Great Britain is accordingly one of the few Nations to which the prohibition applies.

In pursuance of the Treaty concluded in December 1825, between The United States and Central America, whatever may be imported into or exported from either Country in its own Vessels, to or from any Foreign Place whatever, may, in like manner, and on payment of the same duties, be imported or exported in the Vessels of the other Country.

If, therefore, it was meant by the condition required, that the Commerce and Navigation of Great Britain, and of her Possessions Abroad, should be gratuitously and generally placed on the footing of the most favoured Nations, The United States, in order to comply with it, and, as the price for the permission to trade with the British Colonies, would have been obliged; 1. To admit the Importation of British merchandize in British Vessels, on the same terms, and on payment of the same duties, as if imported in American Vessels, although the Convention of 1815, should have expired, and the corresponding privilege was no longer allowed to American Vessels in British Ports; 2. To admit the importation, in British Vessels, of the produce of every Foreign Country, although the importation into British Ports, of the like produce in American Vessels, should still be prohibited; 3. If the condition was intended to apply to privileges granted subsequent to the date of the Act of Parliament, to admit the importation of such Foreign produce in British Vessels, even without being charged with any discriminating duties, and generally to allow to British Vessels, without reciprocity, all the reciprocal advantages to which the Vessels of Central America are entitled.

If this was not the intention of the Act of Parliament, if the words "Commerce and Navigation of this Country," were meant only to include the circuitous intercourse, the expressions used to convey that meaning must be admitted to have been much too general. This last interpretation has been suggested only by the observations that have occurred in the course of Mr. Canning's Correspondence with the Undersigned. If such, or any other admissible construction was intended, the most obvious way of preventing both an erroneous interpretation of the condition, and any unfounded expectations, in reference to a renewal of the Negotiations, would have been an Official Communication of the Act of Parliament, accompanied with a full and free explanation of the condition required, and of the intentions of His Majesty's Government on the whole subject.

The Government of The United States is animated by the most sincere desire to maintain with that of Great Britain, not merely the forms of courtesy and amity, but to cultivate a cordial and lasting friendship, to settle every controverted question between them upon

principles of justice and reciprocity, and, by an enlarged liberality in their mutual intercourse, to advance the real prosperity of both.

Entertaining this desire, it has learnt, with regret, the resolution of His Majesty's Government, to close the door against those friendly explanations, and that free and mutual exposition of the wishes and views of the Parties, so essential between two Nations, whose interests and happiness are so interwoven as those of Great Britain and The United States, and which can be but partially and imperfectly interchanged, if mutual Legislation is substituted to negotiation and to the ordinary mode of treating.

As the only alternative, which this course has left, it was the President's intention to lay the whole Correspondence which has passed between the two Governments on that subject, including the Instructions given to the several American Ministers near His Britannick Majesty, before Congress, at their present Session. It will remain with that Body to decide, whether the Colonial Intercourse shall be altogether closed, whether that portion of it left open by the Order in Council shall continue so, or, on what conditions compatible with the interests of The United States that trade may be placed.

The Undersigned has been further instructed to give at the same time, to His Majesty's Government, the assurance that, notwithstanding its late decision, that of The United States will be ready, at Washington or at London, to treat of the Colonial Intercourse, whenever it may be the desire or inclination of Great Britain to negotiate on that subject. The Undersigned, &c. The Right Hon. George Canning.

ALBERT GALLATIN.

(Inclosure.)—The Hon. H. Clay to the Hon. C. C. Cambreleng, H. R. Department of State, December 25, 1825.

SIR,

I HAVE perused the Letter which you left with me, and which is herewith returned, respecting the construction' put, at Halifax, upon the late British Act of Parliament, opening the Trade and Intercourse between the British American Colonies and Foreign Countries. And I have also examined the Acts of Parliament of the 4th and 5th George the Fourth, referred to in the 5th Section of the abovementioned Act. The result is a belief, that the Halifax construction is not that which was intended by the British Government, or, if it be, that it was designed by an Order in Council to except the Trade and Intercourse with The United States from the operation of the Act, when so interpreted. I should strongly incline to think, but for the opposite view entertained at Halifax, that the Act to regulate the Trade of the British Possessions Abroad, passed in July last, did not intend to disturb, or affect the trade between the British American Colonies and The United States, but meant to leave that trade on the footing which it was put by the aforesaid Act of the 4th George

the Fourth, and the subsequent Act of Indemnity of the 5th George the Fourth.

That the British Government did not look forward to such an operation of the Act of Parliament as is about to be enforced at Halifax, I think clear, from the following considerations:

First. It would be inconsistent with professions made by that Government to this, and with Negotiations between the two Governments, contemplated, if not yet resumed.

Second. No notification has been given at Washington, or at London, of such a purpose as that which, for the first time, is indicated at Halifax.

Third. The British Minister here is unadvised by his Government of any intention to close the Colonial Ports agains our Vessels; and, Fourth. No information has been received here from any British Colonial Port, except Halifax, of such intention.

If the Halifax construction be correct, I am persuaded that the British Government must have intended to have created an exception to our trade, by an Order in Council, which had not arrived at the date of the last Advices from Halifax.

If I am right in that conjecture, the Order may yet reach that Place before, or a few days after, the day fixed (the 5th of January next), for the commencement of the Act. The Hon. C. C. Cambreleng.

I am, &c.

