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I HAD flattered myself with the hope of receiving, before this time, a decisive Answer from His Majesty's Government to the Propositions which I had the honour to make, some time since, for an arrangement of the Trade between the United States and the British American Colonies; but while I regret the delay that has taken place, I am aware that it has hitherto been unavoidable. In the hope, however, that, after the various conversations which I have had the honour to hold with His Majesty's Ministers in the course of this Negotiation, they may be prepared, definitively, to dispose of the subject, I beg leave to make your Lordship the present Communication. In entering upon the Negotiation, I separated this from the other objects of my Mission, and presented it, singly, before His Majesty's Ministers, that it might receive their early consideration, and prompt decision; and that I might thereby the better promote the views and wishes of iny Government. I early informed your Lordship of the anxious desire of the President of the United States that this question may be put, immediately and entirely, at rest. In this he is influenced, not merely by a wish to liberate and give activity to such portion of the capital of his Fellow-citizens as may be awaiting the decision of this question, but also by the higher motive of speedily terminating a state of things daily becoming more prejudicial to the friendly relations of the two Countries.

Disclaiming, on the part of the United States, in reply to certain observations of your Lordship, all hostility to this Country, in their system of Protecting Duties, and disconnecting that system from any arrangement of this particular question, I endeavoured to lay this subject before His Majesty's Ministers, divested of all considerations but such as peculiarly relate to this. branch of the Commerce between the two Nations.

Conceiving that experience had already proved the existing Colonial Regulations to be injurious to the interests of both Countries, the President was induced to hope, that true policy alone would dispose His Majesty's Government to change them. He could perceive no good reason why Great Britain should now refuse her assent to the terms of arrangement which she herself had, heretofore, voluntarily proposed; and, as the Order in Council of July, 1826, did not embrace Russia and Sweden, though both were within the

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scope of the Act of 1825, and as it had been subsequently rescinded as to Spain, without equivalent, he was unwilling to suppose that any unfriendly motive could induce a peculiar and permanent exclusion of the United States from participation in a Trade thus conceded to the rest of the World.

In fact, it appeared that a material alteration had taken place in the Colonial System, and in the relations between the two Countries; produced by the recent relaxation of the Order in Council in favour of Spain, which left the United States the sole excluded Power; and by the injurious operation of the existing Regulations upon the interests of Great Britain. It was not unreasonable, therefore, to suppose, that the Negotiation might be advantageously resumed; that the British Government might be induced to rescind, entirely, their Order in Council of 1826, and that a satisfactory arrangement might immediately be made by the reciprocal Acts of both Governments.

In the course of my Negotiation, however, I have met with difficulties much greater than had been anticipated. There were objections opposed to any arrangement. Among them were the Measures of the United States, restricting the British Colonial Commerce, subsequently to their failure, to accept the terms offered by the Act of Parliament of 1825; and the Claims to protection urged by those interests, which are supposed to have grown up in faith of the Act of 1825, and the Order in Council of 1826. Indeed, I distinctly understood that these were insuperable obstacles to any relaxation in the Colonial System of Great Britain, unless some previous change should be made in the legislation of the United States.

With this understanding, though I by no means admitted the force of these objections, I deemed it expedient, in this state of the Negotiation, to make the following Proposition:

That the Government of the United States should now comply with the conditions of the Act of Parliament of July 5th, 1825, by an express Law, opening their Ports for the admission of British Vessels, and by allowing their entry, with the same kind of British Colonial produce as may be imported in American Vessels, the Vessels of both Countries paying the same charges; suspending the Alien Duties on British Vessels and Cargoes; and abolishing the restrictions in the Act of Congress of 1823, to the direct Intercourse between the United States and the British Colonies; and that such a Law should be immediately followed by a revocation of the British Order in Council of the 27th July, 1826; the abolition or suspension of all Discriminating Duties on American Vessels in the British Colonial Ports; and the enjoyment, by the United States, of the advantages of the Act of Parliament of the 5th July 1825.

By this offer on the part of my Government, I hoped to remove even the pretence of complaint against its Measures; and I trusted that, in thus throwing open, by its own act, to all of His Majesty's Subjects, a Trade at present enjoyed by but a few, it would effectually silence those partial interests, which, springing out of a system of restriction, and depending as much upon the countervailing Laws of the United States, as upon the Regulations of their own Government, subsist entirely upon the misfortunes of the British West India Planters, and the embarrassments of the general Commercial capital and enterprize of both Nations.

In repeating the Proposition, as I now have the honour to do, and in renewing my solicitations, that it may be taken into early and candid consideration, and produce a prompt and favourable reply, I refrain from leading to further discussion and delay, by a more detailed reference to the various suggestions by which, in the course of the Negotiation, I have had the honour to recommend it.

