Alfred Thayer Mahan - Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812. Volume 1

The belief was perfectly reasonable; a gift of prophecy only could have foretold the happy result, of which many of the most prominent Americans for some time despaired. "It will not be an easy matter," wrote Lord Sheffield, 55 55 Commerce of the American States (Edition February, 1784), pp. 198-199. "to bring the American States to act as a nation; they are not to be feared as such by us. It must be a long time before they can engage, or will concur, in any material expense.... We might as reasonably dread the effects of combinations among the German as among the American states, and deprecate the resolves of the Diet, as those of Congress." "No treaty can be made that will be binding on the whole of them." "A decided cast has been given to public opinion here," wrote John Adams from London, in November, 1785, "by two presumptions. One is, that the American states are not, and cannot, be united." 56 56 Works of John Adams, vol. viii. p. 290. Two years later Washington wrote: "The situation of the General Government, if it can be called a government, is shaken to its foundation, and liable to be overturned at every blast. In a word, it is at an end.... The primary cause of all our disorders lies in the different state governments, and in the tenacity of that power which underlies the whole of their systems. Independent sovereignty is so ardently contended for." "At present, under our existing form of confederation, it would be idle to think of making commercial regulations on our part. One state passes a prohibitory law respecting one article; another state opens wide the avenue for its admission. One assembly makes a system, another assembly unmakes it." 57 57 Washington's Correspondence, 1787, edited by W.C. Ford, vol. viii. pp. 159, 160, 254.

Under such conditions it was natural that a majority of Englishmen should see power and profit for Great Britain in availing herself of the weakness of her late colonists, to enforce upon them a commercial dependence as useful as the political dependence which had passed away. Were this realized, she would enjoy the emoluments of the land without the expense of its protection. This gospel was preached at once to willing ears, and found acceptance; not by the strength of its arguments, for these, though plausible, were clearly inferior in weight to the facts copiously adduced by those familiar with conditions, but through the prejudices which the then generation had received from the three or four preceding it. The policy being adopted, the instrument at hand for enforcing it was the relation of colonies to mother countries, as then universally maintained by the governments of the day. The United States, like other independent nations, was to be excluded wholly from carrying trade with the British colonies, and as far as possible from sending them supplies. It was urged that Canada, and the adjacent British dominions, encouraged by this reservation of the West India market for their produce, would prove adequate to furnishing the provisions and lumber previously derived from the old continental colonies. The prosperity once enjoyed by the latter would be transferred, and there would be reconstituted the system of commercial intercourse, interior to the empire, which previously had commanded general admiration. The new states, acting commercially as separated communities, could oppose no successful rivalry to this combination, and would revert to isolated commercial dependence; tributary to the financial supremacy of Great Britain, as they recently had been to her political power. In debt to her for money, and drawing from her manufactures, returns for both would compel their exports to her ports chiefly, whence distribution would be, as of old, in the hands of British middlemen and navigators. Just escaped from the fetters of the carrying trade and entrepôt regulations, the twin monopolies in which consisted the value of a colonial empire, it was proposed to reduce them again under bondage by means for which the West India Islands furnished the leverage; for "the trade carried on by Great Britain with the countries now become the United States was, and still is, so connected with the trade carried on to the remaining British colonies in America, and the British islands in the West Indies, that it is impossible to form a true judgment of the past and present of the first, without taking a comprehensive view of all, as they are connected with, and influence, each other." 58 58 Report of the Committee of the Privy Council, Jan. 28, 1791, p. 20.

Before the peace of 1783, the writings of Adam Smith had gravely shaken belief in the mercantile system of extraordinary trade regulation and protection as conducive to national prosperity. Though undermined, however, it had not been overthrown; and even to doubters there remained the exception, which Smith himself admitted, of the necessity to protect navigation as a nursery for the navy, and consequently as a fundamental means of national defence. Existence takes precedence of prosperity; the life is more than the meat. Commercial regulation, though unfitted to increase wealth, could be justified as a means to promote ship-building; to retain ship-builders in the country; to husband the raw materials of their work; to force the transport of merchandise in British-built ships and by British seamen; and thus to induce capital to invest, and men to embark their lives, in maritime trade, to the multiplication of ships and seamen, the chief dependence of the nation in war. "Keeping ships for freight," said Sheffield, "is not the most profitable branch of trade. It is necessary, for the sake of our marine, to force or encourage it by exclusive advantages." "Comparatively with the number of our people and the extent of our country, we are doomed almost always to wage unequal war; and as a means of raising seamen it cannot be too often repeated that it is not possible to be too jealous on the head of navigation." He proceeds then at once to draw the distinction between the protection of navigation and that of commerce generally. "This jealousy should not be confounded with that towards neighboring countries as to trade and manufactures; nor is the latter jealousy in many instances reasonable or well founded. Competition is useful, forcing our manufacturers to act fairly, and to work reasonably." Sheffield was the most conspicuous, and probably the most influential, of the controversialists on this side of the question at this period; the interest of the public is shown by his pamphlet passing through six editions in a twelvemonth. He was, however, far from singular in this view. Chalmers, a writer of much research, said likewise: "In these considerations of nautical force and public safety we discover the fundamental principle of Acts of Navigation, which, though established in opposition to domestic and foreign clamors, have produced so great an augmentation of our native shipping and sailors, and which therefore should not be sacrificed to any projects of private gain,"—that is, of commercial advantage. "There are intelligent persons who suggest that the imposing of alien duties on alien ships, rather than on alien merchandise, would augment our naval strength." 59 59 Chalmers, Opinions, p. 32.

Colonies therefore were esteemed desirable to this end chiefly. To use the expression of a French officer, 60 60 Jurien de la Gravière, Guerres Maritimes, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. p. 238. they were the fruitful nursery of seamen. French writers of that day considered their West India islands the chief nautical support of the state. But in order to secure this, it was necessary to exercise complete control of their trade inward and outward; of the supplies they needed as well as of the products they raised, and especially to confine the carriage of both to national shipping. "The only use and advantage of the (remaining) American colonies 61 61 Canada, Newfoundland, Bermuda, etc. or West India islands to Great Britain," says Sheffield, "are the monopoly of their consumption and the carriage of their produce. It is the advantage to our navigation which in any degree countervails the enormous expense of protecting our islands. Rather than give up their carrying trade it would be better to give up themselves." The entrepôt system herein found additional justification, for not only did it foster navigation by the homeward voyage, confined to British ships, and extort toll in transit, but the re-exportation made a double voyage which was more than doubly fruitful in seamen; for from the nearness of the British Islands to the European continent, which held the great body of consumers, this second carriage could be done, and actually was done, by numerous small vessels, able to bear a short voyage but not to brave an Atlantic passage. Economically, trade by many small vessels is more expensive than by a few large, because for a given aggregate tonnage it requires many more men; but this economical loss was thought to be more than compensated by the political gain in multiplying seamen. It was estimated in 1795 that there was a difference of from thirty-five to forty men in carrying the same quantity of goods in one large or ten small vessels. This illustrates aptly the theory of the Navigation Act, which sought wealth indeed, but, as then understood, subordinated that consideration distinctly to the superior need of increasing the resources of the country in ships and seamen. Moreover, the men engaged in these short voyages were more immediately at hand for impressment in war, owing to the narrow range of their expeditions and their frequent returns to home ports.