Burt A. The Evolution of the British Empire and Commonwealth From the American Revolution
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Salvaging
What
Was
Left
of
the
American
Wreck
45
ing
the
Americans
to
gather
all
the
benefits.
Therefore
the
article
was
struck
out,
1
but
with
no
intention
of
discarding reciprocity.
The
pur-
pose
was to
guard
it
by
placing
it
upon
a
more
equitable
footing
in
a
supplementary
commercial
treaty.
That
this
would
shortly
follow was
the
understanding
of
both
parties
when
they
signed
the
preliminaries
of
30
November
1782,
the
preamble
of which
retained
a
reference to
the establishment
of
reciprocity;
and when
this draft of the
treaty
was
submitted
to
parliament
in
January
1783,
the
omission of
any
pro-
vision
to
carry
out
the
promise
of the
preamble
at
once roused
great
uneasiness.
The
House of
Commons,
backed
by
the
insistent
demands
of
mer-
cantile
interests
outside,
was
so
impatient
to
get
the freest
possible
trade
with
the
United
States
that
the
government
soon
yielded, prom-
ising
a
bill
to make
provisional
regulations
pending
the
preparation
of
.a
permanent system.
Then
the
government
fell from
power,
for other
reasons;
and
a
few
days
afterward William
Pitt,
who
continued in
office
until a
new
administration
could be
formed,
presented
the bill.
It
offered the
United
States
substantially
all the
advantages,
free
of
any
of
the
disadvantages,
of
being
included
in the
charmed circle of the
British
commercial
system;
therefore
it
was
open
to
all
the
objections
that
had
been
raised
against
the
eliminated
article
of
the
treaty.
Nevertheless
it was
very
much
what
"the whole house" had
wanted,
according
to
the
admission
of
the member
who
opened
the
fight
against
it.
The
shipping
interests
were of
course
stoutly
hostile because the
bill
spelled
the
doom
of their
monopoly,
but the
commercial
and West
Indian interests
fought
hard
for it.
During
the weeks
of warm
debate
that
followed,
various
objections
forced
the
house to
adopt
drastic
amendments.
In the
end,
the
bill,
though
mutilated,
was not
killed;
it was
merely
laid
aside
in
the
hope
that a
better solution was at
hand.
The new
ministry,
of Fox and
North,
reverted
to
the
original plan
and
hoped
a solution
might
be
worked out for
insertion in the
peace
treaty.
Again
the
negotiators
tried
to find
a
satisfactory
formula;
again
the
difficulty
lay
in
Britain,
with
the
navigation
laws;
and
again
London
decided
to
put
off the
question
for settlement in
a
supplementary
treaty,
for Fox was
impatient
to
conclude
peace.
When
he
cut
short
the
discussions and
thrust
forward the
provisional
treaty
of
November
1782,
slightly
reworded
to
make
it
definitive,
the
Americans
were
1
Except
the
provision
for
the
navigation
of the
Mississippi,
which the
Americans
desired in order
to
enlist British
interest
in
preventing Spain
from
closing
the mouth
of
the
river.
46
CHAPTER
FOUR:
reluctant
to
accept
it because their
signatures
would
terminate
their
commission
without their
having
gained
reciprocity.
But
they
too
would rather have an earlier
peace
without
it than
a
later
one
with it.
Thus it
happened
that the mutual
eagerness
of
the
American
commis-
sioners
and
the British
government
to
end
the
war
postponed
the
burial
of the
old
colonial
system.
The
corpse
was
revived
to
vigorous
life before
it could
be laid
away
in the
commercial
treaty
that was to have
supplemented
and com-
pleted
the
peace.
The
revival
was
largely
the work
of
one
man,
who
was no
shipping
magnate
but
a
patriotic
soldier,
accomplished
scholar,
wealthy
landowner,
and
member of
parliament:
Lord
Sheffield.
He
blew a
trumpet
call
that
reverberated
throughout
the
land,
rallying
the
nation behind the
threatened
navigation
laws.
Rarely
has
a
book had
such a
great
and
rapid
influence
upon public
opinion
and
public policy
as his
Observations
on
the
Commerce
of
the
United
States,
which
ran
through
two editions
in 1783 and
reached
a sixth in 1784.
