132 ARGUMENT OP GEEAT BRITAIN. 



his earnest desire is to remove causes of irritation, and to multiply 

 those of a conciliatory nature between the two countries. Such has 

 manifestly been, on both sides, the effect of the equalising and recip- 

 rocal provisions of the convention of July, 1815; and such, he has 

 no doubt, would be the effect of the extension of its principles to 

 the commercial intercourse between the United States and the Brit- 

 ish colonies in the West Indies and on this continent; and you are 

 authorised again to repeat the offer of treating for a fair and equit- 

 able arrangement of this interest." 



Mr. Rush's reply (25th July, 1818) contains the following (re- 

 ferring to a conversation with Lord Castlereagh) (British Case, 

 App., p. 82) :- 



" I entered next upon the subject of the commercial relations be- 

 tween the two countries. Remarking upon the change produced in 

 them by the Prohibitory Act of the last session of Congress, now soon 

 to commence its operation, I observed that I had it in charge to say 

 that the President had yielded his assent to that Act with reluctance ; 

 for that, however just, its tendencies might be of an irritating nature 

 to the individual interests that it would effect on both sides, whilst 

 it was his constant desire to give efficacy to measures mutually more 

 beneficial and conciliatory. It was, therefore, that I was once more 

 authorised and instructed to propose to this Government the negotia- 

 tion of a general treaty of commerce. 



******* 



"His Lordship asked what he was to understand by a general 

 treaty of commerce. I replied, a treaty that should lay open, not a 

 temporary or precarious, but a permanent intercourse with their 

 West India islands and North American colonies to the shipping of 

 the United States, as often before proposed, but which, after the 

 recent refusals, it might seem almost unnecessary again to bring into 

 view, were it not that other objects of interest to both nations were 

 now associated with it in a way to clothe the proposition with a new 

 aspect. 



" He answered that the British Government would certainly 

 152 be willing to enter upon a negotiation on the commercial rela- 

 tions of the two countries, but that he had no authority to 

 say that the colonial system could be essentially altered ; broken down 

 it could not be. I said, that if it was not to be departed from, or in 

 no further degree than the four articles had imported, as those articles 

 had already been rejected, it did not appear to me that any advantage 

 would be likely to arise from going into the negotiation. He replied 

 that he was not prepared to answer definitely upon all or any of the 

 points, but would lay them before the Cabinet, and let me know the 

 result. He professed earnestly, in the course of the conversation, the 

 desire which this Government had to see the commerce of the two 

 countries stand upon the best footing of intercourse, the stake to each 

 being so great, and promising, with the growth of the United States, 

 to be so much greater. 



" In the event of a negotiation, upon the grounds I had explained, 

 not being opened, he asked if I could inform him what the intentions 

 of my Government were relative to the commercial intercourse be- 

 tween the two countries, it being, for obvious reasons, desirable soon 



