Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 155 
and an official order to this effect was later sent from Eng- 
land.^^® The only restriction which was placed on the trade 
was the stipulation that such goods must not be transhipped 
in the foreign ports ; American goods must actually be landed 
in the foreign West India port and then reloaded into the 
British vessel for British ports in the West Indies/^^ With 
this exception, the trade was permitted to continue unre- 
stricted. 
Consequently a brisk trade, formerly unknown, sprang up 
between some of the Danish, Swedish, French, and Spanish 
West Indies and the United States and between the former 
and the British West Indies. The ports of St. Thomas, St. 
Eustatia, St. Bartholomew's, Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Jago 
(Santiago) de Cuba, and others, became the depots in the 
indirect trade. Figures gleaned from official reports in the 
archives of the British Government revealed the fact that 
of the amount of lumber introduced since the interruption of the direct 
trade, nearly one-half of the most valuable kinds, which previously went 
directly from the United States, passed through the foreign West Indies; 
of shingles, considerably more than one-half; and of staves, a greater 
number were imported from the foreign West Indies in 1828 than were 
introduced directly from the United States in 1825.“^''® 
They also showed that in place of the 21,090 barrels of meal 
and flour which had been imported into the British West 
Indies from the foreign West Indies in 1825, a total of 142,090 
barrels was imported in 1828. For corn and grain the same 
change had likewise taken place : 9,249 bushels in 1825 ; 126,- 
221 bushels in 1828. Most of the increase came, of course, 
indirectly from the United States.^^® 
Then, Anally, a very little trade continued between the 
United States and the British West Indies directly by the 
authority of proclamations issued by governors of the islands 
under the pressure of dire necessity. The commander-in- 
chief over St. Christopher, Nevis, Anguilla, and the Virgin 
Islands, for example, issued a proclamation on August 30, 
1827, permitting for three months the importation in any 
foreign vessel whatsoever of a long list of articles formerly 
supplied directly from the United States. He was compelled 
l58iV^7es’ Register, XXXII, 180. 
Grenada Free Press, and Public Gazette, July 30, 1828. 
^88 McLane to Aberdeen, March 16, 1830, Senate Docs., 21 Cong., 2 Sess,, I, No. 20, 
p. 28. 
Ibid., 27 . 
