COMMERCIAL, AGREEMENT OP 1830. 139 



British North American Possessions on the other. From those Ports, 

 it finds its way to the British West India Colonies, under different 

 regulations in British Vessels. This trade is burthened with double 

 freight and insurance, the charges of landing and re-shipping, and 

 also Commissions and duties in the Neutral Ports, for that portion 

 which goes by the way of St. Thomas and St. Bartholomew. The 

 extra expenses thus produced have been estimated at 50 per centum 

 on the first cost of lumber, and at from 15 to 20 per centum on pro- 

 visions. A great reduction of the quantity of our exports, and the 

 entire exclusion from the trade of many articles of a perishable na- 

 ture, which cannot now be sent in consequence of the increased length 

 of the voyage, with its unfavorable effects upon our Navigation, are 

 the chief injuries which result to our Citizens from this state of 

 things. It oppresses the West India Planter, by unavoidably in- 

 creasing the prices of such articles of American produce as he still 

 finds it his interest to purchase, notwithstanding the disadvantages 

 imposed upon their introduction. It is moreover understood, that 

 the indirect trade is carried on on British account, and that, therefore, 

 the principal part of the extra expenses to which it is subjected comes 

 ultimately out of their pockets. 



It is the anxious wish of the President to put an end to a state of 

 things so injurious to all parties. He is willing to regulate the trade 

 in question upon terms of reciprocal advantage, and to adopt for 

 that purpose those which Great Britain has herself elected, and which 

 are prescribed by the Act of Parliament of 5th July, 1825, as it is 

 understood by us. You are directed to make a full and frank ex- 

 position of the views and wishes of the President in this respect, at 

 as early a period, and in such manner, as you may judge best calcu- 

 lated to accomplish them, and to put it in his power to communicate 

 the result of this overture to Congress at the opening of the next 

 Session. He is admonished by the past of the inutility of protracted 

 discussions upon a subject which has been over and over again de- 

 bated. He does not, therefore, wish to occupy you, or harrass the 

 British Cabinet by their repitition. You are authorized to say to 

 the British Government on the part of The United States, that they 

 will open their Ports to British Vessels coming from the British 

 Colonies, laden with such Colonial productions as can be imported in 

 American Vessels, and upon terms in all respects equally favourable ; 

 and that they will also abolish the restriction contained in our Act 

 of 1823, confining the trade to a direct intercourse, upon condition 

 that Great Britain will allow American Vessels the privileges of 

 trade and intercourse which were offered by the Act of the 5th of 

 July, 1825. 



The President indulges a confident expectation that the British 

 Government will assent to an adjustment upon these terms. He is 

 compelled to think so from a conviction that such an arrangement 

 would promote the true interests of both Parties a result which 

 he is confident is as much desired by Great Britain as it can be by 

 himself, because she has heretofore given her deliberate assent to 

 these terms, (and he finds nothing in the condition of the question 

 which renders them less proper now than they were then;) and, 

 finally, because he is unwilling to believe that Great Britain would 

 make so invidious a distinction as to exclude us from a trade which 



