The propositions before the committee were the strongest weapon America possessed, and would, more probably than any other, restore her to all her political and commercial rights.

They professed themselves the friends of free trade, and declared the opinion that it would be to the general advantage, if all commerce was free.

But this rule was not without its exceptions.

The navigation act of Great Britain was a proof of the effect of one exception on the prosperity of national commerce.

The effect produced by that act was equally rapid and extensive.
There is another exception to the advantages of a free trade, where the situation of a country is such with respect to another, that by duties on the commodities of that other, it shall not only invigorate its own means of rivalship, but draw from that other the hands employed in the production of those commodities.