Retaliatory measures. prevailed, Congress, in 1784, recommended to the legislatures of the different States the adoption of a law prohibiting for fifteen years the importation and exportation of every species of merchandise in any vessels belonging to foreign powers which had not connected themselves with the government of the United States by commercial treaties. The recommendation of retaliatory measures, as has too frequently been the case in all ages and with all nations, found ready favour with the New England States, whose people were almost exclusively engaged in maritime pursuits. The merchants and shipowners of Boston, who had played so determined and conspicuous a part in the great revolution, were highly exasperated by their exclusion from the ports of the West Indies, and by the regulations adopted with regard to British fisheries in the American seas. They viewed also with alarm the establishment of British factors in their country.
Threatening attitude of Massachusetts. Massachusetts consequently passed an Act for the regulation of navigation and commerce, whereby they prohibited the exportation of any American produce or manufacture from their ports in vessels owned by British subjects after the 1st of August, 1785; with a provisional exception in favour of those British settlements whose governors should reverse their proclamations against the admission of American vessels into their ports. They also levied several extra duties to be paid by vessels belonging to foreigners, and especially by British subjects. There was, however, a proviso, containing a permission for newly-built vessels constructed in Massachusetts, though partly or wholly owned by British subjects, to take
