by British Vessels. The privileges granted by it to Vessels of The United States were, that they might carry directly, but in no other way, from some Port of The United States to certain specified Colonial Ports, certain specified articles of merchandize, whilst very high duties were to be paid on all such of those articles, as could alone be the subjects of a profitable Trade. British Vessels, on the other hand, possessed the additional and exclusive privilege of carrying the same articles to the same Colonial Ports, directly or indirectly, and free from all duty whatever, when carried from a British Colony in North America, to a British Colony in the West Indies. Moreover, I ob served, the Vessels of The United States, admitted only as above to the Colonial Ports, were obliged, supposing they contained a Cargo, to return directly to The United States, and to give bond, under a heavy Penalty, for landing it at the Port for which it was entered, with the additional burden, not imposed by the Act of Parliament, but existing in fact, of paying a Colonial export duty of 4 or 5 per cent, upon the value of this return Cargo. This burden did not fall equally upon British Vessels, as they might avoid it by going, which they were free to do, to any Port of the British Dominions, either in Europe or America, a range not allowed to the Vessels of The United States. Nor were the British Vessels required to give any export bond for landing the articles at the Port for which entered, and producing within twelve months a Certificate of this fact, a condition which was also attached to American Vessels. It was evident, I insisted, from the foregoing recapitulation, that Vessels of The United States had not the same privilege under this Act of Parliament with British Vessels, and that the former were, also, subject to restrictions, imposed by the Act, or otherwise existing, from which the latter were exempt.

I reminded the British Plenipotentiaries, however, that no sooner had the knowledge of this Act of Parliament reached The United States, than the President, exercising, without the least delay, the authority with which by anticipation he had been invested, issued his Proclamation, of the 24th of August, 1822, opening the Ports of The United States, generally, to British Vessels coming from any of the Ports enumerated in the British Act, an exercise of authority in a high degree liberal, considering the relative state of the Statutes of the two Countries then in force, for the regulation of this trade. In other respects, the Proclamation of the President had done nothing more, I said, than lay British Vessels, coming from the Colonies to The United States, under the same restrictions in regard to their cargoes, to which Vessels of The United States were subject, when going to the Colonies. This, in necessary justice to The United States, it was obliged to do, and, by the permanent Laws of the Union, British Vessels continued liable to the charge of Foreign tonnage and impost duties. I explained to the British Plenipotentiaries that, if neither the Proclama

tion nor the permanent Laws of the Union imposed burdens upon British Vessels and their cargoes, which were the specifick counterparts of those imposed by the Act of Parliament, of the 24th June, 1822, upon American Vessels, they were, nevertheless, the necessary counterparts of the burdens which did, in point of fact, exist as against Ame. rican Vessels. To their owners it mattered not whence these burdens originated, so long as they continued to press unequally in the competition of American with British Vessels. It was to complete the intention of meeting these burdens, upon a basis of reciprocity at all points, that the Act of Congress of the 1st of March, 1823, was finally, and on full deliberation, passed. Its express object I described to be, to countervail all restrictions of whatever kind they might be, in actual operation against Vessels of The United States, whether enacted by the Act of the 24th June, 1822, in force under the old Navigation Act of Charles the Second, or recognized and permitted by Colonial Ordinances or Local Regulations, in any of the British Ports that had been opened. As this Act of Congress could not effectuate its just object, by applying to British Vessels restrictions, which were of the precise and corresponding nature with those operating against the Vessels of The United States, it adopted, I said, such as were analogous to them, without, however, in any instance, going beyond the measure of a necessary retaliation, but rather keeping within, than exceeding this limit. The Act of Parliament had, it was true, proceeded upon the hypothesis of extending like privileges to American as to British Vessels; but, here it had stopped, without imposing upon the latter the same restrictions which had previously existed against the former. The Act of Congress went further, and, in according the like privileges with the British Act, imposed also restrictions equivalent to those that were really and injuriously in force, against the Vessels of The United States.

