by me submitted on the 12th December last, and now assented to by Great Britain, are entirely coincident.

I have been thus minute that the precise and uniform object of our negotiation with this Government should not be mistaken; and that the President, clearly and explicitly understanding these, may feel no hesitation, when executing the law, to interpret each particular clause in conformity with the obvious scope and design of the act.

Less difficulty, if possible, than on these points, can exist in regard to the entry of British vessels and their cargoes in the ports of the United States, from the islands, provinces, or colonies, designated in the second section of the act. According to Mr Gallatin's despatch, the intercourse by sea between the United States and the British West Indies and North American colonies, has already been considered as necessarily connected together by the British Government, and that this connexion has been kept up in all the acts of Parliament. It will not, therefore, be now separated. The general terms employed in this section are sufficiently comprehensive to embrace any description of entry; and in his instructions to the several collectors, the President may properly direct an entry similar to that specified in the first section of the bill, and in the spirit of our proposition.

Such, I presume, was the purpose of the law. I have, however, suggested to this Government, in answer to the difficulty felt upon this point, the possibility that these

general terms may have proceeded from an apprehension of the existing discriminating duty of one dollar per ton on American vessels in these northern colonial ports. Should such be the case, it will not escape you that this duty is prescribed by the order of the King in Council in 1823, in retaliation of our law of that year; and that, by the terms of my proposition, it will be now abolished.

If the remaining words of apparent difficulty constitute a provision inconsistent with our proposition and the act of 5th July, 1825, I am obliged to confess myself incapable of comprehending either their object or meaning. I refer, of course, to the following clause: leaving the commercial intercourse of the United States with all other parts of the British dominions or possessions on a footing not less favorable to the United States than it now is.'

Such a provision, or anything resembling it, is now introduced for the first time into our legislation upon this subject. With all other parts of the British dominions, our commercial intercourse is regulated either by the conven tion with Great Britain, or with the exception of the ports in the northern provinces, absolutely prohibited by acts of Parliament. No legislation on either side can effect the stipulations of the convention, and any relaxation of existing prohibitions must be beneficial.

This clause, as it stands, if it be not altogether nugatory and out of place, would seem rather to apprehend some evil, not un

derstood or explained, from advantages to be conferred on our trade by Great Britain. In any view of the subject, however, it can properly relate only to the footing on which our commercial intercourse with other ports will be left at the time of conceding such advantages. Happily, therefore, with whatever object the clause may have been introduced, the President may issue his proclamation with every assurance that the correspondent acts on the part of this Government, will leave the commercial intercourse of the United States with all other parts of the British dominions on a footing not less favorable to the United States than it now is.'

That you may have all the British acts of Parliament relative to this subject before you, and compare without difficulty the various provisions of the act of the 5th July, 1825, for the encouragement of British shipping and navigation, and of that of the same date regulating the trade with the British possessions abroad, I have the honor herewith to forward you 'Hume's Custom Laws,' containing all that may be useful in your researches.

The observations of the Earl of Aberdeen relative to the scale of duties in favor of those interests incidentally fostered by the suspension of the intercourse between the United States and the West Indies, are less unfavorable than, at the date of my despatch of the 6th April, I had reason to apprehend. It was on the ground of this apprehension, principally, that, in my note to Lord Aberdeen of

the 12th July last, I alluded so particularly to the acts of Congress reducing the duty on several articles of West India produce.

Though it may be probable that the schedule of duties adopted contemporaneously with the act of Parliament of the 5th July, 1825, will be hereafter modified, the effect must be more severely felt by the West India planter, already overburthened, than by our merchants; and in this there is a safe guarantee against any excessive alteration. There is good reason to believe, moreover, that such modification, whenever it shall be made, will consist in reducing the duty on some important articles, while it may increase it on others; and that our trade, in the aggregate will not be materially affected. This modification, however, is not a part or condition of the present arrangement, and will therefore depend upon future contingencies, of which each nation will be free to take advantage; and ours, particularly, to resort to countervailing duties, if that course be deemed expedient. On this question, we will always have the West Indian interest on our side; and that, after the concessions heretofore made, is all we can expect. The arrangement now proposed will restore to our vessels the direct trade with the British colonial ports, and place the navigation of both countries in that trade upon an equal footing. We may safely rely upon the skill and enterprise of the American merchants to accomplish the rest.

I need scarcely refer to the period for which this question has

embarrassed the trade of our citizens and the relations of the two countries, nor to the numerous failures which have attended the efforts of our Government to adjust it. But it ought not to be forgotten that, in producing these failures, technical interpretations and misapprehension of legal provisions have had their full share. Sensible of this, I felt it my duty to guard, if possible, against their recurrence; and after the solicitude and perseverance with which I have conducted the negotiation, I could not shun the responsibility of attempting to reconcile the apparent obscurities of the law with the clear and frank object of our Government. I am happy to believe, moreover, that, in the attempt, I am fully sustained by the soundest principles of construction. In any event, I shall feel conscious that, with the sincerest desire to conform to the instructions and sustain the character of the Executive, I have faithfully contributed to succor the enterprise of my fellow-citizens, and to place the foreign relations of the country upon a foundation of lasting har

mony.

I have the honor to be, Sir, very respectfully your obedient servant,

LOUIS MCLANE.

