years hundreds of
regulating statutes were passed, breaks were made in the restrictive
barriers of the code during the first third of the nineteenth century by
the adoption of the principle of maritime reciprocity.[N] In 1815 (July
3) a convention establishing a "reciprocal liberty of commerce," between
the "territories of Great Britain in Europe and those of the United
States," was signed in London.[O] In 1824-1826 reciprocity treaties were
entered into with various continental powers. In 1827 (August 6) the
treaty of 1815 with the United States was renewed. In 1830 a treaty for
regulating the commercial intercourse between the British colonial
possessions and the United States was executed.[P] Under these
conventions, repeatedly interrupted by British Orders in Council and by
Presidents' proclamations,[Q] the trading intercourse between both
countries was regulated till the abrogation of the code of 1660.

In 1844 an indirect move against the code was made, with the appointment
of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the working of
the reciprocal treaties and the condition of the mercantile marine of
the country.[R]

At this period the competition of the United States in the overseas
carrying trade of the world was hard pressing England. The Americans
were building the best wooden ships, superior in model and
seaworthiness, the fastest sailers. They were leading in shipbuilding.
Much of the British shipping trade was carried on in American-built
vessels. The splendid American clipper ships were almost monopolizing
the carrying trade between Great Britain and the United States. Most of
the shipping of the world was yet in wooden bottoms. Iron ships were in
service, but iron-shipbuilding was in its infancy.

The Parliamentary inquiry of 1844 was followed up in 1847 with a move
openly against the ancient code. Its principles as they then stood,
essentially as in 1660, despite the multitude of regulating statutes,
are thus enumerated:

1. Certain named articles of European produce could only be
imported into the United Kingdom for consumption in British
ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were the
produce, or of the country from which they were usually imported.

2. No produce of Asia, Africa, or America could be imported for
consumption into the United Kingdom from Europe in any ships; and
such produce could only be imported from any other place in