Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 157 
11 per cent. These figures take no account of the American 
produce that went into Canada by land or inland navigation 
and thence to the British West Indies in British vessels. In 
view of these facts it seems safe to say that the British order 
in council failed to produce any disastrous effect upon Amer- 
ican foreign commerce to the West Indies. 
The effect upon American navigation can be shown by a 
similar table 
Destination 
Yearly Average, 
American Tonnage 
Leaving the United 
States, Oct. 1824 to 
Sept. 30, 1826 
Yearly Average, 
American Tonnage 
Leaving the United 
States, Oct. 1, 1827 
to Sept. 30, i829 
British West Indies. 
96,849 
6,696 
Danish West Indies 
40,652 
62,360 
Dutch West Indies 
13,771 
11,861 
French West Indies 
43,768 
59,831 
Swedish West Indies 
5,793 
27,401 
Spanish West Indies 
6,424 
9,447 
Cuba 
116,478 
122,608 
West Indies, general. 
20,059 
13,427 
Total 
343,794 
313,631 
Here the total American tonnage engaged in trade with all the 
West Indies showed a decline for the two years following the 
British order of 30,163 tons or approximately 30 per cent of 
the amount formerly engaged in trade with the British West 
Indies directly. By limiting the comparison to those islands 
which acted as depots in the indirect trade, it develops that 
even then the decrease was as much as 27 per cent. A safe 
conclusion would seem to be, therefore, that the British inter- 
dict did not throw out of employment all the shipping formerly 
engaged in the British West India trade, but that it did affect 
unfavorably something over one-quarter of it. 
The total loss of the direct trade with the British West 
Indies, and the real loss which was felt to some extent by the 
shipping interests and to a lesser extent by the producers of 
goods for export, in spite of the indirect trade, presented too 
good an opportunity for arousing public opinion against the 
Administration not to be injected into the political campaign 
which preceded the election of 1828. The ' first constitutional 
163 Ihid. 
