India Company. Whether the omission of the word China in the Act was an inadvertence, or whether it was, in fact, a violation of the law for United States vessels to go to Canton as well as to the other places within the limits of the Company's Charter detailed in this Act, the authorities of the Board of Trade did not care to distinguish.[1]
Coasting Trade. As regards the Coasting Trade, the law—8 & 9 Vict., cap. 88, sect. 8—in force in 1847, declared that no goods nor passengers could be carried coast-*wise from one part of the United Kingdom to another, or from the United Kingdom to the Isle of Man, and vice versâ, except in British ships, although the original Navigation Act of 1660 did not prevent foreign-built vessels from engaging in the coasting trade. The prohibition in the ancient Act extended only to such as were foreign owned, 12 Car. II., cap. 18, sect. 8. By the Act of 1 James, cap. 18, an extra duty of 5s. per ton for every voyage was laid upon all foreign-built ships engaged in this trade. Subsequently, by 34 Geo. III., cap. 68 (extended to Irish ships by 42 Geo. III., cap. 61), it was enacted, that vessels engaged in the coasting trade should be wholly navigated by British subjects; and this provision was still in force in 1847 by virtue of the definition of a "British ship," given in the 12th section of the Act of 8 & 9 Vict., cap. 88. The absolute restriction of the coasting trade to British-built ships
- ↑ The Americans acted on the section of the Act, which says, "any articles which may be legally exported from the United Kingdom to the said settlements." Thus Canton was deemed a foreign place with regard to the American Trade; but, in that it was included within the limits of the East India Company's Charter, American vessels could trade there though English vessels could not!
