STATEMENT of the COMMERCE of each STATE and TERRITORY, commencing on the 1st day of October, 1825, and ending on the 30th day of September, 1826.

Fellow-Citizens of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives, The assemblage of the Representatives of our Union in both Houses of Congress at this time, occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of all good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favoured in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country, we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations, we have peace without, and tranquillity within, our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources; and, whatever differences of opinion exist among us, with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of heaven to the improvement of our own condition,

there is yet a spirit animating us all, which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands, to the advancement of the general good.

Of the subjects recommended to the consideration of Congress at their last session, some were then definitively acted upon. 0. thers left unfinished, but partially matured, will recur to your attention, without needing a renewal of notice from me. The pupose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment, and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.

In our intercourse with other nations of the earth, we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding

qualified, however, in several important instances, by collisions

of interest, and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which, the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensible.

By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred cotemporaneously with the commencement of the last Session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power, and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch, from his youth, had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion, and to be sensible that the interests of his own government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal commercial intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the government of the United States, upon the affairs of Southern America, took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbours, of which the example had, by the United States, already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States, have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister re

siding here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances, that the sentiments of the reigning emperor towards the United States, are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother; and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations, which, founded in congenial interests, cannot but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both.

Our relations of Commerce and Navigation with France are, by the operation of the Convention of 24th June, 1822, with that Nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth, as the rule of commercial intercourse, which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States, in the negotiation of that Convention, earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination, so far as it was found attainable, it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from the 1st of October, 1822, when the Con

vention was to go into effect, unless a notice of six months on either side should be given to the other, that the Convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced by one fourth; and that this reduction should be yearly repeated, until all discrimination should cease, while the Convention itself should continue in force. By the effect of this stipulation, three-fourths of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party upon the vessels of the other in its ports, have already been removed; and, on the first of next October, should the Convention be still in force, the remaining fourth will be discontinued. French vessels, laden with French produce, will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own; and ours, in return, will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of France. By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges, not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add, that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellowcitizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains unaltered.

With the Government of the Netherlands, the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had

been regulated by Legislative acts on both sides. The act of Congress of the 20th April, 1818, abolished all discriminating duties of Impost and Tonnage, upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States, upon the assurance given by the Government of the Netherlands, that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States, in that Kingdom, had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years, when the discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form, by a bounty of ten per cent. in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of 7th January, 1824, all discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the United States, in any of the foreign countries referred to therein, the suspension of discriminating duties in favour of the navigation of such foreign country should cease, and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and impost duties in the United States, should revive, and be in full force with regard to that nation.

In the correspondence with the