the operation of the bill recently brought before the House, is but too certain. The principal supplies from the United States to the British West Indies, consists of shingles, staves, headings, wood, hoops, white, yellow, and pitch pine, lumber, and wheat, and wheaten flour. While, by the present bill, the duty on all of those articles, especially flour, is considerably augmented when imported into the southern colonies; by the direct intercourse, their importations into the north ern colonies is admitted free of duty, and from thence into the southern colonies upon the same terms. At the same time, also, that it augments the duty on flour in the direct trade, it authorizes that article to be warehoused in the free ports, without payment of duty, for exportation to the southern colonies. It moreover confines the right of warehousing to the northern ports only, whereas, by the act of 1825, that right was extended equally to the ports in the northern and southern colonies. It is plain, therefore, that, in this respect, at least, it can have no other object than to raise up an indirect trade through these northern ports.

From these facts, it is obvious that this bill does not aim to protect, by moderate, or even high duties, British productions, or to give a preference to the supply from British possessions of their own produce over that from other countries; on the contrary, it clearly concedes the necessity of the foreign supplies. but provides the means of receiving them through an indirect, rather than a direct

trade. While the arrangement, therefore, proposes to restore the advantages of the direct intercourse, the bill, by a premium on the one hand, and a prohibitory duty on the other, renders the direct intercourse nominal merely, and forces the foreign supply through the same indirect channels from which both Governments had designed to extricate it.

In lieu of the positive interdict by the order in council now revoked, there will be substituted by this bill a system of discriminating duties, equally effectual in depriving the American navigation of the transportation of American produce, and equally oppressive to the West India consumer, on whom must eventually fall the burthen of the additional duties, and the expense of the circuitous importation thus established and perpetuated. It may not be necessary for the undersigned to inquire whether the amount of duty be adequate to the effect thus apprehended, since that inquiry cannot, in his opinion, be material. If inadequate, it must operate as a most unnecessary burthen upon the West India consumer, and ought, for that reason, to be avoided. It must be obvious, however, that the discriminating duty of fifty per cent, which is, in most instances, provided by this bill, is more than sufficient to cover the expense and charges, even for a double unlading, warehousing, and relading, whereby it not merely deprives the West India planter of all the benefit intended for him by the act of 1825, but effectually supersedes the direct intercourse.

However this may be, if it be allowable for Great Britain, by such means, to counteract at will the fair advantages of the direct trade, the insufficiency of the present measure may soon be remedied by still higher duties, and the direct intercourse thereby entirely destroyed. It is, therefore, the mode, rather than the amount, of this discriminating impost, to which the objection applies.

That such an interference with the direct intercourse could not be permitted, consistently with the provisions of the act of 1825, the undersigned considers too clear for argument. The provisions both of that act, and of the schedule attached to it, prevented indirect trade; and it could not have been authorized until their regulations had been repealed, or their spirit entirely changed. As long as Great Britain thought proper to leave the direct trade open, or saw any prospect of inviting the participation of other countries in such intercourse, she neither contemplated nor desired any such change; and it would appear to the undersigned equally clear, that she ought not now to make the change to the detriment of a nation to whom she had formerly agreed to yield the advantages of that act.

The undersigned is, nevertheless, aware that the act of 7th George IV, passed the 26th May, 1826, but which was to take effect from and after the 5th July, 1825, authorized the article of flour, only, to be warehoused in the warehousing ports in the British possession, in North America,

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and to be thence exported to the southern colonies, subject to a duty of one shilling per barrel. This, however, was no modification of the schedule,' but a repeal, pro tanto, of the act of July, 1825; and was done, not for any regulation of the direct intercourse, which was soon to be prohibited, but in contemplation of the in order in council, which must have been already determined upon. Notwithstanding that the operation of the act of 7th George IV, was to commence on the 5th July, 1826, and the British order in council, issued on the 27th of the same month, the former was, in fact, but the corollary, or consequence of the latter. It was distinctly avowed by the late Mr Canning, in his correspondence with Mr Gallatin, that, in point of fact, the United States had enjoyed the benefit of the act of 1825 by the unauthorized acts of the British authorities abroad, twelve months longer than they should have done, and that the British Government permitted the continuance mainly in consideration of certain proceedings in the Legislature of the United States;' and he also affirmed that immediately after the session of the Congress of the United States, which terminated on the 9th May, 1826, Mr Vaughan was instructed to announce the intention of his Majesty's Government to pass the order in council of July, 1826.'

It would appear from this, not merely that Great Britain had determined previously to the passing of the act of 7th George IV, to issue the order in council of

July, 1826, but that, in fact, by the provisions of the act of the 5th July, 1825, itself, the direct intercourse had been legally terminated. It was, doubtless, foreseen that, upon such termination of the direct intercourse, the American supplies, suited to the wants of the British West Indies, would seek that market, either through the foreign islands with which the trade was open by the act of 1825, or by the way of the British northern possessions.

The act of the 7th George IV, was, therefore, plainly intended, by the facilities then afforded, to secure the preference, in such indirect trade, at the northern ports; and that these facilities should be contemporaneous with the opening of the trade, it naturally preceded, in point of time, the order in council establishing such indirect intercourse. That such an act would not have been passed but in contemplation of this state of things, must be clear, since, upon any other supposition, it would have deterred the United States from a compliance with the conditions demanded by "Great Britain herself, or would have rewarded their compliance with the loss of the only advan'tage for which it was yielded.

The limitation of the privilege of warehousing, by the act of 7th George IV, to the article of flour merely, does, of itself, show that it was intended to apply, as in fact it did, exclusively, to the produce of the United States in the indirect trade, and in no respect to the direct intercourse enjoyed by other powers who had acceded to the terms of the act of 5th July, 1825.

