In 1808, and more fully in 1810, similar privileges were granted to the Portuguese dominions in South America; and, in 1822, these were extended to all countries in America, being, or having been, under the dominion of Spain. When the Customs Laws were first consolidated in 1825, the exceptions became the rule, and importations from Asia and Africa were placed on a similar footing to those from America. Thus our original rule as to importations from Asia and Africa, as well as from America, was broken down. [Sidenote: Acts of 1822 and 1823, and further irritation in America.] Though the Act of 1822 allowed a considerable number of articles to be imported into the free ports of the West Indies from any foreign country in America in ships of such country, it contained a clause reserving to the King the power of prohibiting such intercourse with any foreign country not treating British shipping with equal favour. The President of the United States, having been previously empowered by Congress to open the ports of that country to British vessels on the same terms as were required from United States vessels when coming from any British port in the West Indies, passed on the 21st March, 1823, an Act to regulate “the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British ports.” By this Act the ports of the United States became open to British vessels coming from the free ports of the British North American and West Indian possessions, while power was given to the President to remove the differential duties levied on goods so imported, on receiving information that similar privileges had been conceded in such British colonial ports to the vessels of the United States. The Act, however, required all goods so imported to be the produce of the colony whence they came and to have been imported thence direct. It further enacted that such British ships might take back produce of the United States, provided they gave bonds to land it directly at the port for which they cleared out. As the provisions of this Act were, however, to depend on the continuance of those enacted by the British Legislature in 1822 (3rd Geo. IV., cap. 44), and, as the vessels of the United States were not placed on precisely the same footing in the ports of the West Indies as British ships, this power of the President was never exercised, and a British Order in Council in opposition to it was subsequently issued on the 21st July, 1823. Here again arose another war of tariffs, for this Order levied countervailing duties on vessels of the United States and their cargoes in the ports of the British North American and West Indian possessions from the ports in the United States to the extent of 4_s._ 3_d._ per ton, as well as a discriminating duty of 10 per cent. on imported articles. [Sidenote: Order in Council, July, 1826.]