Great Britain imposes countervailing duties. not to impose any new or additional duty on the tonnage of British ships or vessels, or to increase the then subsisting difference between the duties payable on the importation of any article in British American ships; so that when Congress imposed increased duties, the English Parliament exercised the reserved right stipulated in the treaty, and thus by the Act of Geo. III., c. 97, countervailing duties were imposed, payable on the importation of American goods in American vessels, in addition to the duties payable on their importation in British ships.[1] Additional duties were also imposed upon certain specified articles, and three per cent. ad valorem upon enumerated articles.
Effect of legislative measures on both sides. Such, then, was the legislation on both sides, as it most materially affected merchant shipping. The American shipowners and merchants looked upon every proceeding on the part of the British Legislature as levelled especially against themselves; and, jealous of everything which militated against their own interest, they contended that the Parliament of
- ↑ The duties imposed were as follows:—On pig-iron, bar-iron, and pearl ashes, ten per cent. additional, when imported without certificate from the British Colonies in America; ten per cent. upon the customs duties on pitch, tar, resin, turpentine, masts, yards, bowsprits, and manufactured goods and merchandise (except wood-staves and tobacco); and a similar percentage upon the customs duties on all manufactured wood-staves when imported from Europe in British ships. On oil of fish, blubber, whale-fins, and spermaceti, ten per cent. on the customs duties payable when imported from countries not under the dominion of Great Britain. On tobacco, one shilling and sixpence per one hundred pounds weight; and on all other American goods, ten per cent. upon the customs duties payable for the same when imported in British-built vessels from the American States. The countervailing duties were to be calculated upon the rates of duties as they stood previously to the Act of 37 Geo. III., c. 15. By the statute above recited, a tonnage duty of two shillings sterling was imposed on all American vessels arriving in the ports of Great Britain.