This section of the act of 7th George IV, therefore, was designed merely to make provision for that state of commercial hostility about to be resumed between the two nations, and to force the supply of American flour to the West Indies through the northern possessions, but under circumstances that would necessarily burthen the West Indian with the expenses of a circuitous route. It was not to change a system of direct intercourse, if that could have been established and engaged in by other nations, and by the United States, particularly, upon equal terms, but to procure the most advantageous regulations for the northern colonies in a system of indirect trade which was then considered unavoidable.

In this view, therefore, when, by the arrangement recently concluded by the undersigned, a state of commercial amity and reciprocity is to take the place of former conflicting relations, and the restoration of the direct intercourse to be effected, it becomes necessary, for the full attainment of those ends, that the provisions of the act of 7th George IV, should fall with the system to which it was appropriated. The object of the order in council of 27th July, 1826, and of the act of 7th George IV, were identical. They operated to produce the same state of embarrassment, and, any agreement to repeal the one, ought necessarily to involve the repeal of the other. The disadvantages of the indirect inintercourse, as regulated by the act of the 7th George IV, by which the produce of the United States, necessary to the supply of

the West India Islands, was forced through the northern provinces to the injury of the United States and of the planter, make no less a part of complaint than the order in council; and the object of the negotiation, on the part of the United States, has uniformly been to obviate the evils of both, and to recover the advantages of the trade as regulated by the act of 1825.

The proposition submitted by the undersigned, and his predecessor subsequently to the act of 1825, asked for the advantages of that act, not as amended with a view to an indirect intercourse, but as it originally stood for the regulation of the direct inter

course.

It should always be borne in mind, that, in the indirect trade, as regulated by the act of 7th Geo. IV, and by the laws of the United States then in force, American vessels enjoyed the exclusive carrying of American produce to the foreign islands, and to the northern provinces, in which British vessels could not participate. The uniform object of Great Britain has been to remove the alien duties, and discriminating countervailing regulations of the United States, so that the vessels of both countries might participate equally in the direct intercourse; and the United States agreed to allow such participation in that carrying trade, if they should therefore receive, as an equivalent, the advantages of the act of 1825. Now, by the execution of this arrangement on the part of the United States, Great Britain is in the enjoyment

of the privileges she demanded, while, by the bill as reported, the United States will be deprived of the only consideration for which she conceded them.

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If, independently of the reservation in the letter of the Earl of Aberdeen, the act George IV, would not authorize the present bill, it is believed that it can derive no aid from that source. That reservation, without having the slightest allusion, is wholly inapplicable to the act of 7th Geo. IV, and relates, exclusively, to the modification of duties in the schedule attached to the act of 1825.' The late President of the Board of Trade, in his remarks introducing the bill to the House, makes no reference to the act of 7th George IV, but professes merely to amend the before mentioned schedule. That schedule' neither authorized the system of free warehousing, unknown to the act to which it was the appendage, nor professed to do more than accomplish and follow out, in detail, the expressed objects of that act. It may be insisted without the fear of contradiction, that the act of 1825, neither gave, nor affected to give, any preference to the northern over the southern colonies, or the slightest advantage to the transportation of American produce coastwise, from one colony to the other, that it did not enjoy in the direct intercourse; and the schedule' could not, without ▾ some positive enactment, have done so.

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It is true that, early in the history of the contests between the two countries in relation to this

trade, the United States demanded that the produce of the British colonies, carried coastwise should pay the same duties as American produce in the direct transportation; but that pretension, which for some time was an obstacle in the way of an adjustment, was afterwards abandoned, and has never since been insisted upon. It is also true, and it is not less important to the history than to the correct understanding of this subject, that Great Britain in 1818, attempted, partially, to renew the trade which had remained suspended since the war of 1813. An act of Parliament was passed on the 8th of May, of that year, opening the ports of Halifax and St Johns to the vessels of the United States, for the importation of certain enumerated articles suited to the West Indies. By this act, and the order in council issued immediately thereupon, Great Britain proposed to counteract the previous legislation of the United States, and to lead to some relaxation of the trade. But it was suspected that she thereby intended, also, to force the supplies for the West Indies through those places of deposite. Being looked upon as invidious, therefore, these acts were not submitted to by the United States, and the system of restriction and retaliation was continued, with serious injury to both nations.

In the act of Parliament, however, of the 24th June, 1832, proposing to obviate all past difficulties, the right and expediency of imposing a higher discriminating duty on United States' produce, when taken direct, than when

carried from one colony to the other, was positively given up and prohibited; and therefore, although that act imposed a duty on American produce for the protection of British productions of similar kind, it nevertheless imposed the same duty on the former, whether taken directly to the West Indies, or circuitously through the northern ports. From that period, a contrary pretension, if it had ever seriously been maintained, was entirely relinquished, and was even more effectually disclaimed by the subsequent act of 5th July, 1825. By the policy fairly avowed in these acts, Great Britain insisted only on the following rights:

1st. To impose discriminating duties in favor of British produce.

2d. To limit the right of trading in vessels and produce of the United States to the direct intercourse from the United States to and from the colonies, and from the colonies to the ports in Europe, other than those of the United Kingdom.

3d. The right of British vessels to participate in the direct trade, and also in the circuitous trade through the colonies to and from European ports, including the ports of the United Kingdom.

After the passing of these acts, these, and the existing alien duties of the respective countries, comprehended all the points of difference; and, being mutually conceded and adjusted by the arrangement concluded, could not be revived without a violation of the only basis upon which the arrangement can be reasonably placed.