Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 169 
As the British Government was well aware, these provinces 
had reaped considerable benefit from the exclusion of Ameri- 
can vessels from the British colonial trade.^^ Such ports as 
Halifax and St. Johns had enjoyed a greatly increased com- 
merce with the British West Indies since the United States had 
been prohibited from participating directly in that trade.^^ 
In full confidence that the trade would remain as it was, mer- 
chants of British North America had invested a great part 
of their capital in the British West India trade, and they 
feared that if that trade was once more opened to American 
merchants, inevitable ruin would be brought upon them- 
selves.^^ 
Consequently the British North American colonists pro- 
ceeded to wage a vigorous campaign against any concession to 
the United States in the colonial trade as soon as it became 
known that negotiations were pending between Great Britain 
and the United States in regard to that question. A special 
meeting of the Montreal Committee of Trade was immediately 
called ‘‘on account of the recent intelligence from London, 
respecting the negotiations said to be pending there for the 
opening to the United States a direct intercourse with the 
British West Indies and Demerara’'. Great alarm was ex- 
pressed, and resolutions were unanimously adopted that peti- 
tions and memorials be transmitted to London in opposition 
to such a concession.25 Addresses to the King were drawn up 
by the council and assembly of New Brunswick and by simi- 
lar bodies in Nova Scotia, desiring that the British Govern- 
ment adhere to the “wise and enlightened policy” which had 
preserved to British subjects in North America “a trade so 
essential to their properity”.^® The lieutenant-governor of 
New Brunswick, being in London at the time, added his most 
strenuous exertions to defeat this measure which, it was ar- 
gued, would so fatally affect New Brunswick and the neighbor- 
ing provinces.2^ The colonial press contributed its voice to 
the general clamor against any possible concession to Ameri- 
22 /bid., 22 Cong-., 1 Sess., Ill, No. 118, p. 2. 
23 McGregor, British America, II, 89, 152, 153. 
2-1 /bid., II, 154-156, 159-161. 
New York Evening Post, Jan. 4, 1830. ^ : 
London Morning Herald, April 19, 1830, in Philadelphia Gazette, May 27, 1830. 
McGregor, British America, II, 159-161. 
2^ St. Johns newspaper quoted in Niles’ Register, XXXVI, 430. 