There was
no
need,
Sheffield
asserted,
to
go courting
the
Americans
to
win
back
their
trade.
They
would
still
have to
buy
most
of their
manufactured
goods
from
Britain,
because
they
had
practically
no
industries
whereas she
had the
best in the
world,
and because
only
her
merchants
could
give
the
credit
they
needed.
They
would still have
to
sell
to
her,
since she
offered
the best
market
for their
produce.
By
holding
fast to her
navigation
laws,
under
which
she
had
grown
great,
Britain
could make the
Americans
pay
her
for their own
political
inde-
pendence.
These
laws
would
deprive
them
of their
West
Indian
trade,
the most
valuable
part
of
their
commerce,
and
give
it to
Canada,
Nova
Scotia,
Newfoundland,
and
Ireland.
They
would
also
shift
this
trade
from American
to
British
bottoms,
giving
more
employment
to the
latter than
they
took
away
from
the
former
because
the
voyages
would
be
longer.
Sheffield's
arguments
could
not
be
dismissed as
vain
boast-
ing,
for he
supported
them
with
a
wealth
of
facts
and
figures
gathered
by
painstaking
research
that
made
him
an
outstanding
authority
on
matters
of
trade.
But
the
power
of his
appeal
on
behalf
of
the
navi-
gation
laws was
more
than
logical.
It
was
psychological.
It
did
much
to
revive this
countrymen's
self-confidence,
which
had
been
rudely
shaken
by
the
wreck of
the
empire.
The old
colonial
system,
thus
preserved
for
another
two
generations,
never
completely
enclosed
the
colonial
empire.
The
old
colonies,
which
had burst
through
from the
inside
before
the
Revolution,
burst
through
from
the
outside at
the
close of
the
Revolution.
Britain
was
unable
to
Salvaging
What Was
Left
of
the
American
Wreck
47
GOLF
OF
The
British
West
Indies
get
peace
without
opening
all
her
North
American
inshore
fisheries-
not
just
those of
Newfoundland
to citizens
of
the United
States
and,
in
addition,
allowing
them to
use
any
unsettled
parts
of
the coasts
of
Nova
Scotia,
Labrador,
and the
Magdalen
Islands
for
purposes
of
drying.
American
trade
with
the
West
Indies
was also
reopened
even
before
the
peace,
but
there
the effective
pressure
was
West
Indian,
not
Ameri-
can.
Before
the Revolution
the island
planters
had
long
been
vitally
dependent
on
New
England,
whence
came
their
lumber,
fish,
and
other
foodstuffs
in
little
New
England
vessels.
The
war
cut
off
this
source
of
supply,
causing
much
distress
in
the
islands;
and
the
ap-
proach
of
peace
fed West
Indian
impatience
to
resume
such an essen-
tial
trade.
Hence
the loud
West
Indian
cries
in the
general
chorus
for
Pitt's
bill. When
this bill
was
abandoned,
the
new
ministry
of
Fox
and
North,
while
hoping
to
find
a
reciprocity
formula
to
put
in
the
peace
48
CHAPTER
FOUR:
treaty,
felt the
necessity
for some more
immediate
action.
Therefore
an act was
passed
to
authorize
temporarily
the
regulation
of
commerce
between
the United States and
the British
Empire by
orders
in council.
The
first
order,
issued
in
May
1783,
modified
a
basic
rule
of
the
old
law
by opening
the
ports
of the
mother
country
to
American
ships
importing
American
unmanufactured
produce.
The
first
order
touch-
ing
the
colonies
followed
in
July
and aimed
at relief
for
the
West
Indies.
It
allowed them
to
import
American
lumber,
flour,
bread,
grain, vegetables,
and
livestock;
and to
export
to
the
United
States
rum,
sugar,
molasses,
coffee,
nuts,
ginger,
and
pimento*
But
it forbade the
importation
of
American
meat,
dairy produce,
and
fish
and
confined
this American
trade to
British
ships.
The
exclusion
of meat
and
dairy
produce
was to
protect
Ireland,
which had
begun
to
supply
the West
Indies with
these
articles
during
the
war;
2
of
fish to
protect
the British
fisheries;
and of
American vessels
to
protect
British
ships,
which
could
not
operate
as
cheaply
as
the
small American craft.
