COMMEECIAL AGREEMENT OF 1830. 137 



upon the payment of the same Duties as similar produce from other 

 parts of the British Possessions was required to pay. 



No answer was made by the British Government to Mr. Gallatin's 

 Note of the 4th of June, 1827, announcing the willingness of this 

 Government to arrange the Trade by separate legislation; and Mr. 

 Canning, on being applied to by Mr. Gallatin to know whether he 

 might expect a reply, informed him that such was not the intention ; 

 that they considered that Note as merely furnishing explanations; 

 and he expressed his surprise that any doubt could exist as to the 

 final disposition of the British Government upon that subject. 



After Mr. Canning's death, the willingness of The United States 

 to accept, through the medium of separate legislation, the terms of 

 the Act of Parliament of the 5th of July, 1825, was again communi- 

 cated by Mr. Gallatin to the British Government, by a Note to Lord 

 Dudley of the 17th August, 1827, in which he requested to be in- 

 formed whether, if Congress complied with the recommendations 

 which the President was willing to make, The United States would 

 be admitted to the Trade and intercourse by the Act of Parliament of 

 the 5th of July, 1825. 



Mr. Huskisson, in a subsequent Conference, informed Mr. Gallatin 

 that Great Britain considered the Colonial intercourse as exclusively 

 under her control, and that whatever terms might be granted to 

 Foreigners, would be considered as an indulgence; that he was not 

 prepared to say whether, in any way, or, if at all, on what terms, it 

 would be opened to The United States, in case of their repealing their 

 restrictive Acts. 



Lord Dudley, in reply to Mr. Gallatin's Letters of the 4th June and 

 17th August, after reviewing the grounds urged by The United States 

 to justify themselves in omitting to accept the terms of the Act of 

 Parliament of July, 1825, declined committing the British Government 

 as to their course, in the event of The United States adopting the 

 measures proposed, on the following grounds, viz; 1st. that much 

 must of necessity depend upon the details of the Act which Congress 

 might pass; 2dly, more on the condition of the Country at the time 

 of the passage, and the views which the British Government might 

 then have of their interest in the matter; and 3rdly, that any stipu- 

 lations on the subject, would be a virtual departure from the ground 

 taken by his Government to regulate the Trade by Law, and to de- 

 cline all further negotiation concerning it. 



The last information in the possession of this Government, in 

 relation to the views of the present British Ministry upon this sub- 

 ject, is derived from Mr. Barbour in January last. He states that, 

 in a communication held with Lord Aberdeen, in the presence of 

 the Duke of Wellington, the former expressed his desire of having 

 the Colonial Trade Question judiciously adjusted, and his conviction 

 that the interdict was injurious to the Colonies, without a propor- 

 tionate benefit to any other section of the Empire. But from sub- 

 sequent conversation with his Lordship, and from information de- 

 rived from other sources, Mr. Barbour was induced to believe that the 

 British Government does not contemplate any relaxation of its 

 Colonial system in favour of this Country: that our late Tariff, 

 together with a strong conviction of their incapacity to compete upon 

 equal terms with our navigation, contributes to this disposition ; and 



