special
exigencies of the islands, lay with the United States. Hence it came
to pass that the trade with the West Indies, which then had almost a
monopoly of sugar and coffee production for the world, became the most
prominent single factor in the commercial contentions between the two
countries, and in the arbitrary commercial ordinances of Great
Britain, which step by step led the two nations into war. The
precedent struggle was over a market; artificial regulation and
superior naval power seeking to withstand the natural course of
things, and long successfully retarding it.

The suspension of intercourse during the War of Independence had
brought the economical relations into stronger relief, and
accomplished independence threatened the speedy realization of their
tendencies. There were two principal dangers dreaded by Great Britain.
The West India plantation industry had depended upon the continental
colonies for food supplies, and to a considerable extent also
financially; because these alone were the consumers of one important
product--rum. Again, ship-building and the carrying trade of the
empire had passed largely into the hands of the continental colonists,
keeping on that side of the Atlantic, it was asserted, a great number
of British-born seamen. While vessels from America visited many parts
of the world, the custom-house returns showed that of the total inward
and outward tonnage of the thirteen colonies, over sixty per cent had
been either coastwise or with the West Indies; and this left out of
account the considerable number engaged in smuggling. Of the
remainder, barely twenty-five per cent went to Great Britain or
Ireland. In short, there had been building upon the western side of
the ocean, under the colonial connection, a rival maritime system,
having its own products, its own special markets, and its own carrying
trade. The latter also, being done by very small vessels, adapted to
the short transit, had created for itself, or absorbed from
elsewhere, a separate and proportionately large maritime population,
rivalling that of the home country, while yet remaining out of easy
reach of impressment and remote from immediate interest in European
wars. One chief object of the Navigation Act was thus thwarted; and
indeed, as might be anticipated from quotations already made, it was
upon this that British watchfulness more particularly centred. As far
as possible all interchange was to be internal to the e