It was in this manner, that I fully opened to the British Plenipotentiaries the principles and views of my Government, in relation to this interest. If I am not more minute in recounting all that I said, it is merely because I abstain from swelling this Communication, by a repetition of the principles, the facts, and the arguments, contained in your Despatch to me, of the 23d of June, 1823. With the various matter of this Despatch, I had made myself familiar, by frequent perusals of it, and it was alike my duty and my endeavour, to exhibit it all to the British Plenipotentiaries. in the most perspicuous and impressive ways in my power. I went on to remark, that it seemed plain, notwithstanding our countervailing restrictions, that we were still left at a disadvantage in the competition; for that, for an enumerated list of Ports open to our Vessels, only part of which too had been opened by the Act of Parliament of the 24th June, 1822, we had opened all of our Ports, in return, to British Vessels. For an enumerated list of articles,

which we were alone allowed to export to the Colonies, we received, in return, all articles which the Colonies found it most to their interest to send to us; and, for a duty of 10 per cent. on our articles imported into the West Indies, and of 4 or 5 per cent. on those that we brought away, our Laws did nothing more than retain a foreign tonnage duty, of less than 1 dollar per ton on British Vessels, and of 10 per cent. on the duty otherwise chargeable on the articles brought to The United States in them. It was even doubtful, I said, whether, under these circumstances, our Vessels would be able to continue the trade, and it was perhaps quite as much so, whether the double system of restrictions upon which it stood, would not deprive it of all value to both Countries. I used, under this branch of the subject, all the topics of illustration with which your Despatch had supplied me.

The British Order in Council of the 21st of July, 1823, laying a duty of 4 shillings and 3 pence sterling per ton on our vessels going to the Colonial Ports, to countervail, as Mr. Secretary Canning informed me in October last, our Foreign tonnage duty, having been subsequent in date to your Instructions to me, no remarks upon it were, consequently, embraced in them. But I considered the duty imposed by this Order open to the same animadversions as all the other burdens falling upon our Vessels. If we had grounds for complaint before this measure, they were but increased by it. If we were deprived of the opportunity of fair competition in the absence of this new duty, its imposition could not but augment the inequality. If we were carrying on the trade under every prospect of disadvantage without it, a more positive and certain loss to us must be the result if it were continued. Hence, I did not scruple to say to the British Plenipotentiaries, that it must be considered as giving additional force to all our other objections to their regulations. I had not, I admitted, and from the cause stated, received your instructions upon the subject of it; but, as our Foreign tonnage duty and the additional impost had been kept up against British Vessels, in necessary self-defence against all the anterior restrictions upon our Vessels and duties upon their cargoes, I took it for granted that this new British duty, if not abrogated, would, on the same principles and from the same necessity, be met by some measure of counteraction on our side. In offering such comments as these upon it, I trust that they will be thought conformable to the true nature and objects of your Instructions, though not in words pointed out by them.

In the end I offered, for the entire and satisfactory regulation of this trade, a Draft of the 2 Articles (marked A,) annexed to the Protocol of the 3d Conference. The 1st of these Articles, after reciting the restrictions upon the trade that existed on each side, and the desire and intention that prevailed of removing them, goes on to provide, that, upon the Vessels of The United States admitted by Law into the Colonial Ports, and upon the merchandize imported in them,

