COMMEKCIAL AGREEMENT OF 1830. 153 



its system of duties; and it is the more essential that His Majesty's 

 Government should not contract, by implication, any Engagement 

 towards that of The United States with respect to such alterations, 

 because His Majesty's Government have already had under their 

 consideration the expediency of introducing some modifications into 

 the Schedule of Duties attached to the Act of Parliament of 1825, 

 with a view more effectually to support the interests of the British 

 North American Colonies. To those interests, fostered as they have 

 incidentally been by the suspension of the Intercourse between the 

 United States and the West Indies,, His Majesty's Government will 

 continue to look with an earnest desire to afford them such protection, 

 by Discriminating Duties, as may appear to be consistent with the 

 interests of other Parts of His Majesty's Dominions, and with a sound 

 policy in the Commercial Relations of this Country with all other 

 States. 



The Undersigned has thought it desirable, that this point should 

 be distinctly understood on both sides, in order that no doubt should 

 exist of the right of Great Britain to vary those Duties from time to 

 time, according to her own views of expediency unfettered by any 

 obligation, expressed or implied, towards the United States, or any 

 other Country. 



The Undersigned adverts again, with satisfaction, to the verbal 

 explanations which he has received from Mr. MacLane, of those 

 passages in the Act of Congress, which have not appeared to the 

 Undersigned to be literally adapted to the provisions of the Act of 

 Parliament of 1825. He concurs with Mr. MacLane in thinking, 

 that these will be found to have been merely apparent deviations 

 from the conditions of that Statute ; because, the whole of the recent 

 proceedings of the American Government and Legislature, in this 

 matter, have been manifestly and expressly founded upon a deter- 

 mination to conform to it. Any other view of the subject would be 

 entirely at variance with the tenour of the several Communications 

 from Mr. MacLane, before adverted to, which have all been con- 

 formable to the explicit Proposition contained in his Note of the 

 12th December, 1829, "that the Government of The United States 

 should now comply with the conditions of the Act of Parliament, 

 of July 5, 1825, by an express Law, opening their Ports for the 

 admission of British Vessels, and by allowing their entry with the 

 same kind of British Colonial produce, as may be imported in Ameri- 

 can Vessels, the Vessels of both Countries paying the same Charges ; 

 suspending the Alien Duties on British Vessels and Cargoes; and 

 abolishing the restrictions in the Act of Congress, of 1823, to the 

 direct Intercourse between The United States and the British Colo- 

 nies: and that such a Law should be immediately followed, by a 

 revocation of the British Order in Council, of the 27th July, 1826, 

 the abolition or suspension of all Discriminating Duties on Ameri- 

 can Vessels in the British Colonial Ports, and the enjoyment, by 

 The United States, of the advantages of the Act of Parliament, of 

 the 5th July, 1825." It only remains, therefore, for the Under- 

 signed to assure Mr. MacLane, that, if the President of The United 

 States shall determine to give effect to the Act of Congress, in con- 

 formity with the construction put upon its Provisions, both by Mr. 

 MacLane and by the Undersigned, all difficulty, on the part of Great 



