y the geographical relations of the
two and their several products. This had been refused by Great
Britain; but France had conceded it on a restricted scale, plainly
contrived, by the limitation of sixty tons on the size of vessels
engaged, to counteract any attempt at direct carriage from the islands
to Europe, which was not permitted. Under these circumstances the
United States was brought into collision with the Rule of 1756, for
the first time, by the Order in Council of November 6, 1793. A people
without colonies, and with a rapidly growing navigation, could have no
sympathy with a system, coextensive with Europe, which monopolized the
carriage of colonial products. The immediate attitude assumed was one
of antagonism; and the wrong as felt was the greater, because the
direct intercourse between the United States and the then great French
colonies was not incidental to war, but had been established in peace.
In principle, the Rule rested for its validity upon an exception made
in war, for the purposes of war.

The British Government in fact had overlooked that the Rule had
originated in European conditions; and, if applicable at all to the
new transatlantic state, it could only be if conditions were the same,
or equivalent. Till now, by universal usage, trade from colonies had
been only to the mother country; the appearance of an American state
with no colonies introduced two factors hitherto non-existent. Here
was a people not identified with a general system of colonial
exclusiveness; and also, from their geographical situation, it was
possible for a European government to permit them to trade with its
colonies, without serious trespass on the privileges reserved to the
mother country. The monopoly of the latter consisted not only in the
commerce and carrying trade of the colony, but in the _entrepot_; that
is, in the receipt and storage of the colonial produce, and its
distribution to less favored European communities,--the profit, in
short, of the middleman, or broker. France had recognized, though but
partially, this difference of conditions, and in somewhat grudging
manner had opened her West Indian ports to American vessels, for
intercourse with their own country. This trade, being permitted in
peace, did not come under the British Rule; therefore by its own
principle the seizures under it were unlawful. Accordingly, on January
8, 1794, the order was revoked, and the application limited to vessels
bound fro