This
exclusion
of
American vessels was
an
unexpected
blow
to
both
the
United States
and
the West
Indies. It
queered
the
pitch
for
the
negotiation
of
reciprocity
then
proceeding
in
Paris,
and
it
shot
prices
up
100
per
cent
in the
islands.
The
planters
were
aghast,
and the
West
India Committee in
England
leaped
into action. The
coalition
govern-
ment
would not
yield;
but
West
Indian
hopes
rose
when
Pitt,
known
as the
friend of free
intercourse,
became
prime
minister in
December
1783.
The
new
administration
intimated
a
willingness
to
compromise
by
admitting
to
West
Indian
ports
American
vessels of
less
than
eighty
tons
in
other
words,
vessels too
small to
engage
in
trade
with
Europe
or to
feed an
American
navy.
The
West
Indians then
overshot
the
mark
by
rejecting
any
limitation of
tonnage,
whereupon
the
govern-
ment
referred
the
whole
question
to
the
new
Committee
of the
Privy
Council for
Trade
and
Plantations
on the
very day
it
was
organized
in
March 1784.
8
For
nearly
three
months
this
privy
council
committee
investigated
the
problem
of West
Indian
trade,
patiently
seeking
and
weighing
all
the available
evidence.
There
were
three
main
considerations.
The
West Indian
merchants
and
planters
did
their
best
to
prove
that
high
costs of
production
would
ruin the
islands
if
they
could
not
get
Ameri-
can
supplies
and
if
their
trade with
the
United
States
was
confined
to
2
In
1778
parliament
opened
colonial trade to
Ireland.
8
For
its
origin
see
infra
p.
56.
Salvaging
What
Was
Left of
the
American
Wreck
49
British
bottoms.
Sir
Guy
Carleton
and all
others
in
England
who
were
best
informed
on
conditions
in
British North
America
testified
that
these
colonies,
if
given
a
proper
advantage
over
the
United
States,
would
soon
be able
to
supply
the
West
Indies
at reasonable
prices
with
all
the
North
American
products
they
needed;
and
that
here
was
a
good
opportunity
to stimulate the
development
of
British
North
Amer-
ica
at the
expense
of the
colonies that
had
revolted
and
to
give
much-
deserved
encouragement
to the
new
Loyalist
settlements.
The
evidence
collected
on
shipping
was
strong:
over
sixty
thousand
seamen
dis-
charged
from
the
navy
on the return
of
peace;
"a
vast
number"
of
merchant
vessels,
with all
their
crews,
released
from
transport
and
other
public
service;
the
fall of transatlantic
freight
rates
to
prewar
levels;
and
the
temptation
of
idle sailors
to
seek
foreign
employment,
thereby
draining
Britain's naval reserve
and
building
up
the maritime
strength
of
her
competitors,
particularly
the
United
States.
Another
consideration
was
the
possibility
of American
retaliation,
but
this
was
lightly
dismissed
for
several
reasons.
The
flourishing
condition of
American
trade
was
deflating
American
indignation
over
the restric-
tion
of
West
Indian
trade
to
British
shipping,
and
neither
the
weak
central
government
nor
the
several
states
were
capable
of
applying
any
effective
pressure.
The
question
was
therefore
decided
on
grounds
that
were
wholly
intraimperial.
The
West
Indians
suspected
that
the
Loyalists
prejudiced
the com-
mittee
in favor
of
British
North
America;
and
there
is
no doubt
that
from
this
time
until
its
fall
two
generations
later,
the old
colonial
system,
on
balance,
worked
for
British
North
America
and
against
the
West
Indies.
But
regard
for
the
Loyalists
was
not
responsible
for
this
preference,
nor
did
it have
any practical
effect
upon
the decision
of
the committee.
Its
conclusion
that
British
North
America could
supply
immediately
a
large
proportion,
and
within
about
three
years
the
whole
of
the
West
Indian
requirements
of
lumber
and
provisions,
though
quite
wrong
on
both
counts,
did
not
visit
any
injury
upon
the
West
Indies.
They
were
already
getting
American
supplies
in British
ships,
which
had
brought
prices
down
from
the
recent
peak;
and
the com-
mittee
would
let
these
supplies
continue
to
flow
as
long
as
necessary,
but
it
would
not
allow
American
vessels,
even
of
small
tonnage,
to
carry
these
supplies.
