868 POSTSCRIPT 
the subject. “I think,” he wrote in 1785 to John Adams, 
whose views, like those of Franklin, were in close accord with 
his own, “all the world would gain by setting commerce at 
perfect liberty’.” But events proved too strong for the 
young Republic. Both France and England were anxious to 
maintain their own commercial systems, and though it was 
possible to adjust trade differences with France? the English 
shipowners were unwilling that the Americans should com- 
pete with them on even terms in any branch of trade®. Had 
the Bill¢ which Pitt drafted in 1783 been adopted, America 
might have grown up as a Free Trade state, but Fox and his 
supporters® succeeded in maintaining the exclusive policy of 
the Navigation Act. American statesmen had reason to fear 
that their nascent commerce would be crushed out of exist- 
ence. It thus came about that, under English influence, 
the inclinations of the leaders of opinion in America were 
modified? ; the transatlantic Republic, which adopted internal 
freedom of commerce and industry with enthusiasm, did not 
rely on the new principles for foreign trade, but set herself to 
carry on the old nationalist tradition in the New World. 
The ideal of perfectly free commercial intercommunication 
and roused Was not abandoned, however; it took a hold of the imagina- 
i J tions of the Englishmen who agitated against the high pro- 
ea tective duties on corn, which pressed so severely after 1815 
yf tks Gore o0 the manufacturers and the poor. The principles of the 
’ Anti-Corn-Law League were so clear that anyone who opposed 
them seemed to be actuated by selfish prejudices rather than 
by any reasonable objection. The Free Traders were con- 
vinced that if England took the bold course, and abandoned 
her merely nationalist system, all other countries would be 
inspired by her example. The national prosperity of England 
has increased by leaps and bounds since 1848. far beyond the 
i Randolph, Memosrs, Correspondence, ete. of Thomas Jefferson, 1. 264. On 
political grounds Jefferson would have preferred that American citizens should 
keep to rural pursuits and not develop commerce, or manufacturing. Tucker. 
Life of Jefferson, 1. 200, also Notes on Virginia, 275. 
? McMaster in Cambridge Modern History, vir. 823. 8 See p. 674 above. 
V CommBns Journals, xxx1x. 239 ; Leone Levi, op. cit. 57. 
5 Compare Disraeli’s speech in 8 Hansard rxvr., Feb. 14, 1843. 
8 Austin, Soundness of the policy of protecting domestic Manufactures, 1817. 
Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, pv. 4. 31.