should find that such a treaty could be with certainty concluded, full powers were furnished to him and to Commodore Crane, then Commander of the American Squadron in the Mediterranean, jointly or severally for the nego tiation of it; but they were expressly inhibited from assenting to any article, which might be incompatible with the neutrality of the United States. As the success of this business necessarily depended upon its secresy, these commissioners were appointed under the authority of the President, to appoint executive agents, and such portion of the contingent fund as was at the disposal of the President, was set apart to defray the expenses of the mission and of the negotiation. Upon arriving at Constantinople Mr Offley found affairs on so favorable a footing, that he at once commenced negotiations, and in a short time agreed upon the provisions of a commercial treaty. The preliminaries being thus happily adjusted, the treaty would have been at once concluded, had the commissioners been provided with funds to make the customary presents upon the formation of a treaty. Mr Offley was desirous of then concluding it and of assuming the responsibility of drawing upon the state department for the amount of the presents; but Captain Crane, who, as instructed by the President, had joined him at Constantinople, declining that course, the negotiation was suspended, and a communication was made to the American Government, informing it of the situation in which the business was placed.

This communication was received at Washington a few days after the inauguration of General Jackson, who, after obtaining from his predecessor an account of the previous proceedings, determined to continue the negotiation. Commodore Biddle having, in the meantime, taken the place of Crane as commander of the squadron, was also substituted for him as one of the Commissioners, and Mr Rhind, who had been commissioned as Consul of the United States at Odessa, was appointed as a third commissioner to assist in bringing the matter to a conclusion.

The commissioners were authorized to make the presents required, and a treaty was formed between the two governments, the details of which had not been promulgated at the close of the year.

The controversy with Great Britain respecting the trade between the United States and the West Indies was not of recent origin. It was almost coeval with their separation from Great Britain.

Previous to that event an intercourse, subject to but little restraint had existed as between colonies of the same power; and upon the establishment of peace it began to be renewed upon the ancient terms. It was not long, however, before the provisions of the British Navigation Laws were, upon the suggestion of Lord Nelson, then stationed in the West Indies, enforced against American vessels; and the controversy respecting the colonial trade was commenced.

Mr Pitt, upon whom as minister it devolved to bring the matter forward in Parliament, was at first inclined to place the intercourse upon the footing of exact reciprocity. Unfortunately however for both countries, he was prevented from carrying into effect these liberal views, by the publication of a pamphlet of Lord Sheffield, showing the possibility of engrossing the direct carrying trade between the United States and England, by confining the circuitous voyage through the West Indies exclusively to British vessels. British goods destined for the American market could then be transported in British vessels, which, after landing their cargoes, would return by a circuitous route carrying supplies to the islands, and bringing the produce of the West Indies to the ports of the mother country.

This combination of voyages was felt to be a great advantage, and it was determined to secure it to British navigation. American vessels were accordingly excluded from the islands, but the hostilities in which England soon after became involved with France compelled her to relax the rigor of the system in order to secure to her colonies supplies which were indispensable to their existence, and which could not then be obtained except from the United States. The colonial governors accordingly assumed the power of opening from time to time the ports of their respective islands, and though this intercourse was precarious and subject to continual interruptions, it served to keep the islands supplied, and gave to the

navigation of the United States a share in the carrying trade, with which they were satisfied. On this footing the matter rested, until the late war between this country and England put an entire stop to the trade and compelled the islands to depend upon other sources for supplies.

Upon the renewal of friendly relations, the United States found the situation of England materially changed. The world was at peace. Her navigation no longer? with that of the United States, carried on the trade of Europe. The continental kingdoms sought to secure their own commerce to their own tonnage, and a contest commenced between these two great maritime powers for the carrying trade between their respective possessions. Both sagacious, active and alive to their own interests, they endeavored to promote them upon conflicting principles.

England, possessing extensive colonies in remote quarters of the globe, strove to monopolize their commerce, and the principles she acted upon in her navigation system were,, 1st, to secure the carrying trade of the world to her own shipping, and 2d, to distribute such portion of it as did not devolve to her own tonnage among the other maritime powers, so that no one by her single strength might endanger the commercial supremacy of England and question her title to the sovereignty of the seas.

To effect these objects, her celebrated Navigation acts were passed, founded upon the principles of monopoly and exclusion.

The United States, on the contrary, without colonies, but unbur

dened by debt, and enjoying inexhaustible resources, desired only to enter into competition with the maritime powers of Europe upon equal terms. Possibly upon an unequal footing their advantages as a youthful nation might have enabled them to succeed, but their interest obviously pointed to the establishment of a system of equality and reciprocity, and their character as an independent power could not be satisfied with less. With this view they laid a discriminating tonnage duty in favor of American vessels; but offered to place the vessels of other powers upon the same footing as their own upon condition that American vessels were placed upon a like footing in the ports of those powers.

This system, which at the same time proffered reciprocity and retaliation, was successful, and England, upon the termination of the late war, entered into a treaty of commerce and navigation with the United States upon terms of reciprocity. This treaty did not extend to her colonial possessions, and an attempt was now made to render the intercourse with the West Indies subservient to the ancient system of monopoly and exclusion.

