foreign nation than the United States had any trade with the British colonies, there should have been no complaints in regard to the terms of intercourse permitted by the British Government, put forward by other foreign nations. Where there is no commerce, in fact, there can be no cause of objection as to the abstract conditions on which it is proposed. Besides, most of the commercial nations of Europe are, at the same time, colonial powers; and it may be quite as convenient to them as to Great Britain, to assume the right to prescribe, exclusively, the terms on which the intercourse between their colonies and foreign States shall be allowed. We have seen, too, in the act of 1825, more favourable conditions offered by Great Britain to the colonial powers than to other nations. It would have been very remarkable if any of those powers had refused to accept such conditions. But the fact of acceptance implies the right of deliberation, and the consequent power of rejection.

So far as Mr. Canning places the right to trade between the United States and the British colonies, in British vessels alone, on the ground of usage, neither the principle nor the fact can be admitted to be with him. As to the first, a nation may find its interests in tolerating, even for a long time, a trade which is prosecuted on unequal or unjust terms. It may not be its policy to foster its navigation. It may find compensation in some branch of its foreign trade with other nations. But, from whatever cause it may choose to submit to the injustice,

no length of time can so far sanction it, as to confer a right on the power which puts forth unequal regulations, to insist upon their uninterrupted continuance: and it indisputably belongs to the party suffering under such injustice, to put an end to the unequal state of things whenever he thinks proper. As to the fact of this alleged usage, neither power can fairly go back to any period beyond the 4th of July, 1776. The usage on which Mr. Canning rests the British monopoly of the colonial trade, as it existed anterior to that epoch, would tend as much to sustain our side of the argument as the British. But, as Great Britain then gave law to the thirteen colonies, afterwards forming the United States, as well as to the British West India colonies, no argument can be rightfully drawn from the state of the usage prior to that period. During the war which succeeded, all commerce between the United States and the West India colonies was interrupted. Peace was restored on the 30th day of November, 1782. Now, if the usage contended for had existed, without disturbance from that day down to 1818, the duration of time would have hardly been sufficient, in the affairs of nations, to create any right by prescription.

But how stands the fact? From the date of the peace, up to that of the formation, in 1789, of the present Constitution of the United States, the history of the two countries presents frequent struggles on the subject of this very colonial trade. Several of the States sought, by their own separate legislation, to secure for

themselves a participation in it. The powers of the Old Congress, under the Articles of Confederation, were incompetent to the adoption and enforcement of a system of regulations for the trade, which should countervail those of Great Britain; and this incompetency was one of the most operative inducements which led to the establishment of our present Constitution. From that time down to the close of the European war, the trade had been generally open to the navigation of the United States, by repeated acts of British authority. Since the establishment of our present Constitution, further, since the peace of 1782, the trade has been open to us a longer period of time than it has been shut; and, if the right were to be decided by the mere fact of the greater duration of the usage, one way or other, the right would be with us.

Mr. Canning states these relaxations did nothing more than permit British vessels to bring certain articles into the colonial ports directly from the place of their production, instead of circuitously through the United Kingdom; and that it was a mere municipal concern, which did not vary the exclusive character of the colonial system. But they did something more. Whilst the supplies from the colonies, and their exports, were drawn through the mother country, the commerce of that mother country being open to the United States, their navigation could fairly participate in the trade. But when British vessels were allowed a direct trade between the colonies and the United States, to the exclusion of American shipping, it put an end to the circuit

ous trade; and the navigation of the United States, if they submitted to the British monopoly of this direct trade, would be deprived of their fair proportion of the transportation of the subjects of colonial commerce, which they would have enjoyed through the parent country.

Whatever may be the abstract rights of Great Britain and the United States, in respect to the regulation of an intercourse between the British West India colonies and the United States, Great Britain did, in fact, consent to negotiate on that subject. She might have taken, and adhered to, the ground that she would not treat but she did not. By consenting to treat, and by inviting the American Government to renew the negotiation, as late as March, 1826, more than eight months after the date of the act of Parliament, in July, 1825, we were forbidden to anticipate that without any sort of intimation, the door of negotiation was to be suddenly closed. If we had no right to assume "that there would be, at all times, an unabated disposition, on the part of the British Government, to make the trade of the West India Colonies the subject of diplomatic arrangement," it must be admitted that our surprise was quite natural that you, who were sent to England, among other reasons, in consequence of that very intimation in March, should, upon your arrival there in the succeeding July, and before the presentation of your credentials, be unexpectedly met by the annunciation of a measure arresting, at the threshold, all negotiation on the colonial trade.

When two nations undertake to

arrange a matter of common interest between them in a given mode, if one of them, not only without, but in opposition to, notice to the other, should itself proceed, exclusively, to regulate, by a different and less friendly mode, that interest, it cannot be denied that there is just ground of complaint. Undoubtedly it is within the competence of a nation to refuse, after agreeing to negotiate, or to break a negotiation in any stage of its progress, without ascertaining the practicability of an amicable adjustment; but this is not according to prevailing usage among friendly states.

We must think that the frankness of friendly correspondence required of the British Government to communicate the change of its resolution as to the manner of regulating the colonial trade, and at the same time an official communication of the act of Parliament of July, 1825. Had such communications been made, the American Government would have been prepared to consider, during the succeeding session of Congress, the conditions offered in that act. And, upon receiving from the British Government those explanations which the ambiguity of the act rendered necessary, Congress could have passed an act which might have proved satisfactory to both parties. By the forbearance to make.those communications, we remained in entire ignorance of the altered purposes of the British Goverument, and in full confidence that it was their desire, as it was our expectation, to arrange the intercourse by convention.

