The ties of common origin, laws, and language, must always form strong bonds of National Alliance between them. Their respective interests, well understood, harmonize together as much as their feelings. But it has never yet been held a duty of international amity (any more than of friendship in private life) to submit to unequal compacts. Nor has it even been held an offence against such duty that a Nation (any more than an Individual) should decline to make uncompensated sacrifices. Between two Nations, as between two Individuals, most friendly to each other, there may sometimes happen, unfortunately, to exist some known subject of incurable difference of opinion. In any such case it is perhaps most advisable to keep that subject as much as possible out of sight, and to take care that it shall not interfere with the tenour of their general intercourse and of their habitual relations. The refusal to regulate the Trade of our Colonies by a Commercial Treaty, which the British Government may think (even if erroneously) disadvantageous to its interests, cannot give just cause of offence to any Power whatever. In the present instance the Undersigned is most happy to be able to qualify such refusal with the declaration, that it is not in any degree dictated by sentiments, either unfriendly or disrespectful to The United States, or by any indifference to the amicable settlement of all other Questions at present pending between them and Great Britain. Of these Questions, one has been already happily arranged since Mr. Gallatin's arrival in this Country. The Undersigned looks forward with confidence, no less than with anxiety, to such an arrangement of the remainder, as, effacing all traces of past Discussions, and satisfying all fair and reasonable pretensions on both sides, may secure for a long period of Years to come, reciprocal good understanding and good will between two kindred Nations. The Undersigned has the honour, &c. Albert Gallatin, Esq. GEORGE CANNING. DOCUMENTS accompanying the Message of the President of The United States to Congress, at the commencement of the Second Session of the Nineteenth Congress. December 5, 1826. Documents from the Department of State relative to Colonial Trade. 1822 to 1826. LIST OF PAPERS. .Washington, 25th Oct. 1. Mr. S. Canning to Mr. Adams 3. Mr. S. Canning to Mr. Adams .Washington, 18th Dec. Inclosures.-(a) British Consul to Mr. S. Canning 17th do. Consul 1823. 512 9th Dec. 1822. 513 6. Mr. S. Canning to Mr. Adams ....... Washington, 13th Jan. Inclosures.-(a) Collector of Halifax .Washington, 18th Jan. 1823. 514 Remarks on a Bill to regulate the Commercial Intercourse, &c...... 9. Memorandum, communicated by do. to do......... 17th Feb. 11. Mr. Adams to Mr. Rush 12. Mr. Rush to Mr. Adams .... 515 541 543 514 545 Inclosures (a) Protocol of 3d Conference..... (b) do. 16th do. Paper L. British Counter Project..... 23th do. ..... 26th do. Paper W. of the British Plenipotentiaries.... 13. Mr. Addington to Mr. Adams 14. Mr. Adams to Mr. Addington Cheltenham, London, Aug. Sept. 1825. 577 17. Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Secy. Canning 20. Mr. Vaughan to Mr. Clay Inclosure.-Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Sccy Canning.....do.. - 584 473 21. Mr. Clay to Mr. Vaughan 22. Mr. Clay to Mr. Vaughan 23. Mr. Vaughan to Mr. Clay 24. Mr. Clay to Mr. Gallatin SIR, .... (1.)-Mr. S. Canning to Mr. Adams. Washington, October 25, 1822. A LETTER addressed by the Comptroller of The United States' Treasury to the Collectors and other officers of the Customs, for the purpose, in part, of explaining under what modifications the President's Proclamation, by which the Ports of The United States have been declared open to British Vessels arriving from His Majesty's Colonies in North America and the West Indies, is to be understood as going into operation, has lately been pressed upon my notice by several of His Majesty's Consuls. The Letter in question is dated the 14th of last month, and has since been printed in the public journals. On examining its contents I have found that it describes British Vessels, entering the harbours of The United States, in virtue of the above mentioned Proclamation, as liable to a duty of one dollar per ton, for tonnage and light money, and their cargoes as liable to the discriminating duty of ten per cent., which is levied on goods imported in Foreign Vessels not privileged by Treaty. I have also observed, that according to the tenor of the Comptroller's Letter, the Vessels of either Country, trading between the Ports of The United States and such of His Majesty's Colonies as the President's Proclamation enumerates, are restricted, when coming from the West Indies, to the importation of articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture, of the West Indian Colonies, and to the importation of articles, the growth, produce, and manufacture, of the North American Colonies, in the case of such Vessels having cleared out from any of the specified Ports in that quarter. This restriction, and the extraordinary duties imposed upon British Vessels and their cargoes, in pursuance of the Comptroller's Letter, appear to my understanding so much at variance with the spirit and intention of the Act of Parliament by which the newly opened trade is regulated, and to answer indeed so imperfectly to the leading principle set forth in the Act of Congress, on which the President's Proclamation is grounded, that I esteem it an indispensable duty to anticipate the special instructions of my Government, by soliciting your immediate attention to the subject. In the Act of Parliament, passed during the late Session, entitled, "An Act to regulate the trade between His Majesty's Possessions in America and the West Indies, and other places in America and the West Indies," it is expressly declared, as the intention and meaning of the