Entertaining, however, the conviction I have heretofore expressed, of the wasting effects of the present Regulations upon the substantial interests of the two Countries, I cannot close this Letter, without again remarking, that delay can only tend to encrease the difficulties, on both sides, to any future adjustment; and that it will be difficult for the United States to reconcile the marked and invidious relation in which they are now placed, with their idea of justice, or with the amicable professions of this Government. That relation,

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involves consequences reaching far beyond the immediate subject in discussion, and of infinitely greater importance to the future Intercourse of both Countries, than any value which the Trade, affected by these Regulations, may be supposed to possess. It is this view of the subject which unites the sympathy of all interests in the United States with their Commercial enterprize, which touches the pride and sensibility of every class of their population, and which, I trust, will make its due appeal to the candour and liberality of His Majesty's Government.

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I HAVE had the honour to receive your Letter of the 12th Instant, formally recording the desire entertained by the Government of the United States, (and previously declared by you in Verbal Conferences) for the removal of the existing Restrictions on the Intercourse between the British West India Colonies and the United States; with the view of placing the Commerce of the two Countries on a footing more consonant with the substantial interests of both Nations, and with the amicable Relations which happily subsist between them.

I shall lose no time in bringing the Proposition contained in your Letter, under the consideration of His Majesty's Government.

Whatever may be the result of their deliberations on this question, of which you are already apprized of some of the difficulties, you may be assured that His Majesty's Government will enter into the consideration of it with the most friendly feelings towards the Government of the United States.

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9, Chandos Street, Portland Place, March 16th, 1830. THE Undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America, in calling the attention of the Earl of Aberdeen, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, to a Proposition which he had the honour to submit in writing on the 12th of December last, for an arrangement of the Trade between the United States and the British American Colonies, and in praying for a decision thereupon, is influenced, not merely by considerations of duty, urging him to avoid further delay, but, by a hope, that the time already afforded for deliberation, has been sufficient to enable His Majesty's Ministers to judge of the reasonableness of his demands. The Earl of Aberdeen is already aware that, whatever may be the disposition which is Majesty's Government may now be pleased to make of this subject, it must necessarily be final, and indicative of the policy to which it will be necessary, in future, to adapt the Commercial Relations of each. Country. As the Regulations on the part of the United States, which will follow the decision of this Government, can be adopted by the Congress alone, it becomes the duty of the Undersigned to ascertain and transmit such decision during the present Session of that Legislative Body. But, while the Under

signed again solicits the earliest convenient Answer to his Proposition, he cannot but repeat, that it will be happy for both Countries, if their measures shall coincide in cultivating those liberal principles of mutual accommodation, which are the elements of common prosperity and united strength.

However the fact may be regretted and condemned by enlightened Statesmen, it cannot be concealed, that ancient prejudices and unworthy animosities do still linger among the People of both Countries; and the Earl of Aberdeen has been too distinguished an observer of events, not to perceive the operation of those causes, in fostering a spirit of commercial jealousy, especially in relation to the Colonial Trade.

It should be the desire, as it is the interest, of both Governments, to extinguish these causes of mutual bitterness; to correct the errors which may have interrupted the harmony of their past intercourse; to discard from their Commercial Regulations measures of hostile monopoly, and to adopt instead a generous system of frank and amicable competition.

There has never occurred in the History of the two Countries, a fairer opportunity than the present to effect this desirable object, and the Undersigned feels pleasure in remarking the favourable disposition professed by both Governments on the subject. He begs to suggest, however, that this period of amicable expressions, deserves also to be signalized by acts of mutual concession, which may remain to the People of both Countries as earnests of those liberal relations, which the Governments have resolved to cultivate. Such would be embraced in the Proposition, which the Undersigned has already had the honour to submit; namely, that the United States should do now, that which they might have done in 1825,-rescind the Measures which may be alleged to have contributed to the present evil, and repeal the Laws which have been matters of complaint, and that England should assent, now, to a measure which, but a few Years since, she herself proposed.

The Undersigned is unwilling to pass from this topick without reassuring the Earl of Aberdeen, that it is from considerations of this kind that the subject derives its highest importance in the view of his Government. There is no disposition to deny the injurious effects of the existing Regulations upon the commercial and navigating enterprize of the People of the United States; associated, as it evidently is, with the substantial prosperity of the British West India Colonies; much of the injury, however, and especially that arising from the temporary inactivity of a portion of American Capital, might soon be remedied by Acts of the Legislature, opening new channels for commercial enterprize. But the evil most to he apprehended is, that in recurring, on both sides, to the remedy of Legislative Enactments, a spirit of competition might be immediately awakened, which, however dispassionately it might commence, would be too apt, in a little while, to become angry and retaliating. In cases of the kind, as has been too well proved, one step necessarily leads to another, each tending more and more to estrange the two Nations, and to produce mutual injuries, deeply to be deplored when they can no longer be remedied.

