AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF CAPTAIN NELSON OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP BOREAS, RELATIVE TO THE ILLEGAL TRADE CARRIED ON BETWEEN THE AMERICANS AND THE BRITISH WEST INDIA ISLANDS [manuscript caption title].

[Nelson, Horatio, Lord]:

Edité par [N.p., but likely London. ca. 1787].

A propos de cet article

A contemporary manuscript transcription of a narrative written by Captain Horatio Nelson in late June 1786, detailing his efforts to enforce the British Navigation Acts in the West Indies while posted to the twenty-eight-gun frigate, HMS Boreas. The events documented in this manuscript occurred quite early in Nelson's naval career, when he was just twenty-five years old, and his actions in strictly enforcing the Navigation Acts against the newly-independent United States could have jeopardized his career. The significance Nelson gave the situation is evident in the detailed collection of documents he assembled to defend himself. Though an edited version of Nelson's narrative was published in the 1840s, this contemporary account provides an unedited transcript of Nelson's justification of his actions at a crucial point in his naval career. As described by Rear Admiral Joseph F. Callo, U.S. Navy Reserve (Retired), "Nelson's tour in the West Indies turned out to be a pivot point in his career, a three-year assignment that simultaneously would test and shape his character as a naval officer in career-threatening ways. It was a period when he had to deal with a major conflict between military and diplomatic interests. More important, it was a time when he blatantly challenged the judgments and orders of his commanding officer in the West Indies, Admiral Sir William Hughes. In fact, Nelson's tour as captain of the Boreas came very close to ending his naval career. It was almost certainly more threatening in that respect than any of his later, more attention-getting assignments." Nelson's narrative includes supporting letters compiled by him to his commanding officers, his junior officers, customs officers, the British-appointed colonial governors, members of Parliament, and to the William Pitt (the Younger) administration and King George III, in addition to return letters from some recipients of Nelson's correspondence as well as official reports. This account was compiled to bolster Nelson's argument that his strict enforcement of Britain's Navigation Acts against the Americans in the West Indies was legal and carried out under orders. Britain's Navigation Acts were a series of laws passed from 1651 through 1696 that banned all foreign trade with the British colonies - any colonial products had to be transported in British ships with British crews, thereby restricting all colonial trade to the mother country alone rather than through multinational free trade. This meant that England would have first claim on valuable colonial exports, and all foreign imports into the colonies had to first pass through English hands, which in turn promoted royal custom revenues. This mercantilist trade practice benefited the American colonies before the Revolution. Commerce with the West Indies thrived as the American colonies were still a part of the British Empire. After the Revolution, however, the protectionism inherent in the Navigation Acts excluded American trade entirely. Since the United States during the period covered here had no central government (being governed at the time under the Articles of Confederation), it could not respond to such economic warfare from Great Britain. In 1784-86, the period when Nelson was posted to the West Indies on the Boreas and just following the recognition of the United States as an independent nation, the Navigation Acts became a problem for West Indian colonial merchants, who had come to rely on their long-established American trade partners. The remaining British colonies were not yet in a position to become trading partners with the West Indies, so illegal trade with the Americans was a tempting option for West Indian merchants. Sir Thomas Shirley, governor of the Leeward Islands, knew that his colony was dependent on American trade and supported the merchants of his colony who chose to work with the Americans. When young Captain Nelson arrived at his new post in Barbados in 1784, he was appalled that.

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Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF CAPTAIN NELSON OF HIS MAJESTY'S SHIP BOREAS, RELATIVE TO THE ILLEGAL TRADE CARRIED ON BETWEEN THE AMERICANS AND THE BRITISH WEST INDIA ISLANDS [manuscript caption title].
• Éditeur: [N.p., but likely London. ca. 1787].