nd will carry the newspapers as usual.

The difference of sixty-two livres ten sols the hogshead, established by
the National Assembly on tobacco brought in their and our ships, is
such an act of hostility against our navigation, as was not to have been
expected from the friendship of that nation. It is as new in its nature
as extravagant in its degree; since it is unexampled, that any nation
has endeavored to wrest from another the carriage of its own produce,
except in the case of their colonies. The British navigation act, so
much and so justly complained of, leaves to all nations the carriage of
their own commodities free. This measure, too, is calculated expressly
to take our own carriage from us and give the equivalent to other
nations: for it is well known, that the shipping of France is not
equal to the carriage of their whole commerce; but the freight in other
branches of navigation being on an equal footing with only forty livres
the hogshead, in ours, and this new arrangement giving them sixty-two
livres ten sols the hogshead, in addition to their freight, that is to
say, one hundred and two livres ten sols, instead of forty livres, their
vessels will leave every other branch of business to fill up this. They
will consequently leave a void in those other branches, which will be
occupied by English, Dutch, and Swedes, on the spot. They complain of
our tonnage duty, but it is because it is not understood. In the ports
of France, we pay fees for anchorage, buoys, and beacons, fees
to measurers, weighers, and guagers, and in some countries, for
light-houses. We have thought it better that the public here should pay
all these, and reimburse itself by a consolidation of them into one fee,
proportioned to the tonnage of the vessel, and therefore called by
that name. They complain that the foreign tonnage is higher than the
domestic. If this complaint had come from the English, it would not have
been wonderful, because the foreign tonnage operates really as a tax on
their commerce, which, under this name, is found to pay sixteen dollars
and fifty cents for every dollar paid by France. It was not conceived,
that the latter would have complained of a measure calculated to operate
so unequally on her rival, and I still suppose she would not complain,
if the thing were well understood. The refusing to our vessels the
faculty of becoming national bottoms, on sale to their citizens, was
never before done by any nation but E