Canadian ports. These ships were well fitted for the carriage of wheat and flour; and the competition produced by their presence would not only tend to reduce the freight from Canada to an equality with those from the States, but the good condition of the cargoes delivered would be assured; the shippers would, in this way, be saved from the use of inferior vessels, the damage caused by which was thought not to be over-estimated at an average of five per cent. on such shipments.
Navigation of the St. Lawrence. Again: the American merchants of the West were anxious to avail themselves of the facilities afforded by the River St. Lawrence. Thus, if their vessels were permitted to come down to Montreal and Quebec, there to meet American or foreign ships to take their cargoes on freight to Europe or elsewhere, it was naturally thought that an extensive and profitable commerce through Canada would immediately follow; the lower ports, by these means, at once assuming the position, as commercial depôts, to which their geographical position on that great river outlet of Northern America seemed to entitle them.
Free-trade with the United States desired by the farmers of Canada. Connected with this important subject of the free navigation of the St. Lawrence west of Quebec, which the Americans were desirous of procuring, a corresponding desire prevailed on the part of the Canadian farmers to avail themselves of the American home market, whenever it offered superior prices to those derived from exportation to Europe. The price of wheat and flour in the Eastern States, required for home consumption, was often much higher than the price in Canada for exportation, and when