The American merchants soon felt the disadvantages to which they were subjected in the direct trade, in consequence of being excluded from the circuitous voyage, and exposed to the competition of vessels on their return to England from the West India Islands,

Strenuous efforts were accordingly made in the principal sea

ports of the United States to call the attention of Congress to this state of things, and they finally succeeded in obtaining the passage of a law (April 15th, 1818), closing the ports of the United States against British vessels, coming from ports, which were shut against American vessels, and compelling British vessels sailing from the United States to give bonds not to land their cargoes in those ports. This law not only put an end to the circuitous voyage, but also tended to impede the supplying the islands with American produce, except those colonies where the vessels of both nations were admitted.

To counteract this, the British Government immediately opened, during pleasure, the ports of Halifax and St Johns to the vessels of friendly powers, for the introduction of articles adapted to the West India market.

It thus expected to secure the greater share of the carrying trade by the indirect route to the West Indies, solely to British vessels.

This revocation, during pleasure, was not deemed by the American Government as a sufficient modification of the navigation acts, and their ports continued to be shut to British vessels, coming from those ports. The distresses of the islands increasing, negotiations were commenced on the part of the British Government, the same year, with the view of arranging the terms of intercourse; but as it insisted upon laying a discriminating duty in favor of produce imported into the West Indies from the northern

colonies, no arrangement was made, as the American Government refused to facilitate the object of its rival, in making those colonies places of deposit for the supply of her islands.

The unsuccessful termination of this negotiation left the United States no alternative but that of relinquishing all share in the intercourse, or to meet the restrictions by countervailing restrictions. They chose the latter; and by the law of May 15th, 1820, all intercourse with the colonies in British vessels was prohibited, and the importation of all colonial produce was limited to a direct importation from the place of its production. This put a stop to the trade in British vessels, and shut the produce of the British West Indies from the American market.

These retaliating measures operated so severely upon the British planters, that after two years of suffering the government at home resolved to make another effort for their relief. A law was ac cordingly introduced into Parliament (act of June 24th, 1822), by which admission was permitted to foreign vessels into certain specified ports in the West Indies, with certain specified articles, the produce of the country where the vessels belonged.

By this act a discriminating duty of ten per cent was laid on foreign produce for the purpose of encouraging the northern colonies, and British vessels had, in addition to the direct intercourse, the advantages of the circuitous voyage, which was only permitted to thein.

The Colonial Legislatures also imposed heavy discriminating duties, giving a decided advantage to British tonnage. In this change in its policy the Government aimed to encourage the trade between the northern colonies and the West Indies, -- to give to her tonnage engaged in the direct trade between the United States and England the advantage growing out of the combination of voyages, and to monopolize the colonial trade by heavy duties imposed upon American vessels by the legislatures of the islands.

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To counteract these objects and at the same time to meet England, so far as the new system savored of liberality, a proclamation was issued by Mr Monroe, 1822, opening the ports of the United States to British vessels from the colonies, but confining the importations from the islands to the produce of the West Indies, and continuing the discriminating tonnage duty of one dollar per ton, which had been imposed as an equivalent to the colonial tonnage duties.

The next Session of Congress a law was passed, March 1st, 1823, confining the British yessels to the direct trade between the United States and the colonies from which they came, in the same manner that the American vessels were confined by the colonial system to the direct trade between the United States and the colony at which they had arrived.

These measures produced an order in Council, July, 1823, imposing a tonnage duty of 4s. 3d.

on American vessels trading with the colonies.

American navigation was thus subjected to a disadvantage, but still the trade flourished; when the British Government deemed it expedient to adopt a new system, permitting the importation into certain ports in the West Indies of the produce of the country to which the vessel, bringing the same, belonged, with the exception of salt provisions, munitions of war, books, whale oil and the productions of the East and West Indies. The exportation of colonial produce was also permitted directly to the country to which the vessel belonged.

The inland importation of all produce into Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was also authorized.

This law, which was passed July 5th, 1825, aimed to make the British islands depots for the supply of South America, and also to procure supplies for the West Indies through the northern colonies. It was altogether inoperative upon European and also upon American powers, except upon the United States, in reference to whose trade it seemed to have been framed, and with the view of terminating the colonial dispute in favor of England. It was, in some respects, a modification of the rigor of the old colonial system; but as it made an invidious distinction between powers possessing and those not possessing colonies, the American Government could not accede to its terms without departing from the commercial policy adopted upon the organization of the Gov

ernment. Under these circumstances it sought to arrange the matter by an agreement; preferring that mode to legislation, which experience had shown to be productive of hostile feelings. A new negotiation was accordingly commenced, which terminated unsuccessfully, but which fully developed the views and principles of the respective parties.

The British Government asserted that any participation in the colonial trade by a foreign power was a boon that the trade was peculiar to itself, and to be regulated solely by the laws of the parties possessing the colonies, and that a counteractive measure, confining British vessels to the direct voyage between the colonies and the United States, was an injury and a deviation from the spirit of the Convention of 1815.

The American Government admitted the right of England to make regulations, opening either in whole or part, the colonial trade; but contended that it was a right not peculiarly applicable to that trade, but one which applied equally to the trade with her European possessions, and that when the trade between the United States and the colonies was to be opened, it belonged to the United States as well as to England to establish the footing on which the intercourse was to be placed.

The principles upon which the exclusion from the colonial trade was justified, were not applicable to an American power. They applied solely to European nations, and were derived not from