no other duties, or charges of any kind, should be levied than upon British Vessels, including all Vessels of the Colonies themselves, or upon the like merchandize imported into the Colonial Ports from any other Port or Place, including Great Britain and the Colonial Ports themselves. And, reciprocally, that upon the Vessels of Great Britain, admitted by Law into the Ports of The United States, and upon the mer chandize imported in them, no other duties or charges of any kind should be levied than upon Vessels of The United States, including Vessels of each and every one of the States, or upon the like merchandize imported into The United States from any other Port or Place whatever. The words last underscored were inserted only for the greater satisfaction of the British Plenipotentiaries, it being explained by me, and so understood by them, that it could carry no new meaning; there being no such thing under our system with Foreign Nations, as a Vessel of any one of the States distinct from a Vessel of The United States. It followed that the passage would have had the same meaning without these words. The 2d Article provided, in fulfilment of the intentions of the 1st, that the trade should continue upon the footing on which it had been placed by the Laws of the two Countries, with the exception of the removal by Great Britain of the duties specified in Schedule C, of the Act of Parliament of the 24th of June, 1822, and those specified in the Schedule B, of the Act of the 5th of August of the same Year, and of the removal, by The United States, of the Foreign tonnage duty and additional impost, complained of by Great Britain. The Article concluded with a mutual pledge for the removal of all discriminating duties on either side, of whatever kind they might be, from the desire which operated with the Parties, of placing the trade in all respects upon a footing of perfect equality. Such was the nature of my proposals, for the more exact terms of which I beg to refer to the Paper which contains them.

The British Plenipotentiaries made immediate, and the most decided, objections to the part of these proposals which went to the aboli tion of the duties in the 2 Schedules indicated. They declared that under no circumstances could they accede to such a principle; and they proceeded to assail it under every form. The fundamental error of their reasoning, as always heretofore upon the same point, appeared to me to lie in considering their Colonial Possessions as part of the entire British Dominion at one time, yet treating them as separate Countries at another. For her own purposes, Britain could look upon these Colonies as on one and the same Country with herself. For the purposes of trade with Foreign States, she felt herself at liberty to consider them as detached from herself and forming a new and distinct Country, as moving, in short, within a commercial orbit wholly of their It was to this that her rule, resolved into its true principles, came at last. However such a rule might be met, and its application

own.

admitted, as between Foreign States mutually possessing Colonies, and therefore mutually able, in their commercial intercourse with each other, to act upon it, its application was manifestly unequal and incongruous towards The United States. Possessing no Colonies themselves, The United States neither legislated nor acted upon a principle of subdividing their Empire for any purpose of Commercial advantage, or, above all, monopoly, with other Nations, but held out indiscriminately to all, one integral and undivided system. In strict justice, it would, hence, not be unreasonable in them to expect that all Nations, with which they entered into commercial stipulations, should look upon their Colonies, if they had any, only in the light of an extension of the Territories and jurisdiction of the parent State, since this was, in effect, the aspect which The United States presented throughout the whole extent of their Territories and jurisdiction to all Foreign Nations. The productions of Massachusetts, for example, which entered into the articles of international traffick, were, as compared with those of Louisiana, scarcely less different in their nature than were those of Britain from those of Jamaica; yet one commercial code spread itself over the whole of The United States; of which Foreign Nations, and Britain amongst them, had the benefit, whilst different commercial codes, and entangling commercial practices under them, were seen to exist on the part of Britain. This resulted from the mere fact, important it might be to Britain, but indifferent to The United States, of these codes and these practices being applicable to the Government of different portions of the British Empire; some of which fell under the denomination of her Home Dominion, and some of her Colonial Dominion.

It was to no effective purpose, however, that I enlarged upon, and endeavoured to enforce, by placing in other lights the foregoing distinctions. The British Plenipotentiaries continued to combat my positions, and to insist upon their right to lay whatever duties they deemed expedient upon our productions going to their Islands, in protection of the like articles exported to them from any part of their own Dominion. They said that they would never part with this right, for which we offered them no equivalent concession. They likened our request for its surrender by an analogy, the force of which I could never see, to a request on the side of Great Britain, should she prefer such a request, to be admitted into a participation of our coasting trade. They alleged also, that, in laying these duties, they had aimed only at making them a necessary protection to their own subjects in their North American Colonies; and that they were scarcely up to this point, was shown by the fact which they also alleged, of their subjects in those Colonies not having yet been able since the trade was opened, to obtain a proportionate share of it.

I had, more than once, occasion to remark, that it was not the right