ered trading
companies of Great Britain such exclusive use and trade, and the
respective ports and establishments, as neither the other subjects of
Great Britain nor any the most favoured nation participate in."
Unfortunately for both countries, this liberal provision was rejected on
the ground that the ministry had no authority to interfere with the
Navigation Act.

[Sidenote: 3. Private debts;]

Only two questions were now left to be disposed of,--the question of
paying private debts, and that of compensating the American loyalists
for the loss of property and general rough treatment which they had
suffered. There were many old debts outstanding from American to British
merchants. These had been for the most part incurred before 1775, and
while many honest debtors, impoverished during the war, felt unable to
pay, there were doubtless many others who were ready to take advantage
of circumstances and refuse the payment which they were perfectly able
to make. It was scarcely creditable to us that any such question should
have arisen. Franklin, indeed, argued that these debts were more than
fully offset by damages done to private property by British soldiers:
as, for example, in the wanton raids on the coasts of Connecticut and
Virginia in 1779, or in Prevost's buccaneering march against Charleston.
To cite these atrocities, however, as a reason for the non-payment of
debts legitimately owed to innocent merchants in London and Glasgow was
to argue as if two wrongs could make a right. The strong sense of John
Adams struck at once to the root of the matter. He declared "he had no
notion of cheating anybody. The questions of paying debts and
compensating Tories were two." This terse statement carried the day, and
it was finally decided that all private debts on either side, whether
incurred before or after 1775, remained still binding, and must be
discharged at their full value in sterling money.

[Sidenote: 4. Compensation of loyalists.]

The last question of all was the one most difficult to settle. There
were many loyalists in the United States who had sacrificed everything
in the support of the British cause, and it was unquestionably the duty
of the British government to make every possible effort to insure them
against further injury, and, if practicable, to make good their losses
already incurred. From Virginia and the New England states, where they
were few in number, they had mostly fled, and their estates had b