35

Bearing of this upon the Navigation Acts 36

Rivalry of American-built ships with British navigation during
the colonial period 37

Resultant commercial rivalry after Independence 40

Consequent disagreements, derived from colonial restrictions,
and leading to war 41

CHAPTER II

FROM INDEPENDENCE TO JAY'S TREATY

Rupture of the colonial relation 42

Transitional character of the period 1774-1794, to the United
States 43

Epochal significance of Jay's Treaty 43

The question of British navigation, as affected by the loss of
the colonies 45

British commercial expectations from the political weakness of
the United States, 1783-1789 46

System advocated by Lord Sheffield 47

Based upon considerations of navigation and naval power 49

Navigation Acts essentially military in purpose 51

Jefferson's views upon this question 52

Imperial value of the British Navigation Act before American
Independence 53

Influence of the inter-colonial trade at the same period 55

Essential rivalry between it and British trade in general 55

Common interest of continental America and of Great Britain in
the West Indies 56

Pitt's Bill, of March, 1783 58

Controversy provoked by it in Great Britain 60

British jealousy of American navigation 63

Desire to exclude American navigation from British colonial
trade 65

Lord Sheffield's pamphlet 65

Reply of the West India planters 66

Lapse of Pitt's bill 67

Navigation Acts applied in full rigor to intercourse between the
United States and West Indies 68

This policy cont