COMMERCIAL AGREEMENT OP 1830. 147 



of the Earl of Aberdeen, His Majesty's Principal Secretary of State 

 for Foreign Affairs, to a Proposition which he had the honour to sub- 

 mit in writing on the 12th of December last, for an arrangement of 

 the Trade between the United States and the British American Colo- 

 nies, and in praying for a decision thereupon, is influenced, not merely 

 by considerations of duty, urging him to avoid further delay, but by 

 a hope, that the time already afforded for deliberation, has been 

 sufficient to enable His Majesty's Ministers to judge of the reasonable- 

 ness of his demands. 



******* 



It is far from the intention of the Undersigned to intimate, that 

 The United States could be disposed to complain of any commercial 

 Regulation of Great Britain, which by a system of reasonable pref- 

 erence, should consult the interests of her own Subjects; provided it 

 were done in a spirit of amity and impartiality, and that it should 

 place all Nations on an equal footing. But, when The United States 

 shall think they have grounds to consider themselves singled out 

 from all other Nations, and made the exclusive object of an injurious 

 Regulation; when they shall imagine it levelled at their prosperity 

 alone, either in retaliation of past deeds, or for interested purposes, 

 to secure some adventitious advantage, or to encourage a hostile com- 

 petition by means of commercial monopoly; however justifiable, in 

 such case, they may admit the Regulation to be, in point of strict 

 right, they will hardly be able to refrain, not merely from complaint, 

 but from a course of measures, calculated, as they may think, to avert 

 the intended injury; though pregnant, perhaps, with consequences 

 to be ultimately lamented. 



While the Undersigned would in no degree impair the full force 

 of these considerations, he would, at the same time, be distinctly 

 understood as not employing the language of menace. He has con- 

 ducted his whole Negotiation with an unfeigned and anxious desire 

 to see the relations of the two Countries placed on a footing equally 

 advantageous and honourable to both, as the only means of insuring 

 lasting amity; but, being profoundly sensible of the causes by which 

 this desirable object may be defeated, he has framed his Proposition 

 in such a manner as to enable His Majesty's Ministers to co-operate 

 in his views, without departing from the principles of their system 

 of Colonial Trade and Government. 



* ***** * 



The Undersigned is not disposed to deny, that any departure from 

 the rigid policy, by which the Colonies are excluded from all Com- 

 mercial Intercourse, except with the Mother Country, must be 

 founded on the interests of the Colonies themselves; and it will be 

 doubtless conceded that such was the object of the Regulations pro- 

 posed by the Act of Parliament of 1825, which were intended to 

 furnish the British West India Islands with a more extensive mar- 

 ket for their productions, and with the means of supplying them- 

 selves, on the cheapest terms, with all articles of foreign produce of 

 which they might stand in need. 



The Act of 1825 was, in fact, a relaxation of the previous policy, 

 affording to the West India Colonies advantages of trade which they 

 had riot previously enjoyed, and offering the benefit of their Com- 

 92909 S. Uoc. 870, 61-3, vo. 6 18 



