They were advancing to a different state of things; but, in the mean time, they ought to pursue their interest, and employ those vessels which would best answer their purpose.

The attempt to make it their interest to employ the vessels of France rather than those of Britain, by discriminating duties which must enhance the price of freight, was a premium to the vessels of the favourite nation, paid by American agriculture.
The navigation act of Great Britain had been made a subject of heavy complaint.

But that act was not particularly directed against the United States.

It had been brought into operation while they were yet colonies, and was not more unfavourable to them than to others.

To its regulations, Great Britain was strongly attached; and it was not probable that America could compel her to relinquish them.
Calculations were made on the proportion of British manufactures consumed in America, from which it was inferred that her trade, though important, was not sufficiently important to force that nation to abandon a system which she considered as the basis of her grandeur.