in innumerable publications; and, as usual, glaring exaggerations were resorted to on both sides. In the sequel, the English government adopted a middle course. A proclamation of the 2nd of July, 1783, by the King in council, permitted British subjects to carry in British vessels all kinds of naval stores, lumber, live-stock, corn, &c., from the United States of America to the West India Islands, and also to export rum, sugar, molasses, coffee, cocoa, &c., from the Islands to the States under the same regulations and duties as if these commodities had been cleared out for a British possession. This concession naturally satisfied neither parties; Great Britain and the United States alike regarding it with either alarm or disdain. The West India planters apprehended instant ruin if there were any check on the free and unrestricted intercourse with the continent; while the Americans carried their resentment to an extent sufficient to induce three of the States to make a requisition to Congress that all commercial intercourse with England should be prohibited. The British government, however, vigorously supported by the shipping interest, remained inexorable in its restrictive policy.
In this matter the American people, moved, as it would seem, entirely by an instinctive sense of self-interest, became the champions of a free-trade policy in shipping, while their shipowners, relying on the provisions of the Navigation Act, assumed the character of exclusionists. Thus the antagonistic interests of the shipowners of the two countries disturbed the friendly feelings which might otherwise have prevailed. Three temporary Orders
