d be introduced only by direct voyage from the
place of origin. This was designed to prevent the continuance of trade
by way of Amelia or Halifax. It was pointed out in debate, however,
that French shipping practically did not exist, and that in the days
of open trade, before the embargo, only about eight thousand tons of
British shipping yearly entered American ports, whereas from three
hundred thousand to four hundred thousand American tons visited Great
Britain.[312] Should she, by a strict retaliation, resent this clumsy
attempt at injuring her, the weight of the blow would fall on
Americans. American ships would be excluded from British ports; the
carrying trade to Amelia and Halifax would be resumed, to the
detriment of American vessels by a competition which otherwise would
not exist, and British manufactures would be introduced by smuggling,
to the grievous loss of the revenue, as had been notoriously and
abundantly the case under the Non-Intercourse Act. In truth, a purely
commercial war with Great Britain was as injurious as a military war,
and more hopeless.

The bill consequently failed in the Senate, though passed by the
House. In its stead was adopted an Act which repealed that of
Non-Intercourse, but prescribed that in case either Great Britain or
France, before March 3, 1811, should so revoke or modify its edicts as
that they should cease to violate the neutral commerce of the United
States, the President should declare the fact by proclamation; and if
the other nation should not, within three months from the date of such
proclamation, in like manner so modify or revoke its edicts, there
should revive against it those sections of the Non-Intercourse Act
which excluded its vessels from American ports, and forbade to
American vessels importation from its ports, or of its goods from any
part of the world whatsoever. The determination of the fact of
revocation by either state was left to the sole judgment of the
President, by whose approval the Act became law May 1, 1810.[313]

As Great Britain and France, by the Orders in Council and the Berlin
and Milan Decrees, were then engaged in a commercial warfare, in which
the object of each was to exhaust its rival, the effect of this Act
was to tender the co-operation of the United States to whichever of
them should embrace the offer. In terms, it was strictly impartial
between the two. In fact, forasmuch as France could not prevent
American intercourse with Gre