Among the first provisions of Congress for the benefit of American shipping after the adoption of the Constitution was a 10 per cent discriminating duty on all goods imported in foreign ships. It is asserted that this discriminating duty supplied our ships with cargoes from foreign ports to American, and was thus a feasible and satisfactory "protection." A 10 per cent duty amounted then, and it would amount now, to more than the whole freight, upon some goods. It is also asserted that this discrimination was made in order to "protect" our shipping. But in an extended argument, which was made before the Merchant Marine Commission (in the _Report_ of which the curious reader can find it), by Hon. E. T. Chamberlain, Commissioner of Navigation, it was proved that "in the minds of those that applied" it (Jefferson, Clay, Gallatin, John Quincy Adams, etc.), the law was provided as a means of retaliation only--for the purpose of preventing discrimination against American shipping. The fact that our government anxiously strove from the first to secure fair reciprocity confirms this view. Further confirmation is found in the fact that our old-time ship-owners were unanimous in their support of the government in its efforts to secure reciprocity. Those who advocate the policy of discrimination for modern application assert that our shipping reached supremacy at sea while the discriminating policy prevailed as to Great Britain, and that is true, because the British did not accept our offers of reciprocity until 1849. But the assertion that our shipping became supreme _because_ of this policy is made only by those who are unable to appreciate in full the facts of the case. For our ships that were engaged in the trades between foreign countries, beyond the reach of any "protection" afforded by "discrimination" or any other artificial stimulation, at one time measured a million tons. Why were those ships favored beyond all others by the merchants who loaded them? Why did merchants of rival nations--why did the British merchants, for instance--charter these "Yankee" ships, if it were not because they were the most efficient in the world? It is a slander upon the American sailor of the sail to say that he won the long pennant through coddling.