Act, that the privileges thereby granted to Foreign Ships and Vessels shall be confined to the Ships and Vessels of such Countries only as give the like privileges to British Ships and Vessels in their Ports in America and the West Indies. It is essential, therefore, as far as this Country is concerned, to ascertain, in the outset, that British Ship owners are able, under the existing regulations, to engage in the new trade, on a footing of fair competition with the American; and I think it will be no less evident to you, Sir, than it is to me, that such can hardly be the case, so long as British Shipping is rendered liable to a tonnage-duty higher, by 94 cents the ton, than that exacted from American Vessels, and while the merchandise imported into the former is subject to a discriminating duty of ten per cent. Any difference in the charges imposed in the Ports of The United States on the Vessels of the two Countries, navigating, in other respects, under similar circumstances, must necessarily give an undue advantage to the favoured party. The difference, in the present instance, if not counterbalanced by similar discriminating duties in the Colonial Ports, would p.obably have the effect of excluding British Vessels from all participation in this branch of commerce. If Colonial duties of a similar nature, operating to the disadvantage of American Shipping, be already either in existence, or in immediate contemplation, no such fact, and no such intention can, at least, be inferred from the provisions of the Act of Parliament at present in force. The general tenor of the Act may be regarded, on the contrary, as warranting a very different conclusion; and the 11th and 12th enactments, in particular, appear to have been framed with the view of securing to Foreigners a fair and liberal participation in the British Colonial trade, as far as it has been deemed advisable to open it. Such, indeed, is the care with which this object has, to all appearance, been provided for, that the condition of reciprocity, to which I have already adverted, and the power entrusted to the King in Council, of withdrawing the privileges offered by the Act of Parliament, from Countries not giving the like privileges, in return, to British Vessels, would seem to have become indispensable, as strict matter of justice, for the due protection of British navigation. It is difficult to suppose that there can be any want of inclination on the part of the American Government to avail itself of the opening afforded by the above-mentioned Act of Parliament. To whatever degree the Regulations specified in the Treasury circular may have the effect of embarrassing or interrupting the intercourse between this Country and His Majesty's Colonies in the West Indies and North America, the terms of the Act of Congress, eventually authorizing the President to open the Ports of The United States to British Vessels coming from those Colonies, bear evidence that the American Legisla ture, in passing the Act of last Session, had no restrictions in view but such as should appear to have a specific counterpart in the enactments of the British Parliament. With respect to the other regulation, by which the Vessels of either Country, engaged in trading between the Ports of The United States and His Majesty's Colonies in North America and the West Indies, are restricted to the importation of articles, the growth, produce, or manufacture, of the particular description of Colonies from which, in each Voyage, they have cleared out, the Comptroller represents in his Letter as being meant to correspond to the following provision, contained in the third section of the Act of Parliament, namely, that no articles, enumerated in the Schedule, shall be imported in any Foreign Ship or Vessel, unless shipped and brought directly from the Country or Place of which they are the growth, produce, or manufacture. Whatever may have been the intention with which this regulation was framed, it is evidently a mistake to describe it as corresponding to the above mentioned clause in the British Act of Parliament. The fact is, that the range of the American restriction is beyond comparison more extensive than that of the British. A few words will suffice to verify this assertion. To open a Commercial intercourse between The United States and certain of His Majesty's Colonies in North America and the West Indies, is an object common to the Act of Congress, to the Act of Parliament, and to the President's Proclamation. The Act of Parliament, in providing, with respect to this Country, that the Vessels of The United States should be allowed to import into the said Colonies no articles but what are "brought directly from the Country or Place of which they are the growth, produce, or manufacture," establishes no distinction whatever between one part of The United States and another. A Vessel, for example, belonging to Boston, and clearing out for the Colonies from that harbour, would be permitted, I conceive, under the provisions of the Act, to import the tobacco of Virginia and the cotton of Louisiana, no less than any other of the enumerated articles which happen to be the produce or manufacture of that immediate neighbourhood. The American regulation, on the contrary, will not allow a British Vessel, clearing out from Halifax, for instance, or from St. John's, though otherwise duly qualified, to import into The United States the produce or manufacture of the West Indies, nor will it admit of Canadian and other North American produce being imported in a British Vessel when coming from a Port of the West Indies; creating, thereby, a distinction which affects, exclusively, His Majesty's Colonies, constituting, as they do, in this instance, one of the two Parties reciprocally concerned, and which, as a countervailing measure has no real foundation in any provision of the Act of Parliament. |