ACCOUNT II.

Abstract of the Net Produce of the Revenue in the Years ended 5th July, 1813, 1814, 1815.'

American Encroachments

AMERICAN ENCROACHMENTS

Dn British Rights ;

OR

OBSERVATIONS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BRITISH NORTH AMERICAN ColoNIES. AND ON THE LATE TREATies WITH THE UNITED STATES: with ReMARKS ON MR. BARING's EXAMINATION; AND A DEFENCE OF THE SHIPPING INTEREST FROM THE CHARGE OF HAVING ATTEMPTED TO IMPOSE ON PARLIAMENT, AND OF FACTIOUS CONDUCT IN THEIR OPPOSITION TO THE AME

RICAN INTERCOURSE BILL.

BY

NATHANIEL ATCHESON, ESQ. F. A. S.

“ Disturb not one another with domestic disputes; but remember that we are English, and our enemies are foreigners. Enemies ; which, let what party soever prevail, it is equally the interest of our country to humble and restrain."

Dr. Johnson's Life of Admiral Blake.

A New EDITION, WITH CONSIDERABLE ADDITIONS.

LONDON:

Advertisement.

Since this Tract was published by Mr. Atcheson, a number of Legislative Regulations have been made to promote the Trade Fisheries, and Navigation of the British North American Colonies, and to encourage an intercourse between them and the United Kingdom. The American Intercourse with the British West Indies has nearly ceased, and the only things allowed under an order in council, to be imported there in foreign bottoms, are a few articles of fresh provisions and flour-fish, lumber, and staves, being only to be imported in British shipping. The total exclusion of foreign ships from these Islands is become absolutely necessary in the present state of the Navigation of the United Kingdoms, and it is to be expected that past expe.. rience has taught the Cabinet of Great Britain how important it is to exclude altogether the Americans from interfering with our fisheries on the Coast of British North America and Newfoundland, or of having any intercourse with those Colonies in American shipping. [1815.]

The connexion which had so long subsisted between Great Britain and the countries now forming the United States of America, having been finally dissolved, by the acknowledgment of their Independence in 1783, the commercial system arising out of that connexion, of course, ended with it; and the laws, by which the trade of these countries, considered as colonies, had hitherto been regulated, ceased to have effect; it was therefore necessary, not only to define and limit, by treaty, the boundaries of those parts of the United States which were contiguous to the remaining British Provinces in America, but also to adopt new principles, on which a system of commerce between the two nations might be founded.

Considerable difficulties occurred in the arrangement of the limits of the United States, which were afterwards settled by the treaty of 1783. The commercial regulations between the two countries were never permanently established, and the trade between Great Britain and the United States was regulated and carried on, from the

year 1783, under the powers given by the 23d Geo. 3d. chap. 39, and by the 24th Geo. 3d. chap. 45, by orders in council, until the act of the 37th Geo. 3d. chap. 97, which passed 4th July 1797.

Scarcely had the American war terminated, when Great Britain and the United States charged each other with having violated the

of peace. On the construction of several articles of that

treaty