that will be transmitted to you, will mainly delineate every material occurrence. From these may be learned all the formal proposals that have been made on the one side or on the other; but the grounds of them, the discussions by which they were sustained or opposed, together with various explanations which the written memorials of the negotiation, wearing for the most part the character of abstracts only, do not indicate, these it becomes my duty to make you also acquainted with, in every essential particular. It must be my purpose to fulfil this duty in the course of the present despatch.

It was my first intention to have made my report to you in the shape of separate communications, allotting a distinct one to each subject, that I might be able to follow, in this respect, the example of your instructions to me. But, after the discussions were opened, it was often found impracticable to keep the subjects distinct. More than one subject, or branches of more than one, would sometimes engage our conferences on the same day, superinducing the necessity of mixing them up in one and the same protocol. For this reason, and because, also, the British Plenipotentiaries, in some instances, established a connexion between subjects where, as I thought, none regularly had place, and so treated them in our records in the manner I shall have occasion to describe; it has appeared to me most conducive to good order to present the whole under one view. If this unity in my report should not appear at first sight to be suggested

by a view of the diversity, as well as number of its subjects, it has seemed to me, upon the whole, to adapt itself best to the course which the negotiation actually took, both in the oral discussions, and in the entries upon the protocols; and that it will become most intelligible, whether in its incidents or its general spirit, when exhibited as a whole. In the hope that this mode of making up my report may meet your approbation, I proceed, without more of introduction, to its proper business.

1. After the slave trade question had been disposed of, the subject upon which we next entered was that of the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British Colonial ports in the West Indies and North America. Copious as this subject was found to be, when examined in all its details, its mere discussion, I mean the strictly commercial parts, was perhaps attended with less difIt had been familiar to the past and ficulty than that of some others.

even recent discussions of the two Governments; so much so, that, upon almost every point connected with it, opinions had been formerly expressed by both. When, at an early stage, the British Plenipotentiaries said that after the opening of this trade to the vessels of the United States, by the act of Parliament of the 24th June, 1822, it had not been expected, by Great Britain, that our foreign tonnage duty and additional impost would

have been continued to be levied

upon their vessels, I naturally replied that, to whatever other observations the policy of the United States might be open in this respect, it could scarcely be said to have been unexpected, as, upon at

least two occasions, since I had been their organ at this Court, they had expressly declined acceding by compact to the very terms in regard to this trade, that were afterwards moulded into the act of Parliament. Your instructions being precise and full upon this head, I caused them to be well understood. I recapitulated the history of the negotiations that led to the Convention of the 20th October, 1818, in all those parts of it which had relation to the question of commercial intercourse. I presented the review of all the legislative acts or other measures affecting this intercourse, as well prior as subsequent to that Convention. On the side of Great Britain, the act of Parliament of July, 1812, the draft of the four articles submitted by Lord Castlereagh, in 1817, the act of Parliament of May, 1818, and the Order of Council which followed it on the 27th of the same month. On the side of the United States, the act of Congress of the 3d of March 1815, (the legislative basis of their system of reciprocity,) the two acts, original and supplementary, of April the 18th, 1818, and May 15th, 1820, concerning navigation; the act of May the 6th, 1822, with the President's proclamation of the 24th of August, founded upon that act to all these I referred, in connexion, also, with the second negotiation of June and September, 1819, when the proposals again made by the United States for regulating this intercourse by treaty, were again rejected by Great Britain. The deduction I maintained from the whole was, that the United States, with uniform consistency and steadiness, pursued a course in regard to this

trade, which aimed at putting it upon a footing of entire reciprocity; that they asked nothing more, but, in justice to their citizens, could be satisfied with nothing less.

To work out this reciprocity seemed, however, not to be an easy task, I remarked, on the side of Great Britain, whatever might be her desire. Her commercial system was of long standing, and from its great extent, often, in no slight degree, complicated and intricate. It was marked not only by a diversity in its operations upon her home and colonial empire, but by subdivided diversities in its application to her Colonies. In some of her West India Islands, for example, there were export duties; in others, none. Some had port charges, and various other local charges, operating upon vessels or their cargoes, not recognized in others; but, what was more important than all, her ancient navigation acts still remained substantially in force, mingling their fetters with all her modern legislation upon the same subject. Her commercial and navigating system, whatever other recommendations it might possess in her eyes, had been rendered by time and her past policy deficient in the uniformity and simplicity calculated to place it, in these respects at least, upon a par with the commercial and navigating system of the United States. This broad distinction between the two countries was always necessary to be kept in mind, I said, in their commercial dealings, whatever explanation or excuse it might furnish to Great Britain for continuing the pursuit of a course which still moved, in many points, in subordination to her ancient policy, it afforded to the United States neither mo

tive nor justification for giving up their claim to the principle of an absolute and perfect equality, in all their regulations of trade with Great Britain.

This brought me to the true nature of the act of Parliament of the 24th June, 1822. I explained to the British Plenipotentiaries, that this statute had not, whatever might have been its intention, opened the ports of the British colonies in the West Indies and America, to the vessels of the United States, upon the same terms as were enjoyed 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 merchandise, 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 observed, 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 four or five per cent. upon the

value of this return cargo. This burden did not fall equally upon British vessels, as 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 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, consider ing 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 proclamation nor the permanent laws of the Union imposed burdens upon British vessels and their cargoes, which were the specific counterparts of those imposed by the act of Parliament, of the 24th of June, 1822, upon American vessels, they were, nevertheless, the necessary counterparts of the burdens which did, in point of fact, exist as against American 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 first 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 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

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 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 ten per cent. on our articles imported into the West Indies, and of four or five per cent.on those that we brought away, our laws did nothing more than retain a foreign tonnage duty, of less than a dollar per ton on British vessels, and of ten 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 seventeenth of July, 1823, laying a duty of four shillings and three 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.

If

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. 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 prinples 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 two articles (marked A,) annexed to the protocol of the third conference. The first of these articles, after