Unfortunately other nations, and more especially Great Britain, as well as the Northern States of America, were not then prepared to adopt, pure and simple, the principles he propounded; and although American vessels were then admitted to the British possessions in the East Indies upon the most favoured footing, the great majority of the English people had no inclination to yield one iota of their ancient navigation laws without an equivalent, as they considered these laws to be the chief, if not the sole cause of their maritime success and supremacy. Nor would the English government make any concessions with regard to Light dues and Local charges, of which the shipowners of the United States justly complained, and have still, though to a much less extent, some cause for complaint. The Board of Trade contended that these charges were of ancient establishment and the property of private persons or of corporate bodies, and that the funds arising from them were in many instances applicable to public works or charitable purposes. [Sidenote: Maritime laws and laws respecting neutrals.] [Sidenote: Feeling on both sides the water.] With regard to maritime regulations an intimation was given by the Lords of the Council that Great Britain might consent to insert in a commercial treaty with the United States all the articles of maritime law which had of late years been inserted in her commercial treaties with other foreign powers; expressly excepting, however, any article allowing the ships of the United States to protect the property of the enemies of Great Britain in time of war, _which should on no account be admitted_. On the other hand, the more violent partisans in America for unrestricted trade with the West Indies threatened to break off all commercial intercourse with Great Britain unless their demands were complied with. In this controversy it is amusing to observe that grave members of the English Council actually gave an authoritative opinion: “That the articles which the people of the United States now send to European markets are but few, and can be obtained in equal perfection from other countries; and,” they added, “IT IS MORE LIKELY _that the demand for them from thence should in future_ DIMINISH RATHER THAN INCREASE.” If these short-sighted mortals could but have opened the book of the future, and could have contemplated the prodigious supply of cotton, and corn, and other raw produce which have been derived from the United States since the resources of its fertile and varied soil have been developed, they would have paused before they hazarded such crude and altogether erroneous vaticinations. They, moreover, decried the trade in grain as precarious, and asserted that no system of foreign commerce permanently profitable could be founded upon it. [Sidenote: Treaty between Great Britain and the United States.]