ports, in American vessels, of molasses, sugar, coffee, cocoa, and cotton. This last condition was thought too hard by the senate of the United States, and the president refused to ratify the twelfth article of the treaty, containing the arrangements respecting the West Indies. The British government had at first reluctantly admitted the subject of the West India trade to become a matter of discussion, and willingly agreed to expunge this provision from the treaty, which was finally ratified by both parties, with the special exception of the article which referred to that branch of commerce. Such was the termination of this attempt to regulate the trade of the Americans with our islands.

Mr. Tazewell says, on this subject,

The trade then remained as it had stood before this negociation had commenced, that is to say, American vessels were still generally excluded the British West India ports, but were occasionally admitted there, in the manner before stated. In this condition the matter remained for many years.

And here let me remark, that although the negociation of the Treaty of 1794 furnished the most conclusive evidence that nothing was to be expected from negociation upon this subject at that time— although the heavy pressure, imposed as well upon Great Britain herself, as upon her colonies, by the war in which she was then engaged, seemed to present a fair opportunity to try the effect of retaliatory measures upon her then tottering interests, and to open another negociation with her, while labouring under the weight of such a new burden -although the condition of the neutral commerce of the United States (which at that time had the monopoly of almost every other market) was so eminently prosperous, that even the total deprivation of the trade with the British West India islands would not then have been sensibly felt by any interest in the United States-yet such was the cautious policy, the sagacious prudence, and the profound wisdom of that great man, President Washington, who, for the happiness and glory of the United States, then presided over their destinies, that it never entered seriously into his imagination to make such an experiment. A vain, reckless, speculative politician, fancying himself to be a statesman, and more solicitous to obtain ephemeral popularity by the exhibition of some specious, glittering scheme, than to rest his hopes of future fame upon the solid basis of his country's real and permanent interest, secured by moderation, and promoted by sagacious prescience, would probably have acted differently. Stimulated by the idle hope of coercing Great Britain to abandon her ancient colonial system, by empty menaces, and useless restrictions upon her trade, such a man might perhaps have been captivated by the spectacle existing in his own disordered imagination only, of elevating the commercial prosperity of one country, by depressing that of another. But fortunately for the United States, Washington was not such a man.

'He had studied, and knew well, the character of the nation with which he had to deal, and had no conceit that loud-sounding threats

or idle prohibitions were either arguments calculated to convince her understanding, or weapons useful to constrain her will.

'He knew also, that such an experiment, from the very nature of the case, must act partially upon a portion of the United States only, the agricultural states; and bear heavily upon them, not for their own ultimate benefit, but for the advantage of the navigating states alone. And that in such a country, and under such a government as that of the United States, these partial impositions upon one portion of the states must necessarily create jealousies, and heart-burnings, difficult to be appeased, and dangerous to the continuance either of the Union or the existing government. Unseduced, therefore, by present appearances, and solicitous only for the permanent prosperity of his country, this truly wise statesman rested satisfied with the position in which the subject was then and had ever been placed since the peace of 1783. He recommended no new restrictions, but was content that the United States should derive quietly all the benefits of the colonial trade which, under any circumstances, they could derive, without risking much of some of the great interests of our society, under the hope of gaining but a little for others.'

The treaty had been limited to a duration of twelve years which expired in 1807-when a negociation for the renewal of it was commenced by Mr. Monroe and Mr. Pinkney. An agreement was then entered into, by which the intercourse between the United States and our colonies was referred to future negociation, the British ministers having, throughout the whole intercourse, steadily, but courteously, declined to make this trade a subject of negociation. This treaty was however rejected by the President Jefferson. In his instructions to the American envoys, he had especially directed that an article upon the subject of impressment should be a sine quá non of any arrangement, and the American communicated this circumstance to the British negociators before signing the treaty.

Such was the fate of the second attempt at negociation. Soon after this failure, but not, perhaps, solely actuated by this disappointment, the American government laid an embargo on all their own vessels, and this was followed up by a law forbidding all intercourse between the United States and both Great Britain and France. Mr. Tazewell remarks, that this system necessarily effected a suspension of the trade with the West Indies; and adds that

'The consequences of this suspension will long be remembered here. They taught lessons, which, while recollected, it was to have been expected would have produced caution in again resorting to similar measures; and which probably would have produced such an effect, but for causes hereafter to be disclosed. They demonstrated to Great Britain, that her American colonies were not so dependent upon the United States as had before that time been supposed; and so produced a language, on her part, such as she had not before held.-Their

severe pressure demoralized our own citizens, by tempting them to evade a system, under whose heavy burden they found it difficult to exist, and so rendered the habitual violation of law no longer universally odious. They shook this temple of our Union to its very foundation; and, most probably, would have tumbled it into ruin, had they continued much longer. They forced the premature birth of that system of manufactures, whose sickly existence afterwards required and received the undue encouragement which must destroy the foreign commerce, and has already nearly ruined the agricultural interest of a large portion of these once happy and contented states. They impoverished a flourishing revenue; and were the ultimate causes of an enormous public debt, the unequal distribution of which acts like the suction of a leech applied to the muscles of labour, to extract its blood and strength, in order to gorge the voracious and not-to-be-satisfied appetite of bloated capital. But even to hint at all the mischiefs that resulted from the short-sighted and wretched policy which dictated the restrictive system of 1809 would require a volume.'-pp. 26, 27.

The embargo was followed by the short war between the two countries, which lasted from June 1812 till December 1814. It is not to our purpose to dwell on the causes of that war; it may, however, be remarked, that the addition of a Transatlantic enemy to the European powers already combined against us, though somewhat vexatious, was of trifling consequence to Great Britain, when compared with the evils which America drew on herself even by that short contest. The financial and commercial dis tress of the short period during which the war lasted, and the sufferings caused by the re-action when peace was concluded, would read a beneficial lesson, if collective bodies and democratic societies could be taught wisdom by experience.

