While the vessels of other nations are secured by standing laws, which cannot be altered but by the concurrent will of the three branches of the British legislature, in carrying thither any produce or manufacture of the country to which they belong, which may be lawfully carried in any vessels, ours, with the same prohibition of what is foreign, are further prohibited by a standing law (12 Car. 2, c. 18, s. 3.) from carrying thither all and any of our domestic productions and manufactures. A subsequent act, indeed, has authorized their executive to permit the carriage of our own productions in our own bottoms, at its sole discretion: and the permission has been given from year to year, by proclamation; but subject every moment to be withdrawn on that single will, in which event, our vessels having any thing on board, stand interdicted from the entry of all British ports. The disadvantage of a tenure which may be so suddenly discontinued, was experienced by our merchants on a late occasion, when an official notification that this law would be strictly enforced, gave them just apprehensions for the fate of their vessels and cargoes despatched or destined to the ports of Great Britain. It was privately believed, indeed, that the order of that court went further than their intention, and so we were, afterwards, officially informed: but the embarrassments of the moment were real and great, and the possibility of their renewal lays our commerce to that country under the same species of discouragement, as to other countries where it is regulated by a single legislator: and the distinction is too remarkable not to be noticed, that our navigation is excluded from the security of fixed laws, while that security is given to the navigation of others. Our vessels pay in their ports one shilling nine pence sterling per ton, light and trinity dues, more than is paid by British ships, except in the port of London, where they pay the same as British. The greater part of what they receive from us is re-exported to other countries, under the useless charges of an intermediate deposite and double voyage. From tables published in England, and composed, as is said, from the books of their Custom-Houses, it appears, that of the indigo imported there in the years 1773-4-5, one third was re-exported; and, from a document of authority, we learn that of the rice and tobacco imported there before the war, four fifths were re-exported. We are assured, indeed, that the quantities sent thither for re-exportation since the war are considerably diminished; yet less so than reason and national interest would dictate. The whole of our grain is re-exported, when wheat is below fifty shillings the quarter, and other grains in proportion.