ica,"
wrote the planter, Edwards, "the West Indies are subject to three sets
of devouring monopolies: 1, the British ship-owners; 2, their agents
in American ports; 3, their agents in the ports of the islands; all of
whom exact an unnatural profit of the planters."[82] Chalmers, looking
only to the navigation of the kingdom, which these culprits
represented, admits that in the principal supplies Great Britain
cannot compete with America; but, "whatever may be the difference in
price to the West Indians, this is but a small equivalent which they
ought to pay to the British consumer, for enjoying the exclusive
supply of sugar, rum, and other West India products."[83] A few
figures show conclusively that under all disadvantages the islands
increased in actual prosperity, although they fell behind their French
competitors, favored by a more liberal policy. In the quiet year 1770,
before the revolt of the continent, the British West Indies shipped
to the home country produce amounting to L3,279,204;[84] in 1787 this
had risen to L4,839,145,[85] a gain of over 30 per cent. Between the
same years, exports to the United States, limited after the peace to
British ships, had fallen from L481,407 to L196,461. American produce,
confined to British bottoms for admission to British colonies, had
gone largely to the French islands, with which before the Revolution
they could have only surreptitious intercourse. The result was that
the British planter had to pay much more for his plantation supplies
than did the French, who were furnished by American vessels, built and
run much cheaper than British.[86] He was rigidly forbidden also to
seek stores in the French islands. Such circuitous intercourse with
America, by depriving British ships of the long voyage to the
continent, would place the French islands in the obnoxious relation of
_entrepot_ to their neighbors, which Holland had once occupied towards
England. In all legislation minute care was taken to prevent such
injury to navigation. Direct trade with British dominions was the
fetich of British policy; circuitous trade its abomination.

Despite drawbacks, a distinct advance was observable also in British
navigation; in the development of the British-American colonies,
continental and island; and in the intercolonial intercourse and
shipping. Immediately after the institution of the new government, the
United States enacted laws protective of her own navigation; notably
by an alie