134 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



intercourse with their colonies in the West Indies and North Amer- 

 ica; but, from the report of two conferences between Mr. Rush and 

 Lord Castlereagh, since received, it appears that our anticipations 

 had been too sanguine, and that, with regard to our admission into 

 their colonies, they still cling to the system of exclusive colonial 

 monopoly. 



" Our Navigation Act, passed at the last session of Congress, is 

 well calculated to bring this system to a test by which it has not 

 hitherto been tried; and if the experiment must be made complete, so 

 that the event shall prove to demonstration which of the two coun- 

 tries can best stand this opposition of counter-exclusions, the United 

 States are prepared to abide by the result. Still, we should prefer 

 to remove them at once, if for no other reason than that it would 

 have a tendency to promote good humour between the two countries. 

 We wish you to urge this argument upon the British Cabinet; to re- 

 mind them of the principles avowed by Lord Castlereagh in Parlia- 

 ment, to which I have before referred, and of their precise bearing 

 upon this question." 



During the negotiations, an endeavour was made by the United 

 States commissioners to induce the British commissioners to agree 

 to a modification of the British colonial system. No agreement could 

 be arrived at. At the fifth conference the British commissioners 

 submitted the following projet (British case, App., p. 90) : 



"ARTICLE D. 



" British vessels shall have liberty to export, from any of the ports 

 of the United States to which any foreign vessels are permitted to 

 come, to the ports of Halifax, in His Britannic Majesty's province 

 of Nova Scotia; to the port of St. John's, in His Britannic Majesty's 

 province of New Brunswick, and to any other port within the said 

 provinces of Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, to which vessels 

 154 of any other foreign nation shall be admitted, the following 

 articles, being of the growth, produce, or manufacture of the 

 United States, viz: scantling, planks, staves, heading-boards, shin- 

 gles, hoops, horses, neat cattle, sheep, hogs, poultry, or live stock 

 of any sort, bread, biscuit, flour, pease, beans, potatoes, wheat, rice, 

 oats, barley, or grain of any sort, pitch, tar, turpentine, fruits, seeds, 

 and tobacco. 



" And vessels of the United States shall, in like manner, have lib- 

 erty to import from any of the aforesaid ports of the United States 

 into any of the aforesaid ports within the said provinces of Nova 

 Scotia and New Brunswick, the above-mentioned articles, being of the 

 growth, produce, or manufacture of the United States. 



" British vessels shall also have liberty to import from any of the 

 aforesaid ports within the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Bruns- 

 wick, into any of the aforesaid ports of the United States, gypsum 

 and grindstones, or any other articles, being of the growth, produce, 

 or manufacture of the said provinces, and, also, any produce or man- 

 ufacture of any part of His Britannic Majesty's dominions, the 

 importation of which into the United States shall not be entirely 

 prohibited. 