H. CLAY.

No. 6.-Mr. Secretary Canning to Albert Gallatin, Esq.

Foreign Office, January 27, 1827.

THE Undersigned, &c. has the honour to acknowledge the Note addressed to him on the 28th ultimo, by Mr. Gallatin, &c.; in replying to which, the Undersigned will, as far as possible, conform himself to the example of Mr. Gallatin, in putting aside those points of the question in agitation between them, which have been already exhausted in argument, and the further discussion of which would not tend to any practical advantage.

The parts of Mr. Gallatin's last Note, which appear to the Undersigned to require any observation, relate to matters rather of fact than of reasoning.

Mr. Gallatin complains that the Act of Parliament of 1825 was not officially communicated to the Government of The United States.

It is perfectly true that it was not; nor has it been the habit of the two Governments to communicate reciprocally to each other Acts of their respective Legislatures

The Act of Congress of 1823, an Act, the provisions of which specially affected Great Britain, was not officially communicated, either to The King's Minister at Washington, or to His Majesty's Government by the American Minister resident at this Court. So far from any

such communication being made, or any voluntary explanation of the bearing of that Act being offered, it was not till after repeated and pressing enquiries, that His Majesty's Minister at Washington succeeded in obtaining from the American Secretary of State, the true construction of the most important clause of that Act, the clause in which The United States claimed that their Trade to the British West India Colonies should be put on the same footing with the Trade to the same Colonies from "elsewhere;" and learnt, to his great astonishment, that under that word, "elsewhere," was intended to be signified, not only the other dependencies of Great Britain, but the "Mother Country itself."

The Undersigned, at the same time, begs that it may not be supposed that the British Government withheld from the Government of The United States communication of the Act of Parliament of 1825, from any notion of retaliation for the omission of the Government of The United States to communicate to that of His Majesty the Act of Congress of 1823.

He refers to that instance of omission on the part of the American Government only in proof:

First, That the ordinary and natural course between States, is not to make Diplomatick Communications of the Acts of their respective Legislatures; and Secondly, that no inference could be drawn from such an omission on the one side than on the other, of (what the Undersigned disclaims for his Government) an intentional want of courtesy or respect.

But the Act of 1825 did not relate specially to The United States. It held out to all Nations of the world certain benefits, (or what were believed by the British Government to be so) on certain conditions.

If a communication of the Act had been made to one Nation, it must have been made alike to all. Such communication would have been liable to different misinterpretations; some Governments might have considered it as a solicitation to which they were bound in courtesy to give some answer, explaining their reason for declining (if they did decline) to avail themselves of the provisions of the Act: others might perhaps have taken umbrage at it, as an authoritative pretension to impose the Legislation of this Country upon other Nations.

The simplest course was to allow the Provisions of the Act to find their way to general knowledge through the usual channels of Commercial information.

The Undersigned has no reason to apprehend that this course has proved less effectual on the present than on former occasions.

The Conditions of the Act of 1825 have been accepted and carried into effect by some Governments: that of The United States has not thought it expedient to take advantage of them. But the Undersigned cannot but be still of opinion, that the Resolution proposed in

the House of Representatives, at Washington, at the beginning of the last Session of Congress, for the express purpose of urging the Executive Government of The United States to come into the Terms of the Act of 1825, the debates which took place upon that Proposition, and the final rejection of it by a majority of only two Votes, show that it was not for want of a sufficient understanding of the intent of the Act of Parliament, that the Conditions of it were not accepted by The United States.

To one piece of evidence, which proves the perfect understanding in America, not only of the purport and provisions of the Act of Parliament of 1825, but of the conditions which it would be requisite for the American Legislature to perform, in order to entitle The United States to the benefit of that Act, the Undersigned might have scrupled to refer, (as not being of the nature of a Diplomatick Document) if Mr. Gallatin had not encouraged him to bring forward any Document tending to throw light on the matter in dispute, by citing, in support of his own view of that matter, a private Letter from Mr. Clay to a Member of Congress.

Early in the Session of Congress of 1825-26, a Petition from Baltimore was presented to both Houses of the American Legislature, in which Petition it was distinctly pointed out, that the British Act of Parliament of July 1825, had not only manifested the readiness of this Country to remove all discriminating Duties, but also to permit American Ships to clear out from British Colonies, not, as theretofore, to the Ports of The United States only, but to all Parts of the World, (The United Kingdom and its Dependencies alone excepted.)

The Petition, with equal distinctness, invited the attention of the American Legislature to the conditions on which these advantages might be secured to The United States, and prayed for the removal of the several restrictions imposed by the American Act of 1823, not of the "discriminating Duties" only, but of the prohibition, of what is called by Mr. Gallatin," the circuitous Intercourse in British Ships:" the Petitioners expressly submitting to Congress the propriety of admitting British Vessels, from whatever Ports, on the same terms as the Vessels of the most favoured Nations.

It appears from the Reports of the Proceedings of Congress, that it was against the prayer of this Petition (but without impeachment of any of its allegations) that the decision of the American Legislature, at the close of the Session, was taken: it cannot be doubted, therefore, that the American Legislature had the whole purport and bearing of the Act of 1825 full before their eyes.

The fact, that some of the British Authorities Abroad took upon themselves to suspend the execution of the Act of 1825, towards The United States, is undenied.

But the only effect of this suspension was-the continuance of the