CHAPTER X
COLONIAL POLICY AFTER THE LOSS OF THE AMERICAN PROVINCES — AUSTRALIA AND CAPE COLONY — THE SLAVE TRADE AND SLAVERY.
Fiscal In tracing the history of Colonial policy, the years which Poh Hus- elapsed between the recognition of American independence kisson. anc j the attempt to develop colonization on systematic lines must be dealt with somewhat summarily. It must be noted that both the American Secretary and the Board of Trade 22G. III., had been swept away in 1782 by Burke’s Act. In that Act, c ' 82 ' however, provision was made for Colonial business to be carried on by a Committee of the Privy Council for Trade and Plantations. Such a Committee was formed in 1784, and placed on a definite footing two years later, when Colonial business, which had in the interval been transacted in the Plantations Branch of the Home Office, was transferred to this new Committee. In 1794 the new Secretary of State for War became also nominally Secretary for the Colonies; and in 1801 the departments were regularly united. From 1794 the Committee for Trade and Plantations, now known as the Board of Trade, gradually ceased to have any connection with Colonial affairs, until, as we shall see at a later date, its machinery was again put in motion at the instance of Lord Grey. In fact, so far as opinions were concerned, the period was one of extreme depression. The result of the American War had, in truth, to use a vulgar expression, knocked the bottom out of the much vaunted Mercantile system. Of course, this was not at the time recognised. Lord Sheffield’s book 1 doubtless reflected the popular opinions of the day, and when the far-seeing Pitt proposed, in the Bill of 1783, to put the American States on a footing of perfect equality with British possessions in trade matters, he was compelled to withdraw his measure. The economic circumstances of Canada were, however, such that the Mercantile system 1 Observations on Am. Commerce.