since, but even considerably enlarged; for many other places are now included in the direct commerce with these colonies, as will be seen by reference to the 46 Geo. III. c. 116. which recites, “whereas by the laws in force no commodity of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe, is allowed to be imported into any place to his Majesty belonging, or which shall hereafter belong unto, or be in the possession of his Majesty in Asia, Africa, or America, but what shall be bona fide and without fraud, laden and shipped in Great Britain, or Ireland, except salt for the fisheries of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Quebec, which may be laden in any port of Europe, and also except any goods fit and necessary for the fishery in the British colonies or plantations in America, being the growth, produce, or manufacture of Great Britain or Ireland, or of the islands of Guernsey or Jersey, which may be shipped and laden in the said islands respectively by any of the inhabitants thereof, and also except wines of the growth of the Madeiras and the Western Islands, or Azores, which may be laden at those places respectively:  and whereas, it may tend to the benefit of the British fisheries, and to the advantage of the commerce and navigation of this country, if permission was given for certain other articles to be shipped for the British colonies in North America, at other places in Europe than those hereinbefore mentioned, under certain regulations and restrictions:”  it is therefore enacted that any fruit, wine, oil, salt, or cork, the produce of Europe, may be shipped and laden at Malta, or Gibraltar, for exportation direct to the said plantations in North America, on board any British built vessel, owned, navigated, and registered according to law, which shall arrive with the produce of the said fisheries taken and cured by his majesty’s subjects carrying on the said fishery from any of the said plantations, or from Great Britain or Ireland.

[* 12 Car.  II. chap. 18.]

[** Reeves, second edition, p. 397.]

[*** 15 Charles II. cap. 7.]

[**** England, Ireland and Scotland, since united into one kingdom.]

I have been thus copious in extracts from the navigation laws, to prove that the great leading principles of these laws would not only be in no wise encroached upon by allowing the inhabitants of this colony to carry on the whale fisheries in their own vessels, but also that the duties which were thus clandestinely imposed on oils so procured, have been a flagrant violation of them, and that they are a single isolated exception to a general rule.  Nor would the abolition of the duties in question, and the consequent encouragement of these fisheries, prove injurious to the British merchants at home, as must have been apprehended by those who were the authors of the prohibitory law by which these duties were enacted.  Looking, indeed, at the mere situation of the colony, it would not be unnatural to conclude that its contiguity to the