That
was
the
real
issue,
and
it
was
decided
in
favor
of
British
shipping.
Britain
could
and should
retain
the
monopoly
of
the
carrying
trade
of
her
empire.
The
report
of
the
privy
council
committee
thus
upheld
the
existing
50
CHAPTER
FOUR:
arrangement,
which
had been
made
without
any regard
for
British
North
America;
and these northern
colonies
constituted
only
one
of
several
factors that
might
dictate
a future
change.
Meanwhile
this
compromise
of the old
colonial
system
was continued
on a
year
to
year
basis
until
1788.
By
that
time
it was
fairly
evident
that
the
concession
to
the West
Indies
could not
be
withdrawn
or
curtailed,
and
need
not
be
enlarged.
The islands
were still
dependent
on the
United
States
for
the
great
bulk of
their
supplies.
On
the
other
hand,
the
exclusion
of
American vessels
was not
strangling
them,
for
their
trade
with
the
mother
country,
both
export
and
import,
was
25
per
cent
larger
than
before
the
war,
and some
six hundred
British
ships
were
employed
in
carrying
it.
Therefore Pitt's
government
introduced
a bill
to make
the
existing regulations
permanent,
and
parliament
passed
it with
only
a
flicker
of
opposition.
But the time was
not far off
when
it would
be
impossible
to
keep
American
vessels
out of the
British
West
Indies.
The
adoption
of
the
Constitution
of
the United States
provided
for a
central
government
that
could
retaliate;
and
the
great
war
with
France,
which
began
in
1793,
created new
conditions
that
upset
the act
of
1788.
Meanwhile,
how
did the
closing
in of
the old colonial
system apply
in
British North America?
Newfoundland
had
drawn
so much of its
food from New
England
before the Revolution that
the
return of
peace
brought
pressure
to
reopen
access
to
this source
of
supply.
The
prob-
lem
of the
fishing colony
thus
resembled that
of
the
sugar
islands,
though
it was on
a
much
smaller
scale
and
was
complicated
by
the
necessity
of
sharing
the
"British
shore" with
American
fishermen,
which created
a
greater
possibility
of
smuggling.
Here
too there
was
a vain
hope
that the
Loyalist
settlements
would
obviate the
necessity
of
relying
on the United
States. A
temporary
act
of 1785
permitted
spe-
cially
licensed
British
ships
to
import
American
bread, flour,
and live-
stock into
Newfoundland;
and the
act of
1788,
mentioned
above,
authorized
the
governor
to
continue
this
trade
under
the
same
limita-
tion,
though only
on
a
temporary
basis.
No
vessel
could
get
a
license
more than
seven months
after it
had
cleared
from
a
port
in
the
mother
country.
The Maritime
Provinces,
whose
population
had
been
suddenly
trebled
by
the
influx
of
Loyalists,
were
more
dependent
on
New
Eng-
land.
During
the
first winter
of the
peace,
the
governor
of
Nova
Scotia,
acting
on
no
authority
save
necessity
and
the
advice
of
his
council,
admitted
supplies
from
Boston in
small
American craft.
This
freedom
Salvaging
What Was
Left of
the American
Wreck
51
Maritime
Provinces
of
British
North
America,
1784
was
continued
by
him and
by
the
governor
of
New
Brunswick,
when
that
province
was carved
out of
the
old
Nova
Scotia,
until
1785.
The
home
government
then
intervened with an order
in
council
which,
issued
under
a
temporary
renewal of the
act of
1783,
decreed
that
only
livestock,
grain,
and lumber
could be
imported
into the
Maritime
Provinces
from
the
United
States,
and
then
only
in
British
bottoms
and
under
a
governor's
proclamation
that their admission was
neces-
sary
for the
inhabitants.
By
the
time the
permanent
act
was
passed
in
1788,
London
was
beginning
to see
that
the
necessity,
instead
of
being
only
occasional,
was
a chronic
condition
in Nova
Scotia and New
Brunswick.
Indeed,
the
governors
of
both
provinces
stretched the
necessity
to
cover
American lumber
for
shipment
to
the
West
Indies
when
they
found that
their own
people
were
getting
it
anyway
for this
52
CHAPTER
FOUR:
purpose.