Although, as is alleged by Mr. Canning, it is not the habit of the

two Governments reciprocally to communicate to each other all the acts of their respective Legislatures, when a particular act is passed which is intended to put aside a negotiation contemplated by both parties, there is an evident fitness, if not obligation, in point of frankness, to communicate it; and there is believed to be no example in which, under such circumstances, any Government has failed to communicate its act.

But if it has not been the practice of the two Governments to interchange the whole body of their respective statutes, it has been usual, at least on the part of this Government, to communicate those which are the objects of negotiation. Repeated instances of such communications of acts of Congress imposing commercial restrictions, occurred during the late European war; and the convention of 1815, with Great Britain, was made in pursuance of an act of Congress, which was officially communicated to the British Government.

So far from being accurate is the statement that the act of Congress of March, 1823, was not communicated to the British Minister at Washington, that the bill during its progress in Congress, and in the form in which it passed, was communicated to him by the Secretary of State, and it became the topic of official conference and correspondence while and of official correspondence between them, in less than a month after its enactment.

on its

passage,

We do not mean now to allege that the omission to communicate the British act, was an intentional

discourtesy towards the American Government; but we do mean to aver that that omission, and the neglect to inform us that the act was to supersede all negotiation, combined with the explicit invitation of Mr. Vaughan to renew the negotiation, given as late as March, 1826, had the effect of misleading us in regard to the views of the British Government. It was to this end only that reference was made in your instructions of the 11th of November last, to the letter which had been addressed from the Department of State to a Member of Congress. That letter, which was never private, acquired, by being published in the gazettes of the day, and a copy of it having been, at the time, furnished to Mr. Vaughan, and transmitted by him to his Government, a public, if not diplomatic character, which fairly entitled it to be cited as evidencing the known views taken at Washington of the British act. The opinion expressed in that letter, that negotiation, and not legislation, was the instrument, in the contempla tion of both Governments, by which they intended to regulate the colonial intercourse, was subsequently confirmed by the forbearance of the British Government to enforce the act of Parliament towards the United States. And yet, that very forbearance, which had the effect of deceiving us, though certainly not so intended, is now brought forward as a reason for declining to treat, and for closing the colonial ports. It is alleged, by Mr. Canning, to have been in consideration of the pendency of the proposition before Congress, for conforming to the conditions of the act of 1825.

If that had been stated at the time, we should not have been deceived.

Although that act did not relate specially to the United States, but addressed itself to all the foreign powers, the United States were the only power with which Great Britain was negotiating on its subject matter. And, as it now appears that it was intended to be à substitute for the negotiation, it is difficult to resist a conviction of the obvious propriety of its being communicated to the American Government, even admitting such a communication to have been unnecessary to other Powers.

Whilst the Government of the United States must ever insist that, so long as there is an intercourse between them and the British colonies, they have a clear right to participate in the regulation of that intercourse, their attachment to any specific mode of regulation has never been so strong as to exclude the accomplishment of that object in any other mode. They have preferred that it should be effected by convention; because, in that way, it would be more certain, binding, and durable, and, moreover, conformable to what they had just reason to suppose were the wishes of the British Government. Had they been apprized that it was the choice of that Government to regulate the trade by mutual acts of separate legislation, they could have had no difficulty in adapting their measures, in that respect, to those of the British Government.

Mr. Canning states: "that the act of 1825, offered like terms to all nations who were willing to purchase the right to trade with the colonies. Some have acceded The United States

to the terms.

would not. They cannot feel it unkind or unjust that, having, upon a free and (as is known from the public proceedings of their Legislature) deliberate consideration, declined to subscribe to the terms on which exception from colonial prohibition was impartially tendered to all nations, they should find themselves, in common with such of those nations as have decided like themselves, liable to that exclusion which is, and always has been, the general principle of colonial trade."

No exception need now be taken to the regularity of a foreign Government in referring to the proceedings of the Legislature of another nation, which have terminated in no affirmative act, although the practice of a foreign Government looking any where but to the established organ of international intercourse for the acts and resolutions of Government, might have a most mischievous tendency.

Independent of all other considerations, the danger is, if a foreign Government undertakes to enter the halls of domestic Legislation, in order to comprehend the votes and resolutions on measures which have not been matured into the form of any legislative act, that such foreign Government may misconceive the motives and bearing of those votes and resolutions. Native citizens often find it difficult clearly to comprehend all the causes, in numerous assemblies, which may have occasioned the failure or passage of any given measure, or to assign, with certainty, the specific reason which may have led to either of those results.

We are quite sure that Mr. Canning had no wish to misconceive the proceedings which took place in Congress, in the session of 1825-26, in relation to the colonial question; and yet he has greatly misconceived them. He is even mistaken as to the branch of Congress in which those proceedings were had. There was no resolution proposed in the House of Representatives, and, consequently, no debate and decision upon it, such as he describes. For the purpose of correcting the errors into which he has been unintentionally drawn, I will now take some notice of those proceedings.

It is perfectly true, that, although the British Government made no official communication of the act of Parliament of July, 1825, the American Government, nevertheless, obtained possession of a copy of it.

It is also true, that such a petition from Baltimore, as Mr. Canning describes, was presented to Congress.

But it should be remarked, that the petitioners were uninformed of the negotiations of 1824, or of the correspondence which subsequently passed between the two Governments on the colonial subject.

And it is not, therefore, improbable, that, if they had been aware that the American Government expected and were desirous to arrange the intercourse by treaty, they would have abstained from petitioning Congress.

The petition was referred, in both Houses, to the regular Committees. That of the House of Representatives made no report. The Senate's Committee report