This important resolution, opening the door to reciprocal measures, was declared to be more consistent with the true interest, as well as with the peaceful disposition, of the United States than any retrograde movement. Although no legislative action followed this enunciation of the principles of reciprocity, it formed at a future period the basis of both negotiation and legislation with foreign powers. The time, however, had not then arrived for the avowal and practice of a much wiser and more enlightened policy than that by which nations were guided before, and for some years after, the close of the eighteenth century. [Sidenote: Early statesmen of the United States.] [Sidenote: Their efforts to develop maritime commerce.] Perhaps no nation of modern times has produced more enlightened statesmen than those who regulated the affairs of the United States for full half a century after the declaration of its independence. They had, as we have seen, numerous difficulties to contend with, both at home and abroad, but these were overcome with a tact and genius which commands our admiration. Though materially assisted in their efforts to extend and develop their shipping by the seafaring habits of the people, by the natural maritime resources of their own country, and by the advantages they derived as neutrals during the war which so long raged in Europe, they were ever ready to encourage increased intercourse with distant nations, in spite of the opposition of the maritime States to those liberal measures which they had so frequently propounded, and in which they had been too often thwarted. [Sidenote: First trade with the East.]