Necessity
and
opportunity
also
gave
rise
to an illicit
impor-
tation of American
pitch,
tar,
and
turpentine,
which
the
governors
could not
prevent
and which the home
government
made
licit
by
an
act of
1793.
London,
however,
neither
would
nor
could
do
anything
about the American rum that
poured
into Nova Scotia
and New Bruns-
wick
during
these
years.
It
was
cheaper
than
the domestic
manufac-
ture,
which in turn was
cheaper
than
the
British
West
Indian
product
laid down in
Halifax. There
was no
keeping
it
out
when
American
fishermen were
allowed
by
treaty
to
hover
around these
British
shores
and even
land on
them.
These conditions
suggest
a heaven
for
smug-
glers.
Such was the
intimacy
between the Maritime Provinces
and
New
England
that
the
governor
of Nova
Scotia
asked
permission
to
provide
himself
with an
armed vessel to
keep
this
intimacy
within
legal
bounds.
He
got
the
permission
from
England
and
the
vessel
from
the
United
States.
No such
trade,
legitimate
or
illegitimate,
linked
the
old Province
of
Quebec
with
the
United
States
during
the
first four
years
of
their
peaceful
separation,
because there
was neither
necessity
nor
oppor-
tunity
for
it.
The first
chink in
the
wall was
opened
from the
British
side in
response
to
temptation
from
the
other side
from
Vermont;
and
meanwhile
the
temptation
started
a
highly interesting
investigation
into
the
whole
question
of
economic
relations between
Canada
and the
neighboring Republic.
Vermont was
imprisoned
in
the
interior
and
threatened with
economic
suffocation,
for
the
treaty
of
1783
severed
it
from
the
British
Empire
and the
hostility
of New
York
excluded it
from
the
United
States
until
1791.
During
the
Revolution its
leaders
had
flirted with
the
British
in
Quebec,
discussing
the
possibility
of a
return
to the
old
allegiance.
Both
parties
dropped
this
discussion
when
peace
came,
but
the
Vermonters
could
not
end the
flirtation.
Their
economic
plight
was
too
pressing. They
had
to
get
an
outlet,
and
the
one
provided
by
nature
was
down
Lake
Champlain
and
the
Richelieu
River
to
the
St.
Lawrence.
So
they
knocked at
the
door
of
Quebec
with
proposals
of
commercial reunion
with
the
empire.
Quebec
referred
the
matter
to
London,
and there
the
peculiar
position
of
Vermont
provoked
an
inquiry
early
in
1785
that
revealed
the
peculiar
position
of
Canada.
Here
was
something quite
new
and
very
puzzling
in
the
commercial
system
of
the
British
Empire.
Cut
off
from
the
sea
for
five
months
out
of
every
twelve,
the
old
Province
of
Quebec
was
really
an
inland
colony.
Only
through
a
foreign
country,
the
United
States,
could
it
have
con-
Salvaging
What Was
Left of
the
American
Wreck 53
tact
with the
outside
world
the
year
round. This
was a condition never
contemplated
by
the
navigation
laws.
Having
been
framed for
only
maritime
colonies,
these
laws
were
silent
on land
communication
and
inland
navigation.
Hence
the
striking
contrast between an
order
in
council
of
April
1785
forbidding
the
importation
of
any
American
produce
into the
province
by
sea,
and an
additional instruction to
the
governor
in
May
drawing
his
attention
to this
order
in
council and
stating
that it
was
necessary
to
regulate
the
foreign
intercourse of
Canada
by
land
and
inland
navigation.
How
was
this
to be done? It
could
be
by
order in
council,
under the
temporary
enabling
act;
but
the
only
intimation
given
by
the
instruction was
in
two
directions
to
the
governor.
One was to
have
his
legislative
council
pass
an
ordinance
prohibiting
the
export
of
peltry;
the
other was
to enforce the laws
that
prohibited
the
importation
of
any
foreign
rum or
spirits
or,
except
from
Great
Britain,
any
foreign
European
or
Asiatic
manufactured
goods
into
the
colonies.
In
approaching
this
novel
inland
frontier
of the
empire,
London was
evidently
groping
in the
dark.
The
possibility
of the
breakdown
of
the
old
colonial
system
in the
interior
of
America,
and the
need for
guidance
from
Canada,
were
clearly
recognized
by
the
home
government
in
the
following
year,
when the
division of the
colony
into
Upper
and Lower
Canada was
already
contemplated.
