stored system of mutual support,
embracing both sides of the Atlantic, the tonnage employed between
Canada and the West Indies had risen from 996 only in 1774, to 14,513
in 1789. In brief, after a careful and systematic examination of the
whole field, the committee considered that British navigation had
gained 111,638 tons by excluding Americans from branches of trade they
had once shared, and still eagerly desired.

The effects of the system were most conspicuous in the trade between
the West Indies and the United States. The tonnage here employed had
fallen from 107,739, before the war, to 62,738. The reflections of the
Committee upon this particular are so characteristic of national
convictions as to be worth quoting.[88] "This decrease is rather less
than half what it was before the war;[89] but before the war
five-eighths belonged to merchants, permanent inhabitants of the
countries now under the dominion of the United States, and
three-eighths to British merchants residing occasionally in the said
countries. At that time, very few vessels belonging to British
merchants, resident in the British European dominions, or in the
British Islands in the West Indies, had a share in this trade. The
vessels employed in this trade can now only belong to British subjects
_residing_ in the present British dominions. Many vessels now go from
the ports of Great Britain, carrying British manufactures to the
United States, there load with lumber and provisions for the British
Islands in the West Indies, and return with the produce of these
islands to Great Britain. The whole of this branch of freight may also
be considered as a new acquisition, and was obtained by your Majesty's
Order in Council before mentioned,[90] which has operated to the
increase of British Navigation, compared to that of the United States
in a double ratio; _but it has taken from the navigation of the United
States more than it has added to that of Great Britain_."

The last sentence emphasizes the fact, which John Adams had noted,
that the object of the Navigation system was scarcely more defensive
than offensive, in the military sense of the word. The Act carried
provisions meant distinctly to impede the development of foreign
shipping, as far as possible to do so by municipal regulation. The
prohibition of entrance to a port of Great Britain by a foreign
trader, unless three-fourths manned by citizens of the country whose
flag she bore, was distinctly of