Such were Mr Huskisson's reasons. They were grounded on alleged necessity. He said in substance:--"The navigation laws are very good things; and if we could only persuade other nations to take our goods, while we virtually shut out their shipping, it would, doubtless, be very advisable to continue the present system. But you can no longer do this. Foreign nations see the undue advantage which has been so long obtained of them. They insist upon an exchange of interests. We, as the richer and the more powerful, are called on to make the first advances. We must relinquish our navigation laws in favor of their staple manufacture, shipping, if we would induce them to admit, on favourable terms, our staple article, cotton goods." These were Mr Huskisson's principles; and it may be admitted that, in the abstract, they were well-founded, for all commercial intercourse, to be beneficial and lasting, must be founded on a mutual exchange of advantages. But, in carrying into execution this principle, he committed a fatal mistake, which has already endangered, without the slightest advantage, and, if persevered in, may ultimately destroy the commercial superiority of Great Britain. He virtually repealed, by the 4 Geo. IV. c. 77 and the 5 Geo. IV. c. 1, the navigation laws, by authorizing the King, by an order in council, to permit the exportation and importation of goods in foreign vessels, on payment of the same duties as where chargeable on British vessels, in favour of those countries which did not levy discriminating duties on British vessels bringing goods into their harbours, and to levy on the vessels of such countries the same tonnage duties as they charged on British vessels. This was, in effect, to say--We will admit your vessels on the same terms on which you admit ours; and nothing, at first sight, could seem more equitable.