140 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



We entertain hopes that this measure may result in a new treaty, 

 which will remove most, if not all, of the causes of dissension between 

 us and Great Britain. The satisfaction with which we have observed 

 the avowal of the most liberal commercial principles by Lord Castle- 

 reagh in Parliament has already been noticed in my last letter. The 

 opening, if not of all, at least of a great portion, of the ports of South 

 America to the commerce of the world, which, under every possible 

 course of events, must be now considered as irrevocable ; and the Bill 

 which we perceive was before Parliament for establishing free ports 

 in the British American colonies, all tend to convince us that Great 

 Britain must see that a relaxation from her colonial restrictions has 

 become the unequivocal dictate of her own interest. 



82 No. 30. 1818, July 25: Extract from Letter from Mr. Rush (at 

 London) to the Secretary of State, stating a conversation be- 

 tween himself and Lord Castlereagh. 



****** 



I entered next upon the subject of the commercial relations be- 

 tweens the two countries. Remarking upon the change produced 

 in them by the Prohibitory Act of the last session of Congress, now 

 soon to commence its operation, I observed that I had it in charge to 

 say that the President had yielded his assent to that Act with reluc- 

 tance; for that, however just, its tendencies might be of an irritating 

 nature to the individual interests that it would affect on both sides, 

 whilst it was his constant desire to give efficacy to measures mutually 

 more beneficial and conciliatory. It was, therefore, that I was once 

 more authorised and instructed to propose to this Government the 

 negotiation of a general treaty of commerce. That the President 

 had, besides, agreed that there should be comprehended in the nego- 

 tiation other matters heretofore desired to be treated of by this 

 Government, as well as points in which the Government of the 

 United States took a particular interest; being, in the whole, 1. 

 The question respecting the slaves carried off from the United 

 States, in contravention, as alleged, of the treaty of Ghent. 2. 

 The question of title to the settlement at the month of Columbia 

 River. 3. The question of the northwestern boundary line, from 

 the Lake of the Woods; and 4. That of the fisheries. Upon these 

 topics, the President, I added, preferred treating in a direct way 

 in the first instance, in the hope that the two Governments might 

 arrive at a just understanding, without resorting to commission- 

 ers; and that, if this Government was prepared to go into all 

 of them, including, especially, a general treaty of commerce, an- 

 other plenipotentiary had been contingently appointed on the part 

 of the United States, to meet with me any two that might be desig- 

 nated on the part of Great Britain. 



His Lordship asked what he was to understand by a general treaty 

 of commerce. I replied, a treaty that should lay open, not a tem- 

 porary or precarious, but a permanent intercourse with their West 

 India islands and North American colonies to the shipping of the 

 United States, as often before proposed, but which, after the recent 

 refusals, it might seem almost unnecessary again to bring into view, 



