a63 
HISTORY OF THE [book vr. 
ports of America. The complaints and remon¬ 
strances of the West Indians,- they treated as the 
turbulence of disappointed faction. They accused 
them of having abetted the American rebellion, 
and their apprehensions, while wallowing in wealth, 
of a scarcity of food were spurned at and ridiculed, 
as if hunger was no part of our nature. 
It is impossible, I think, not to perceive in these, 
and similar arguments, a lurking taint of resent¬ 
ment and malignity, the relics of former provoca¬ 
tion against the Americans; and at least as ardent a 
desire"to wound the new republic through the sides 
of the West Indians, as to benefit Nova Scotia at 
their expense. These passions are among the frail¬ 
ties of our nature, and may be forgiven. But there 
was another, and a numerous class of people, who 
stood forward on this occasion, in support of the 
system of restriction and monopoly, on different 
ground: these were the ship-builders, ship-owners, 
and their various dependants in London; who af¬ 
fected to believe, that if American ships were suf¬ 
fered to take sugar from our islands, they would 
convey it—not to America, but—to foreign coun¬ 
tries, and rob us of the carriage of it; or they 
might, it was alleged, enter into a competition 
with British ships for the freight of goods to Great 
Britain. To this it was answered, that a limitation 
of tonnage to ships employed in the American in¬ 
tercourse, to which the planters would not object, 
confining it to vessels having only one deck, and 
not exceeding seventy or eighty tons, must satisfy 
