Subsequently to the failure of Mr. Pitt’s measure respecting the trade of the United States, no great effort was made for many years to modify grievances with other nations, which every one felt were caused by the Navigation Laws. Protection had become so thoroughly engrafted on the whole policy of the nation, that the question of the repeal of these laws could only be approached by degrees, the country being so impressed with their necessity, that any attempt during the first quarter of this century to sweep them away would have proved a signal failure. Indeed, at the close of the French war, when modifications were offered, conditionally, to other countries, it is not surprising that such foreign nations as believed the prosperity of England to be due to her protective system were not satisfied of the honesty of her intentions: most of them, in fact, looked with suspicion on proposals which, in the dawn of sound commercial knowledge, were not unnaturally thought by them inimical to the interests of England. Foreign nations were slow to recognise that the comparative freedom of her constitution, her vast mineral resources, the skill and energy of her people, the security of property, and the equality of taxation, could secure for England either her commercial or her manufacturing superiority; and, still less, could they comprehend how much such causes as these had to do with her maritime supremacy. They were equally unable to discover to how great an extent the prosperity of these interests and of shipping were mutually dependent on each other, ships being really the adjuncts only of commerce, as without it there would be no reason for their existence. [Sidenote: Reciprocity Treaties of 1824-6.] But after much discussion reciprocity treaties were concluded by Mr. Canning and Mr. Huskisson with several Continental Powers, the object of these statesmen being to hold out the right hand of fellowship to other nations, and to surrender in exchange for some concession on their part the more stringent conditions of our Navigation Laws. The earliest of these treaties was with Prussia, on the 2nd April, 1824: on the 16th June, we made another with Denmark; on the 29th September, 1825, with the Hanseatic Republics of Lubeck, Bremen, and Hamburg; on the 16th January, 1826, with France, and on the 26th December, of the same year, with Mexico. Various other treaties followed; opening, on certain terms of reciprocity, the ports of Great Britain to the ships of the nations with whom they were made; but reserving to her own ships, as a rule and with jealous care, her colonial ports. [Sidenote: Value of treaties in early times,]