It is far from the intention of the Undersigned to intimate, that the United States could be disposed to complain of any Commercial Regulation of Great Britain, which, by a system of reasonable preference, should consult the interests of her own Subjects; provided it were done in a spirit of amity and impartiality, and that it should place all Nations on an equal footing. But, when the United States shall think they have grounds to consider themselves singled out from all other Nations, and made the exclusive object of an injurious Regulation; when they shall imagine it levelled at their prosperity alone, either in retaliation of past deeds, or for interested purposes, to secure some adventitious advantage, or to encourage a hostile competition by means of Commercial monópoly; however justifiable, in such case, they may admit the Regulation to be, in point of strict right, they will hardly be able to refrain, not merely from complaint, but from a course of Measures, calculated, as they may think, to avert the intended injury; though pregnant, perhaps, with consequences to be ultimately lamented.

While the Undersigned would in no degree impair the full force of these

considerations, he would, at the same time, be distinctly understood, as not employing the language of menace. He has conducted his whole Negotiation with an unfeigned and anxious desire to see the relations of the two Countries placed on a footing equally advantageous and honourable to both, as the only means of insuring lasting amity; but, being profoundly sensible of the causes by which this desirable object may be defeated, he has framed his Proposition in such a manner as to enable His Majesty's Ministers to co-operate in his views, without departing from the principles of their system of Colonial Trade and Government.

To this effect the Proposition, which he has had the honour to submit, concedes to Great Britain the right of regulating the Trade with her Colonies according to her own interests; and asks no exemption from the Discriminating Duties which she has instituted in favour of her own Possessions. It invites a participation in a direct, rather than a circuitous, Trade, upon terms which Great Britain deliberately adopted in 1825, as beneficial to her Colonies; and which she continues, to the present day, to allow to all the rest of the World. A rejection of it, therefore, would appear to result, not from any condemnation of the direct Trade, or any conviction of the impolicy of permitting it, with the West India Colonics; but rather from a determination of excluding from it the Commerce of the United States alone.

It is not the intention of the Undersigned, to undertake here the difficult task of minutely recapitulating on paper the various suggestions, by which, in the course of his Conferences with His Majesty's Ministers, he has endeavoured to enforce an Arrangement on the terms heretofore stated. He. trusts, however, to be excused if, in making this last application for an earlydecision, he should recur to a few of the more leading considerations, connected with the present state of the Negotiation.

And here the Undersigned begs to observe, that, whatever hope he may have indulged on this subject, at any period of the Negotiation, it has been founded, not so much upon the expectation of peculiar favour to the United States, as of a liberal compliance, by His Majesty's Government, with its own Regulations, in allowing the United States to participate in a Trade, permitted to all the rest of the World, so far as their participation should contribute to the purposes for which such Trade was, in any manner, authorized.

The Arrangement, therefore, proposed by the Undersigned, does not urge upon the British Government a departure from what may be considered its ordinary Colonial Regulations, for the benefit of the United States; but a recurrence to a course of Trade, beneficial alike to the Commerce of the United States, and the Colonial Interests of Great Britain; and which has been interrupted by causes not foreseen by the latter, and highly disadvantageous to both Nations.

It was the hope of the Undersigned that, if the interests of that portion of the British Dominions, which, in the 6th Year of His present Majesty's Reign, dictated the Regulations proposed by the Act of Parliament of that Year, could be subserved by their adoption now, Great Britain would not be prevented, by any causes, accidentally or improvidently arising, or by any exclusive policy towards the United States, from renewing now the offer she

then made.

The Undersigned is not disposed to deny, that any departure from the rigid policy, by which the Colonies are excluded from all Commercial Intercourse, except with the Mother Country, must be founded on the interests of the Colonies themselves; and it will be, doubtless, conceded, that such was the object of the Regulations proposed by the Act of Parliament of 1825, which were intended to furnish the British West India Islands with a more extensive Market for their productions, and with the means of supplying themselves, on the cheapest terms, with all articles of foreign produce, of which they might stand in need.

The Act of 1825 was, in fact, a relaxation of the previous policy; affording to the West India Colonies advantages of trade which they had not previously enjoyed, and offering the benefit of their Commerce to all the World. It will scarcely be denied that this relaxation was dictated by a wise regard for the peculiar wants of those Islands. Abundant proof of this may

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