As the treaty of Ghent was merely one of pacification, and contained no stipulations in regard to the commercial intercourse between the two nations, the American commissioners proceeded from that city to London. Mr. Tazewell describes this negociation in the following words :

In the course of the negociation, they proffered to the British ministers the liberal principle of the recent Act of 1815, as the basis of the proposed treaty; and offered that the vessels of either nation should be received into all the ports of the other upon the same terms with its own. The British negociators acceded to this proposition, so far as it might apply to the European possessions of Great Britain, but refused to admit it, as applicable to her other dependencies. In relation to these, they declined entering into any discussion whatever as to the trade of the American colonies of Great Britain, and would only agree to renew some of the provisions of the treaty of 1794, in reference to the trade of her East Indian possessions. Thus narrowing and restricting still further the privileges formerly conceded to us in this respect. And as the principle adopted as the basis of the pro

posed

posed treaty, so far as it applied even to the European possessions of Great Britain, was a new one, the operation and effect of which upon either party was of course but an experiment, it was mutually agreed that this proposed treaty should continue for four years only.

'Such a treaty was concluded on the 3d day of July, 1815; was ratified on the 22d day of December, 1815; and carried into effect by an act of congress passed on the 1st day of March, 1816. Thus terminated the third effort of the United States to arrange the subject of the colonial trade by negociation.'-pp. 34, 35.

The defence of the conduct of Great Britain, in the course of this negociation, is most accurately stated in the words of Mr. Tazewell. 'The reasons which induced Great Britain to decline admitting the subject of the colonial trade as a matter of discussion with the United States in the negociation of 1815, upon the basis proposed for that negociation, have been already suggested. Liberal and equitable as the proposition seems to be in its terms, yet its practical effect necessarily must have been to exclude the vessels and many of the productions of Great Britain from her own ports, and to grant a monopoly of her West India trade to the United States.-This effect would have been the result of natural causes, to be found in the proximity of the two countries, in the necessities of the West India demands, and in the character of American supplies. Enjoying such physical advantages in the trade, any principle of nominal equality must have ope rated unequally in favour of the United States; and the situation of the two parties would never have been so dissimilar, as an agreement upon terms of abstract equality would have made it. Great Britain, therefore, never can accept such a proposition, but must always endeavour to obviate, by artificial benefits to herself, the natural advantages the United States possess in this intercourse.

'Her refusal to include, in the Treaty of 1815, any provision upon the subject of her American colonial trade, left this trade in the same situation it had before occupied in the time of Washington, after the rejection by the United States of the 12th article of the Treaty of 1794; and in the time of Jefferson, after the rejection by him of the Treaty of 1807. President Madison, imitating the example of both these his illustrious predecessors, abstained from recommending any prohibition of this trade, and suffered it to remain as it had always been. He saw very clearly, as they had done, that, to the producers of the articles required for this trade-that is to say, to the agriculturists and manufacturers of the United States, it made not the least difference, whether the products of their labour were transported in one yessel or another. In either case their profits would be the same. He saw also, as these his predecessors had done, that to those employed in exchanging these productions of ours for the products of the labour of any other country--that is to say, to the merchants of the United States, it made not the least difference, whether their exchanges were effected by the employment of one vessel or another. In either case their profit would be the same, whether they chartered a Danish, Eng

lish, or American vessel. And that to all the other classes of our society, save only to that employed in transporting the products to be exchanged—that is to say, the navigating class or ship owners, it made no kind of difference whatever by whom the transportation was effected. 'To deprive all the other classes of society, however, of the benefits of a trade they then enjoyed, merely because the navigating class could not participate in these benefits, also seemed to him a course of policy unjust in itself, and little calculated to restore harmony to the discordant parts of the United States, which had already manifested some estrangement to each other in consequence of the effects of the restrictive system, and of the war. There existed, moreover, no wellfounded expectation, that the infliction of this certain injury upon all would produce any ultimate beneficial effect to any, or that, by the prostration of agriculture and commerce, navigation could be protected against the inconvenience it then suffered. Menaces or pro

hibitions might possibly make the matter worse, but would not probably make it better.-Formerly, when pressed by a dreadful war, Great Britain had refused to concede any thing which, while she was belligerent and they neutral, the United States could accept; and, recently, when peace existed, she had declined to accept a proposition of apparent equality and reciprocity which the United States had offered. Nay, in accepting this proposition as applicable to her European possessions only, the acceptance was limited in its duration to four years. Was it to be expected, then, that the menaces or prohibitions of peace would act upon her more strongly than the actual privations and dangers of war had done? or that now, when seven years of non-intercourse had proved the independence of her West India colonies of the United States, she would concede more favourable terms than she had been willing before to grant ?'-p. 35-37.

In 1816 some subjects, not adjusted by the treaty of Ghent, required to be arranged, and the occasion was embraced by America to propose a negociation respecting the Colonial trade. Madison, then president, instructed Mr. Adams, then minister in London, but now President of the United States, to enter on the subject. The advances of the American minister were at first received with coldness on the part of Lord Castlereagh, but in consequence of a note, dated the 17th of September, in which Mr. Adams said, 'It is not asked that Great Britain should renounce the right of prohibiting the importation into her colonies from the United States of whatever articles she may see fit,' Lord Castlereagh wrote to Mr. Adams on the 28th, stating the reasons which prevented him from paying immediate attention to the subject, and assuring him that he should bring the various objects referred to under the early deliberation of the British cabinet. Mr. Adams, without waiting for the result of these deliberations, which he had been assured should be devoted to the objects he had himself suggested, within one week, on the 5th of October, wrote to his government, that there was no reason to expect a departure from

the