vessels with prohibition of their proceeding to a British port to which
American vessels could not go. This act affected not merely direct trade
with the West Indies, but stopped the general custom of British ships of
taking part cargoes to Jamaica while _en route_ to and from the United
States. The result was, first, compromise, later, under Huskisson's
administration at the British Board of Trade, complete abandonment by
Britain of the exclusive trade basis of her whole colonial system.

The "retaliatory system" which J.Q. Adams regarded as "a new declaration
of independence," was, in fact, quickly taken up by other non-colonial
nations, and these, with America, compelled Great Britain to take stock
of her interests. Huskisson, rightly foreseeing British prosperity as
dependent upon her manufactures and upon the carrying trade, stated in
Parliament that American "retaliation" had forced the issue. Freedom of
trade in British ports was offered in 1826 to all non-colonial nations
that would open their ports within one year on terms of equality to
British ships. J.Q. Adams, now President of the United States, delayed
acceptance of this offer, preferring a treaty negotiation, and was
rebuffed by Canning, so that actual resumption of West Indian trade did
not take place until 1830, after the close of Adams' administration.
That trade never recovered its former prosperity.

Meanwhile the long period of controversy, from 1806 to 1830, had
resulted in a complete change in the American situation. It is not a
sufficient explanation of the American belief in, and practice of, the
theory of protection to attribute this alone to British checks placed
upon free commercial rivalry. Nevertheless the progress of America
toward an established system, reaching its highest mark for years in the
Tariff Bill of 1828, is distinctly related to the events just narrated.
After American independence, the partially illegal status of West Indian