e shown a statesmanlike insight or foresight of the
highest order, he could read the signs of the times and the temper of
his countrymen with a sagacity far beyond that of his predecessor,
Sidmouth, or of such politicians as Eldon and Castlereagh. In him was
represented the domestic policy of Pitt in his earlier days, as Pitt's
financial views were represented in Huskisson, who had actually served
under him.

Though Huskisson was only made president of the board of trade, in
January, 1823, and not chancellor of the exchequer, it is certain that
his mind controlled that of Robinson, who succeeded Vansittart in that
position. Vansittart, who was created Lord Bexley, succeeded
Bragge-Bathurst as chancellor of the duchy. The cabinet changes were
completed in October by the removal of Wellesley Pole, now Lord
Maryborough, from the office of master of the mint. Huskisson, if any
man, was the leading pioneer of free trade, and there can be little
doubt that, had he not died prematurely, its adoption would have been
hastened by ten or fifteen years. In his first year of office he
welcomed petitions for the repeal of the import duties on foreign wool,
but failed to convince the wool manufacturers that it must be
accompanied by the abolition of export duties on British wool. The
proposed reform was, therefore, dropped, and a like fate befell his
attempt in the same year to benefit the silk trade by abolishing certain
vexatious restrictions upon it, including the practice of fixing the
wages of Spitalfields weavers by an order of the magistrates. For the
moment the ignorant outcry of the journeymen themselves prevailed over
their real interests, but in the following year, 1824, Huskisson carried
a much wider measure, providing that foreign silks, hitherto excluded,
should be admitted subject to a duty of 30 per cent. in and after 1826,
and another measure for the joint relief of wool growers and wool
manufacturers which imposed a small duty of equal amount on the
importation and the exportation of wool.

His great achievement in 1823 was the reform of the navigation laws.
These acts, dating from the commonwealth and the restoration, gave
British shipowners a qualified monopoly of the carrying trade, since
they prohibited the importation of European goods except in British
ships or ships of the producing country, while the importation of goods
from other quarters of the world was confined to British ships only.
America had protes