place our commercial intercourse in regard to the matters to which your note refers on the most liberal and comprehensive basis with respect to all countries which shall be willing to act in a corresponding spirit towards us.
(Signed) "Palmerston."[1]
practically giving prior information to the Americans.
Lord Clarendon tells Shipowners' Society that the laws will not be altered, December 26, 1846, and repeats this assurance, March 15, 1847.
It thus appears that the English Ministers communicated
their intentions formally and explicitly to
the American Government, and, through that Government
to the American people, a day before they
chose to inform the English Parliament and the
nation, somewhat vaguely, in the Queen's Speech,
of the course they might, eventually, be led to pursue.
A year previously, on the 21st of December, 1846,
the Shipowners' Society of London had had an interview
with Lord Clarendon at the Board of Trade.
On that occasion, as appears from the Minutes of
the Society, they were graciously received, and
assured in distinct language, that no intention was
entertained on the part of her Majesty's Government
of making any alteration in these laws. Three
months later, on the 15th March, 1847, these gentlemen,
entertaining a feeling of mistrust in the then
governing powers, went again to the Board of Trade
and asked the same question, and were once more
assured that there was no intention on the part
of Government to interfere with the fundamental
principles of the Navigation Laws; that an individual
member, Mr. Ricardo, had indeed mooted
the subject of a committee, which Government could
not refuse, but that the committee should be a fair
one, with Mr. Milner Gibson[2] as chairman, as they
