Support for the Union and continued commerce

Did Britain prefer the Union because its industry offered both supplies and a market?

The reply agrees with that view while retaining the commercial motive discussed in the counterfactual.

A viewer describes the Union's industrial capacity as making it both a source of goods and a market for British trade. The reply agrees with the claimed British preference for the Union, then returns to the role of commercial interests. This closes the earlier distinction between political alignment and trading opportunities in the treaty-port scenario.