Gazette Of The United States

MR. FENNO,

I HAVE been not a little surprised to find so much opposition by many gentlemen, to the doctrine of discrimination in our laws relating to commerce.

[Ourselves of this ability, that our late revolution in government was effected as it was in order to possess ourselves of this ability, that our late revolution in]

Britain has made her trade laws upon maxims of government. It is said that Great Britain and she will not recede, while we suffer ourselves to be [dupes to them as hitherto our weakness has been their strength].—It is not gratitude to others, but justice to ourselves which requires a discrimination [in our commerce].

It is in our power to place their interest, as relating to their commerce with us, on different grounds, and effect a relaxation of their present illiberal navigation act. —It is in our power to produce the joint exertions of part of their own dominions in bringing about such a relaxation.

The subject of discrimination has never engaged the attention.—Those who have asserted, that the subject [of discrimination] of other governments, could not have thought [proper].

There is not a power in Europe that has not discrimina- tions interwoven with all their acts of a commercial kind ; and without an attention to this principle in this country, we had better leave trade entirely to its own natural operations—and what proves more than all the propriety of it, is an assertion made by a member in the British Commons, that as our government would soon be different from what it had been, a different mode of treatment towards us would become necessary.