It is obvious that we must look for the true effect of that act at the time of its first possible operation, that is, in the year 1767.  On this idea how stands the account?

1764, Exports to Jamaica L 456,528 1765 415,624 1766 415,544 1767 (first year of the Free-port Act) 467,681

This author, for the sake of a present momentary credit, will hazard any future and permanent disgrace.  At the time he wrote, the account of 1767 could not be made up.  This was the very first year of the trial of the Free-port Act; and we find that the sale of British commodities is so far from being lessened by that act, that the export of 1767 amounts to 52,000_l._ more than that of either of the two preceding years, and is 11,000_l._ above that of his standard year 1764.  If I could prevail on myself to argue in favor of a great commercial scheme from the appearance of things in a single year, I should from this increase of export infer the beneficial effects of that measure.  In truth, it is not wanting.  Nothing but the thickest ignorance of the Jamaica trade could have made any one entertain a fancy, that the least ill effect on our commerce could follow from this opening of the ports.  But, if the author argues the effect of regulations in the American trade from the export of the year in which they are made, or even of the following; why did he not apply this rule to his own?  He had the same paper before him which I have now before me.  He must have seen that in his standard year (the year 1764), the principal year of his new regulations, the export fell no less than 128,450_l._ short of that in 1763!  Did the export trade revive by these regulations in 1765, during which year they continued in their full force?  It fell about 40,000_l._ still lower.  Here is a fall of 168,000_l._; to account for which, would have become the author much better than piddling for an 80_l._ fall in the year 1766 (the only year in which the order he objects to could operate), or in presuming a fall of exports from a regulation which took place only in November, 1766; whose effects could not appear until the following year; and which, when they do appear, utterly overthrow all his flimsy reasons and affected suspicions upon the effect of opening the ports.

This author, in the same paragraph, says, that “it was asserted by the American factors and agents, that the commanders of our ships of war and tenders, having custom-house commissions, and the strict orders given in 1764 for a due execution of the laws of trade in the colonies, had deterred the Spaniards from trading with us; that the sale of British manufactures in the West Indies had been greatly lessened, and the receipt of large sums of specie prevented.”