Though Upper
Canada
would still
be
connected
with Lower
Canada
geographically by
the St.
Lawrence and
politically
by allegiance
to the
same
Crown,
they
would
have
little else in com-
mon,
and
there were
reasons for
thinking
that the
natural
economic
affiliation
of
Upper
Canada
might
be with the
United
States.
Thence
had come its
people;
they
were
still
coming;
and
they
would
continue
to come. It
could
expect
to
receive few
from the mother
country,
whose
government
continued
to
frown
on
emigration
until after
the
Napole-
onic wars.
Moreover,
as the
years
passed,
this new
colony
would
come
to be half
surrounded
by
American
settlements;
and die
boundary,
being
a line
along
a
natural
highway, might
tend to unite
rather
than
divide
the
people
on either
side.
It is not
very
surprising,
therefore,
that the
governor
in
Quebec
was
asked to
give
his
opinion
on
whether
"the inhabitants
of
the
province
so to be erected
may
not
be
supplied
with
European
and
other
produce
and
manufactures with
greater facility
and
upon
easier
terms
by
the
subjects
and
through
the territories
of the
United States
of
America
than
by
our
subjects
and
through
our
Province of
Quebec,
and
thereby
a
connection and
intercourse between the
subjects
of the
two
countries
54
CHAPTER
FOUR:
be
unavoidably promoted
and
encouraged."
Though
we
may
here
detect
lingering hopes
of
reciprocity along
the inland
border,
the
vision
of
1786 was
different from
that of 1782. British
trade
was
to
follow
another course
to another
end.
Instead of
curving
round
to
the
Ameri-
can interior via the St.
Lawrence,
it would
cut
through
the
United
States from the Atlantic
seaboard
to the British
interior.
This
highly
interesting suggestion
apparently
drew
no
direct
reply
from
Quebec,
perhaps
because American settlement was still
too
remote
from
the
western
Loyalist
communities
to
make it
seem
a
practical
issue.
The
Vermont
proposal,
bogged
down in
London,
was renewed
in
Quebec
where
it
brought
local action. In
the
spring
of
1787,
the
governor
took
matters
into
his own
hands and
issued
an
order
opening
commercial intercourse with
the
"neighboring
states"
by way
of Lake
Champlain
and the
Richelieu,
permitting
the free
import
of
lumber,
naval
stores,
hemp,
flax,
grain,
provisions,
and livestock
the
produce
of those
states and the free
export
of
any product,
save
furs,
of
Canada
or
of
any
other dominion
of
Great
Britain.
A few
days
later
he
had his
council
pass
an
ordinance
allowing
the free
import
of leaf
tobacco and of
pot
and
pearl
ashes
from the same source
for
re-export
to
Britain. In
exchange
for
the
above
articles,
Vermont of course took
British
manufactures.
The
reaction
of
London
was a
mild
rebuke,
not
for
what
the
governor
had
done but for
the
way
he
had done it
by
his
own order.
London now
clearly
stated what the
instructions of 1785
had left
unsaid,
possibly
because it
was then
undecided,
that
the
regulation
of
intercourse with the
United
States
by
land
and
inland
navigation
was
the
function
of the
governor
and
council,
limited
naturally
by
the
prohibition
of
the
export
of furs
and the
import
of
spirits,
rum,
and
foreign
manufactures. On
receiving
this
direction,
the
governor
cor-
rected
himself
by
having
the
council transform
his
order into
an
ordi-
nance in
1788,
which
prohibited
the
import
of
all
goods
not
specifi-
cally
admitted. In the
following
year
a
serious
shortage
of
food in
the
colony
moved
the
governor
to admit
for
that
season
American
food-
stuffs
by
sea
as well as
by
land and
inland
navigation.
He knew
he was
violating
an
imperial
statute
and an
imperial
order in
council,
but
he
trusted
the home
government
to
provide
the
necessary
legal
cloak,
which
it
did
by
act
of
parliament.
Local
necessity
was
not
the
reason for
opening
the
regular
trade
across
the
inland
border.
The
prime
purpose
was
to
make
Canada
a
profitable
entrep&t
between
Britain
and the
American
interior,
and it