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

Upon the whole, therefore, while regretting the evidence in the American statement which showed increasing activity by American shipping over that ascertained by themselves for the previous years,—to be accounted for, as was believed, by transient circumstances,—the committee, after consultation with the leading merchants in the American trade, thought better to postpone retaliation for the new tonnage duties, which contained no invidious distinction in favor of other foreign shipping against British. The system of trade regulation so far pursued had given good results, and its continuance was recommended; though bitterly antagonizing Americans, and maintaining ill-will between the two countries. Upon one point, especially desired by the United States, the committee was particularly firm. It considered that its Government might judiciously make one proposition—and one only—for a commercial treaty; namely, that there should be entire equality of treatment, as to duties and tonnage, towards the ships of both nations in the home ports of each other. "But if Congress should propose (as they certainly will) that this principle of equality should be extended to the ports of our Colonies and Islands, and that the ships of the United States should there be treated as British ships, it should be answered that this demand cannot be admitted even as a subject of negotiation.... This branch of freight is of the same nature with the freight from one American state to another" (that is, trade internal to the empire is essentially a coasting trade). "Congress has made regulations to confine the freight, employed between the different states, to the ships of the United States, and Great Britain does not object to this restriction." 100 100 Report, p. 96. "The great advantages which have resulted from excluding American ships appear in the accounts given in this report; many of the merchants and planters of the West Indies, who formerly resisted this advice, now acknowledge the wisdom of it." 101 101 Ibid., p. 94.

The committee recognized that exclusion from the carrying trade of the British West Indies was in some degree compensated to the American carrier, by the permission given by the Government of France for vessels not exceeding sixty tons to trade with her colonies, actually much greater producers, and therefore larger customers. Santo Domingo in particular, in the period following the American war, had enjoyed a heyday of prosperity, far eclipsing that of all the British islands together. This was due partly to natural advantages, and partly to social conditions,—the planters being generally resident, which the British were not; but cheaper supplies through free intercourse with the American continent also counted for much. From the French West Indies there entered the United States in 1790, 101,417 tons of shipping, of which only 3,925 were French. 102 102 American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, vol. x. p. 47. From the British Islands there came 90,375, but of these all but 4,057 were British. 103 103 Ibid., p. 45. Returning, the exports from the United States to the two were respectively, $3,284,656 and $2,077,757. 104 104 Ibid., p. 24. The flattering testimony borne by these figures to the meagreness of French navigation, in the particular quarter, needed doubtless to be qualified by reference to their home trade from the West Indies, borne in French ships. This amounted in 1788 to 296,435 tons from Santo Domingo alone; 105 105 Coxe, p. 171. whereas the British trade from all their islands employed but 133,736. 106 106 Committee's estimate; Report, p. 43. This, however, was the sole great carrying trade of France; to the United States she sent from her home ports less than 13,000 tons.

It was the opinion of the British committee that the privilege conceded to American shipping in the French islands was so contrary to established colonial policy as to be of doubtful continuance. Still, in concluding its report with a summary of American commercial conditions, which it deemed were in a declining way, it took occasion to utter a warning, based upon these relations of America with the foreign colonies. In case of a commercial treaty, "Should it be proposed to treat on maritime regulations, any article allowing the ships of the United States to protect the property of the enemies of Great Britain in time of war" (that is, the flag to cover the goods), "should on no account be admitted. It would be more dangerous to concede this privilege to the United States than to any other foreign country. From their situation, the ships of these states would be able to cover the whole trade of France and Spain with their islands and colonies, in America and the West Indies, whenever Great Britain shall be engaged with either of those Powers; and the navy of Great Britain would, in such case, be deprived of the means of distressing the enemy, by destroying his commerce and thereby diminishing his resources." It is well to note in these words the contemporary recognition of the importance of the position of the United States; of the value of the colonial trade; of the bearing of commerce destruction on war, by "diminishing the resources" of an enemy; and of the opportunity of the United States, "from their situation," to cover the carriage of colonial produce to Europe; for upon these several points turned much of the troubles, which by their accumulation caused mutual exasperation, and established an antagonism that inevitably lent itself to the war spirit when occasion arose. The specific warning of the committee was doubtless elicited by the terms of the then recent British commercial treaty with France, in 1786, by which the two nations had agreed that, in case of war to which one was a party, the vessels of the other might freely carry all kinds of goods, the property of any person or nation, except contraband. Such a concession could be made safely to France,—was in fact perfectly one-sided in favoring Great Britain; but to America it would open unprecedented opportunity.

To the state of things so far described came the French Revolution; already begun, indeed, when the committee sat, but the course of which could not yet be foreseen. Its coincidence with the formation of the new government of the United States is well to be remembered; for the two events, by their tendencies, worked together to promote the antagonism between the United States and Great Britain, which was already latent in the navigation system of the one and the maritime aptitudes of the other. Washington, the first American President, was inaugurated in March, 1789; in May, the States General of France met. In February, 1793, the French Republic declared war against Great Britain, and in March Washington entered on his second term. In the intervening four years the British Government had persisted in maintaining the exclusion of American carrying trade from her colonial ports. During the same period the great French colony Santo Domingo had undergone a social convulsion, which ended in the wreck of its entire industrial system by the disappearance of slavery, and with it of all white government. The huge sugar and coffee product of the island vanished as a commercial factor, and with it the greater part of the colonial carriage of supplies, which had indemnified American shippers and agriculturists for their exclusion from British ports. Of 167,399 American tonnage entering American ports from the West Indies in 1790, 101,417 had been from French islands.

The removal of so formidable a competitor as Santo Domingo of course inured to the advantage of the British sugar and coffee planter, who was thus more able to bear the burden laid upon him to maintain the navigation of the empire, by paying a heavy percentage on his supplies. This, however, was not the only change in conditions affecting commerce and navigation. By 1793 it had become evident that Canada, Nova Scotia, and their neighbors, could not fill the place in an imperial system which it had been hoped they would take, as producers of lumber and food stuffs. This increased the relative importance of the West India Islands to the empire, just when the rise in price of sugar and coffee made it more desirable to develop their production. Should war come, the same reason would make it expedient to extend by conquest British productive territory in the Caribbean, and at the same time to cut off the supplies of such enemy's possessions as could not be subdued; thus crippling them, and removing their competition by force, as that of Santo Domingo had been by industrial ruin. These considerations tended further to fasten the interest of Great Britain upon this whole region, as particularly conducive to her navigation system. That cheapening supplies would stimulate production, to meet the favorable market and growing demands of the world, had been shown by the object-lesson of the French colonies; though as yet the example had not been followed.