They were designed to legalize commerce rather than to encourage it."* Still, for a year or more after the war the demand for American products was great enough to satisfy almost everybody.

But in 1784 France and Spain closed their colonial ports and thus excluded the shipping of the United States.

This proved to be so disastrous for their colonies that the French Government soon was forced to relax its restrictions.

The British also made some concessions, and where their orders were not modified they were evaded.
And so, in the course of a few years, the West India trade recovered.
* Clive Day, "Encyclopedia of American Government," Vol.

I, p.