DESPATCHES^ REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 407 



thousand inhabitants, and with an aggregate tonnage of six hundred 

 and sixty-one thousand three hundred and sixty-seven tons upon the 

 waters which discharge into it. The foreign commerce of our ports 

 on these waters is open to British competition, and the major part 

 of it is done in British bottoms. 



If the American seamen be excluded from this natural avenue to 

 the ocean, the monopoly of the direct commerce of the Lake ports 

 with the Atlantic would be in foreign hands; their vessels on Trans- 

 atlantic voyages having an access to our Lake ports which would be 

 denied to American vessels on similar voyages. To state such a 

 proposition is to refute its justice. 



During the administration of Mr. John Quincy Adams, Mr. Clay 

 unanswerably demonstrated the natural right of the citizens of the 

 United States to the navigation of this river, claiming that the Act 

 of the Congress of Vienna, in opening the Rhine and other rivers 

 to all nations, showed the judgment 01 European jurists and states- 

 men that the inhabitants of a country through which a navigable 

 river passes have a natural right to enjoy the navigation of that 

 river to and into the sea, even though passing through the territories 

 of another Power. This right does not exclude the co-equal right of the 

 Sovereign possessing the territory through which the river debouches 

 into the sea to make such regulations relative to the police of the nav- 

 igation as may be reasonably necessary; but those regulations should 

 be framed in a liberal spirit of comity, and should not impose need- 

 less burdens upon the commerce which has the right of transit. It 

 has been found in practice more advantageous to arrange these regu- 

 lations by mutual agreement. The United States are ready to make 

 any reasonable arrangement, as to the police of the St. Lawrence, 

 which may be suggested by Great Britain. 



If the claim made by Mr. Clay was just when the population of 

 States bordering on the shores of the lakes was only three million 

 four hundred thousand, it now derives greater force and equity from 

 the increased population, wealth, production, and tonnage of the 

 States on the Canadian frontier. Since Mr. Clay advanced his argu- 

 ment in behalf of our right the principle for which he contended 

 has been frequently, and by various nations, recognized by law or 

 by Treaty, and has been extended to several other great rivers. By 

 the Treaty concluded at Mayence, in 1831, the Rhine was declared 

 free from the point where it is first navigable into the sea. By the 

 Convention between Spain and Portugal, concluded in 1835, the 

 navigation of the Douro, throughout its whole extent, was made free 

 for the subjects of both Crowns. In 1853 the Argentine Confedera- 

 tion by Treaty threw open the free navigation of the Parana and 

 the Uruguay to the mechant vessels of all nations. In 1856 the 

 Crimean War was closed by a Treaty which provided for the free 

 navigation of the Danube. In 1858 Bolivia, by Treaty, declared 

 that it regarded the rivers Amazon and La Plata, in accordance 

 with fixed principles of national law, as highways or channels, 

 opened by nature, for the commerce of all nations. In 1859 the 

 Paraguay was made free by Treaty, and in December 1866, the 

 Emperor of Brazil, by Imperial decree, declared the Amazon to 

 be open, to the frontier of Brazil, to the merchant ships of all 

 nations. The greatest living British authority on this subject, while 



