144 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



of the United States has been, that their system has been long estab- 

 lished. Lord Castlereagh has invariably acknowledged his own 

 doubts whether it was wise, or really advantageous to Great Britain, 

 but placed the determination to preserve it upon the single ground 

 of its having long existed. Whatever weight there is in this reason- 

 ing, it would bear in favour of all those other exclusions which he 

 congratulated Parliament and the country at having been abolished, 

 as much as in support of this. It is the argument of all existing 

 abuse against reformation of mere fact against reason and justice. 

 The commercial intercourse between the United States and the West 

 Indies is founded upon mutual wants and upon mutual convenience; 

 upon their relative geographical position; upon the nature of their 

 respective productions; upon the necessities of the climate; and upon 

 the convulsions of nature. When the British Ministry say, against 

 all this our ancestors established a system, and therefore we must 

 maintain it ; we may reply, if your ancestors established a system in 

 defiance of the laws of nature, it is your interest and your duty to 

 abolish it. But who can overlook or be blind to the changes of cir- 

 cumstances since the establishment of the system; to the irresistible 

 consequences of the establishment and growth of the United States as 

 an independent Power; to the expulsion of the French from St. 

 Domingo; to the revolution in progress in the South American prov- 

 inces? Every system established upon a condition of things essen- 

 tially transient and temporary must be accommodated to the changes 

 produced by time. 



Besides the Free Port Act, a printed copy of which has now been 

 received from Mr. Rush, and which, we find, is limited to ports 

 specially to be appointed by the Crown, in the Provinces of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, we have seen in the public journals a 

 Bill for permitting a certain trade between the British West Indies 

 and any colony or possession in the West Indies, or on the continent 

 of America, under^ the dominion <?/ any foreign European Sovereign 

 or State. This measure appears intended to counteract the effects 

 of our late Navigation Act, and gives further manifestation of the 

 adherence of the British Government to their colonial exclusions. 

 It is the President's desire that nothing should be omitted which 

 can have the tendency to convince them that a change would pro- 

 mote the best interests of both countries, as well as the harmony 

 between them. Should your efforts prove ineffectual, we can only 

 wait the result of the counteracting measures to which we have 

 resorted, or which may be found necessary hereafter. 



In carrying the convention of the 3d July, 1815, into execution, the 

 British Government have sanctioned the practice, with regard to 

 some of the foreign tonnage duties, first, to levy them as if the con- 

 vention were not in force; and then, upon petition of the persons 

 interested, to have them returned. If this practice cannot be given 

 up altogether, it will be necessary that some regulation should be 

 adopted, by which the extra duties shall be returned of course, and 

 Avithout putting the parties to the trouble, expense, and delay of ob- 

 taining it by petition. At present, unless the petition is presented. 

 the duties are not returned. It happens sometimes that masters of 

 vessels pay the duties, without knowing that they are entitled to 

 have them returned; in which case, they are lost to them or their 

 owners. It will be proper, therefore, to require the adoption of some 



