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Indiana University 
been more difficult of access because of restrictive legislation. I 
Now on the side of the Americans there were certain con- | 
ditions that favored trade between the United States and the I 
Netherlands. America contained many people of Dutch and ji 
German descent. Perhaps a majority of the people of Penn- | 
sylvania were German and Dutch.®^ New York and Maryland ! 
had many. These people because of their language and cus- | 
toms were willing to enter into business relations with Dutch | 
ship captains and with Dutch commercial agents. Further- ' 
more, many of them were accustomed to the kinds of goods ( 
that came from or thru Holland. Before the war these people 
had continued to buy these continental goods, but the greater 
portion of course at that time had come thru English ports 
and in English ships. English authorities state that the goods 
that they carried from the Continent to America were nearly 
a million dollars less in value after the Revolution than be- i 
fore.^® Someone else was carrying them after the war. The 
American people, accustomed to these goods before the war, 
did not lose their taste for them during the war. In fact, 
during the Revolution while the English traders were excluded 
from their ports, many Americans acquired tastes for con- 
tinental goods who before had preferred English goods. The 
French no doubt supplied some of these goods, as, for instance, 
the wines which the Americans had learned to like in the 
place of the English wines and ales.^® But the more staple 
goods came thru the Netherlands. On May 1, 1783, out of 
fifty ships in the port of Philadelphia, twenty-one were 
Dutch.^" What these goods were and what the Americans 
had to send in return will be dealt with in other chapters. 
In the second place, the Americans had a commercial treaty 
with the Dutch thruout this period under consideration. This 
treaty had been signed on October 8, 1782, and had in it the 
most favored nation clause and other liberal provisions. It 
was the second treaty entered into by the United States and 
the first one made from purely commercial motives.^^ The 
Carey, American Musetim or Repository, II, 112. 
Coxe, A View of the United States of America, 153; Nathaniel Atcheson (ed.), 
Collection of Reports and Papers on the Navigation and Trade (London, 1807), 66. 
The Diplomatic Correspondence of the United States, I, 284. 
Boston Gazette, June 4 and 9, 1783 ; Loyidon Chronicle, May 5, 1783. 
William Henry Trescott, The Dix>lomacy of the Revolution (New York, 1852), 57, 
147 . 
