ine. On our meals,
however, when re-exported to their colonies, they have lately imposed
duties, of from half a dollar to two dollars the barrel, the duties
being so proportioned to the current price of their own flour, as that
both together are to make the constant sum of nine dollars per barrel.

They do not discourage our rice, pot and pearl ash, salted provisions,
or whale-oil; but these articles, being in small demand at their
markets, are carried thither but in a small degree. Their demand for
rice, however, is increasing. Neither tobacco nor indigo are received
there.

Themselves and their colonies are the actual consumers of what they
receive from us.

Our navigation is free with the kingdom of Spain, foreign goods being
received there in our ships on the same conditions as if carried in
their own, or in the vessels of the country of which such goods are the
manufacture or produce.

Spain and Portugal refuse to those parts of America which they govern,
all direct intercourse with any people but themselves. The commodities
in mutual demand between them and their neighbors, must be carried to be
exchanged in some port of the dominant country, and the transportation
between that and the subject state must be in a domestic bottom.

LETTER CXXXI.--TO MR. HAMMOND, February 16, 1793

TO MR. HAMMOND.

Philadelphia, February 16, 1793.

I have duly received your letter of yesterday, with the statement of the
duties payable on articles imported into Great Britain The object of
the report, from which I had communicated some extracts to you, not
requiring a minute detail of the several duties on every article, in
every country, I had presented both articles and duties in groups, and
in general terms, conveying information sufficiently accurate for
the object. And I have the satisfaction to find, on re-examining the
expressions in the report, that they correspond with your statement
as nearly as generals can with particulars. The differences which any
nation makes between our commodities and those of other countries,
whether favorable or unfavorable to us, were proper to be noted. But
they were subordinate to the more important questions, What countries
consume most of our produce, exact the lightest duties, and leave to us
the most favorable balance?

You seem to think that in the mention made of your official
communication of April the 11th, 1792, that the clause in the navigation
act (prohibiting our ow