STATISTICAL VIEW of the COMMERCE of the UNITED STATES, exhibiting the value of Imports from, and the value of Exports to, each Foreign Country; also, the Tonnage of American and Foreign vessels, arriving from and departing to each Foreign Country, and the Tonnage belonging to each Foreign Power, employed in the Commerce of the United States, during the year ending on the 30th day of September, 1826. Ireland Cape of Good Hope British West Indies Newfoundland and British Fisheries British North American Colonies Other British Colonies The Hanse Towns and ports of Germany French European ports on the Atlantic French European ports on the Mediterranean French West Indies STATEMENT of the COMMERCE of each STATE and TERRITORY, commencing on the 1st day of October, 1825, and ending on the 30th day of September, 1826. [1] PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. I.-DOMESTIC. Message of the President of the United States to the Nineteenth Congress.-Second Session. Fellow-Citizens of the Senate, and of the House of Representatives, The assemblage of the Representatives of our Union in both Houses of Congress at this time, occurs under circumstances calling for the renewed homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of all good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favoured in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country, we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations, we have peace without, and tranquillity within, our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources; and, whatever differences of opinion exist among us, with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all, which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands, to the advancement of the general good. Of the subjects recommended to the consideration of Congress at their last session, some were then definitively acted upon. 0. thers left unfinished, but partially matured, will recur to your attention, without needing a renewal of notice from me. The pupose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment, and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the Legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted. In our intercourse with other nations of the earth, we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding qualified, however, in several important instances, by collisions of interest, and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which, the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensible. By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred cotemporaneously with the commencement of the last Session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power, and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch, from his youth, had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion, and to be sensible that the interests of his own government would best be promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal commercial intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the goverument of the United States, upon the affairs of Southern America, took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognizing the independence of our southern neighbours, of which the example had, by the United States, already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications be tween his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States, have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister re siding here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances, that the sentiments of the reigning emperor towards the United States, are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother; and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations, which, founded in congenial interests, cannot but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both. Our relations of Commerce and Navigation with France are, by the operation of the Convention of 24th June, 1822, with that Nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth, as the rule of commercial intercourse, which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States, in the negotiation of that Convention, earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination, so far as it was found attainable, it was agreed that at the expiration of two years from the 1st of October, 1822, when the Con |