West Indies must be carried on in
British-built ships, owned and navigated by British subjects. A serious
blow was thus dealt not only at American shipping, but also at the
interchange of commodities between the states and the islands, which was
greatly hampered by this restriction. During the whole of the eighteenth
century the West India sugar trade with the North American colonies and
with Great Britain had been of immense value to all parties, and all had
been seriously damaged by the curtailment of it due to the war. Now that
the artificial state of things created by the war was to be perpetuated
by legislation, the prospect of repairing the loss seemed indefinitely
postponed. Moreover, even in trading directly with Great Britain,
American ships were only allowed to bring in articles produced in the
particular states of which their owners were citizens,--an enactment
which seemed to add insult to injury, inasmuch as it directed especial
attention to the want of union among the thirteen states. Great
indignation was aroused in America, and reprisals were talked of, but
efforts were first made to obtain a commercial treaty.

[Sidenote: John Adams tries in vain to negotiate a commercial treaty.]

In 1785 Franklin returned from France, and Jefferson was sent as
minister in his stead, while John Adams became the first representative
of the United States at the British court. Adams was at first very
courteously received by George III., and presently set to work to
convince Lord Carmarthen, the foreign secretary, of the desirableness of
unrestricted intercourse between the two countries. But popular opinion
in England was obstinately set against him. But for the Navigation Act
and the orders in council, it was said, all ships would by and by come
to be built in America, and every time a frigate was wanted for the navy
the Lords of Admiralty would have to send over to Boston or Philadelphia
and order one. Rather than do such a thing as this, it was thought that
the British navy should content itself with vessels of inferior
workmanship and higher cost, built in British dock-yards. Thirty years
after, England gathered an unexpected fruit of this narrow policy, when,
to her intense bewilderment, she saw frigate after frigate outsailed and
defeated in single combat with American antagonists. Owing to her
exclusive measures, the rapid improvement in American shipbuilding had
gone on quite beyond her ken, until she was thus ru