Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 187 
of those colonies against foreign competition. Against the 
former it was useless for the United States to protest ; against 
the latter it had no legal right to protest. For four years 
Adams had vainly striven to force Great Britain to surrender 
these advantages in respect to the United States and had 
eventually completely failed in his effort. Jackson had faced 
the situation as it was, had sought to secure all that might 
reasonably be expected, and had eventually gained all that he 
had sought. 
A comparison of the terms of Jackson’s “Reciprocity of 
1830” with the claims and counterclaims previously advanced 
by the two governments makes it quite clear that the final 
arrangement was in the nature of a compromise. Great 
Britain had at first stipulated that all commerce between the 
United States and her colonies in the West Indies must be 
carried on in British vessels only; she now admitted it in 
either British or American vessels. She had for years limited 
to a very small enumerated list of articles the imports from 
the United States to her West India colonies and the exports 
from the latter to the United States; she now admitted into 
those colonies practically anything the growth or manufacture 
of the United States, and permitted the export from them of 
anything of their produce. Having finally admitted American 
vessels to her colonies in the West Indies, she had at first 
sought to prevent them from becoming the carriers of her 
colonial produce to other countries by ruling that they must 
return directly to the United States ; she now permitted Amer- 
ican vessels to clear with cargoes from the British West In- 
dies for any foreign country in the world. 
On the other hand, the United States had sought to restrict 
the right of British vessels to export American goods to the 
British West Indies to those ships only which had entered 
American ports from those islands ; it now permitted British 
vessels to export cargoes from the United States to the British 
West Indies regardless of whence they had entered American 
ports. It had long claimed that its products, when imported 
into the British colonies in the West Indies, should be subject 
to no higher duties than those levied upon goods from other 
parts of the British Empire; it now expressly conceded to 
Great Britain the right to lay discriminating duties upon 
foreign products in order to protect her own. It had also 
