditions which many of them have prac- 
tically complied with, and more perhaps are ready to accept."*® 
Having laid down the fundamental principle that nations 
in order to trade with British colonies must meet the condi- 
tions prescribed by Great Britain, he next proceeded to show 
that the United States had consistently failed to meet them. 
In doing this, he cited all the facts which were referred to 
earlier in this chapter as contributing to bring about the 
order in council.^^ Finally he came to the conclusion to which 
all else in his note had been leading up, that 
whatever may be the date or tenor of the instructions under which Mr. 
Gallatin acts, he will have collected from this note that, after all that 
has passed upon the subject of colonial intercourse, and especially after 
the advised omission by the Government and Legislature of the United 
States to meet (as other nations have done) the simple and direct pro- 
visions of the act of 1825, the British Government cannot consent to 
enter into any renewed negotiation upon the intercourse between the 
United States and the British colonies, so long as the pretension recorded 
VI, 251. 
« Ibid. 
See above, pp. 121, 122. 
9—23811 
