NOTE ON TRADE KELATIONS. 133 



to know. Here I did not hesitate to announce that, in such an event, 

 which I still hoped would not be the case, it was willing simply to 

 renew the existing convention of 1815, thus keeping this instrument 

 distinct from all other questions of a commercial nature, if the 

 British Government preferred it. This communication, I thought, 

 he received with evident satisfaction. He remarked that it would 

 rescue the commercial relations from all danger of a chasm, and made 

 known, in immediate reply, the readiness of his Government to 

 acquiesce in such a course. 



" On the 22d I received a note from him requesting to see me again 

 at the Foreign Office on the 23d. I was there accordingly. Mr. 

 Eobinson, who is now a member of the Cabinet, as well as president 

 of the Board of Trade, was present. It was the first occasion upon 

 which any third person had been associated with Lord Castlereagh 

 at any of our official interviews. 



"His lordship commenced by saying that he had laid my pro- 

 posals before the Cabinet, and that it had been agreed to enter upon 

 the general negotiation; that is, one which should embrace all the 

 points I had stated. In relation to the great commercial question, 

 he begged I would understand that the British Government did not 

 pledge itself beforehand to a departure from its colonial system in 

 a degree beyond what it had already offered; but that it sincerely 

 was desirous to make the attempt, and unequivocally wished to bring 

 the whole commercial relations of the two countries into view, willing 

 to hope, though abstaining from promises, that some modification 

 of that system, mutually beneficial, might be the result of frank and 

 full discussions renewed at the present juncture. I replied that 

 I knew my Government would hear this determination with great 

 satisfaction; that it would cordially join in the hope that the new 

 effort might be productive of advantagfe to both countries, and 

 strengthen the ties of good intercourse that should unite them." 



153 The foregoing extracts exhibit the attitudes, in 1818, of the 

 respective countries towards the subject of commercial rela- 

 tions. It will be observed that the object sought for by the United 

 States was the renewal of the treaty of 1815, under which no United 

 States vessel was permitted to enter any of the ocean ports of the 

 British possessions in North America. 



1818 Negotiations. It was under these circumstances that the 

 fishery negotiations of 1818 commenced or rather that the negotia- 

 tions which had been commenced in 1815 were resumed. And the 

 nature of the instructions issued by Mr. John Quincy Adams to the 

 United States commissioners is sufficiently indicated by the following 

 (British Case, App., p. 83) : 



"With regard to the commercial convention of the 3d July, 1815, 

 you have already been informed that the President is willing that it 

 should be continued without alteration for a further term of eight 

 or ten years. We had flattered ourselves, from the liberal senti- 

 ments expressed by Lord Castlereagh in Parliament, and from vari- 

 ous other indications, that the British Cabinet would have been now 

 prepared to extend the principles of the convention to our commercial 



