dely awakened to it.
With similar short-sighted jealousy, it was argued that the American
share in the whale-fishery and in the Newfoundland fishery should be
curtailed as much as possible. Spermaceti oil was much needed in
England: complaints were rife of robbery and murder in the dimly lighted
streets of London and other great cities. But it was thought that if
American ships could carry oil to England and salt fish to Jamaica, the
supply of seamen for the British navy would be diminished; and
accordingly such privileges must not be granted the Americans unless
valuable privileges could be granted in return. But the government of
the United States could grant no privileges because it could impose no
restrictions. British manufactured goods were needed in America, and
Congress, which could levy no duties, had no power to keep them out.
British merchants and manufacturers, it was argued, already enjoyed all
needful privileges in American ports, and accordingly they asked no
favours and granted none.

Such were the arguments to which Adams was obliged to listen. The
popular feeling was so strong that Pitt could not have stemmed it if he
would. It was in vain that Adams threatened reprisals, and urged that
the British measures would defeat their own purpose. "The end of the
Navigation Act," said he, "as expressed in its own preamble, is to
confine the commerce of the colonies to the mother country; but now we
are become independent states, instead of confining our trade to Great
Britain, it will drive it to other countries:" and he suggested that the
Americans might make a navigation act in their turn, admitting to
American ports none but American-built ships, owned and commanded by
Americans. But under the articles of confederation such a threat was
idle, and the British government knew it to be so. Thirteen separate
state governments could never be made to adopt any such measure in
concert. The weakness of Congress had been fatally revealed in its
inability to protect the loyalists or to enforce the payment of debts,
and in its failure to raise a revenue for meeting its current expenses.
A government thus slighted at home was naturally despised abroad.
England neglected to send a minister to Philadelphia, and while Adams
was treated politely, his arguments were unheeded. Whether in this
behaviour Pitt's government was influenced or not by political as well
as economical reasons, it was certain that a political purpose w