TO THE HON. MARTIN VAN BUren, See'y of State, Washington.

traordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America to this Court, dated the 12th ultimo, communicating certain measures which have been adopted by Congress with a view to remove the obstacles which have hitherto impeded the re-establishment of the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British West India colonies.

Previously to the receipt of this communication, his Majesty's Government had already had under their consideration Mr McLane's note of the 16th March last, explanatory of the proposition contained in his letter of the 12th of December, 1829, with reference to the same subject; and the undersigned assures Mr McLane that his Majesty's Government, in the earnest and dispassionate attention which they bestowed upon this proposition, were actuated by the most friendly feelings towards the Government of the United States, and by a sincere disposition to meet the proposals which he was authorized to make in the spirit with which they were offered.

But the undersigned considers it unnecessary now to enter into any detailed discussion of the points embraced in those previous communications of Mr McLane, because they are in a great measure superseded by the more

McLane.

Foreign Office, Aug. 17, 1830. The undersigned, his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, has the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the note of Mr McLane, Envoy Ex

factory propositions contained in his note of the 12th ultimo; to the contents of which note, therefore, the undersigned will principally confine his present observations.

Of the character and effect of

6

Congress, Mr McLane observes that it concedes in its terms all the power in the regulation of the colonial trade, and authorizes the President to confer on British subjects all those privileges, as well in the circuitous as the direct voyage, which Great Britain has at any time demanded or desired.'

In this declaration the undersigned is happy to observe the same spirit and disposition which dictated Mr McLane's former communications, wherein he announced the readiness and desire of the American Government to comply with the conditions of the act of Parliament of 1825,' and also that the claims advanced in justification of the omission of the United States to embrace the offers of this country, have been abandoned by those who urged them, and have received no sanction from the people of the United States: and the undersigned readily admits, that, if the bill passed by the American Legislature be well calculated practically to fulfil the expressed intentions of its framers, it must have the effect of removing all those grounds of difference between the two Governments, with relation to the trade between the United States and the British colonies, which have been the subject of so much discussion, and which have constituted the main cause of the suspension of the intercourse by those restrictive acts of the United States which the American Government is now prepared to repeal.

The proposition now made by Mr McLane for the revocation of

stands upon a ground materially different from that on which the same question was brought forward in the notes of Mr Gallatin in 1827, and even in the more explanatory overtures of Mr McLane contained in his communications of December, 1829, and March, 1830.

Those several proposals were, all of them, invitations to the British Government to pledge itself, hypothetically, to the revocation of the order in Council, in the event of a repeal of those acts of the American Congress which gave occasion to it. His Majesty's Government declined to give that prospective pledge or assurance, on the grounds stated in Lord Dudley's note of the 1st October, 1827. But the objections then urged are not applicable to the present overture. Provision has now been made by an act of the American Legislature for the re-establishment of the suspended intercourse upon certain terms and conditions; and that act being now before his Majesty's Government, it is for them to decide whether they are prepared to adopt a corresponding measure on the part of Great Britain for that object.

The undersigned is ready to admit that, in spirit and substance, the bill transmitted by Mr McLane is conformable to the view which he takes of it in the expression before quoted from his note of the 12th July; and that it is calculated, therefore, to afford to Great Britain complete satisfaction on the several points which have been heretofore in

dispute between the two countries. He has also received, with much satisfaction, the explanation which Mr McLane has afforded him verbally, in the last conference which the undersigned had the honor of holding with him, upon those passages in which the wording of the bill appears obscure, and in which it seems at least doubtful whether the practical construction of it would fully correspond with the intentions of the American Government, as expressed by Mr McLane. But it is nevertheless necessary, in order to remove all possibility of future misapprehension upon so important a subject, that he should recapitulate the points upon which those doubts have arisen, and distinctly state the sense in which the undersigned considers Mr McLane as concurring with him in the interpretation of them.

The first point in which a question might arise is, in that passage of the bill wherein it is declared, as one of the conditions on which the restrictions now imposed by the United States may be removed, that the vessels of the United States, and their cargoes, on entering the ports of the British possessions, as aforesaid, (viz. in the West Indies, on the continent of America, the Bahama islands, the Caicos, and the Bermuda or Somer islands, (shall not be subject to other or higher duties of tonnage or impost, or charges of any other description, than would be imposed on British vessels, or their cargoes, arriving in the said colonial possessions, from the United States of America.' It is not quite clear whether the concluding words, from the

United States of America,' are meant to apply to the vessels of the United States, and their cargoes, in the first part of the paragraph, as well as to those of Great Britain or her colonies, in the latter part.

It can scarcely, indeed, have been intended that this stipulation should extend to American vessels coming with cargoes from any other places than the United States, because it is well known that, under the navigation laws of Great Britain, no foreign vessel could bring a cargo to any British colonial port from any other country than its own.

The next condition expressed in the act is, 'that the vessels of the United States may import into the said colonial possessions from the United States, any article or articles which could be imported in a British vessel into the said possessions from the United States.'

In this passage, it is not made sufficiently clear that the articles to be imported on equal terms by British or American vessels from the United States, must be the produce of the United States. The undersigned, however, cannot but suppose that such a limitation must have been contemplated, because the clause of the navigation act already adverted to, whereby an American vessel would be precluded from bringing any article not the produce of America to a British colonial port, is not only a subject of universal notoriety, but the same provision is distinctly made in the act of Parliament of 1825, which has been so often referred to in the discussions on this subject.