No. 216.] 573 



It was the state of our commercial relations consequent on our 

 excessive importations, and the refusal to take our Breadstuffs in 

 payment, which occasioned the shipment of specie, the derangement 

 of our currency, the failure of our merchants, the suspension of spe- 

 cie payments, repudiation, and the derangement of all our internal 

 and domestic concerns. The past was too recent and too destruct- 

 ive to be forgotton. It should have taught a lesson of wisdom, to 

 provide against a recurrence, by requiring that the import of British 

 manufactures should be permitted, only on an arrangement of equal- 

 ity, to receive in payment the Breadstuffs and other staple produc- 

 tions of our country. 



It must be bad legislation to have allowed, for so many years past, 

 this relation of a debtor country to have borne down our Commerce 

 and National Industry. Till equality in our intercource shall be 

 established, in mutually trading, taking, and receiving each other's 

 staple productions, our independence as a Nation is not yet com- 

 plete. The balance of trade for the last thirty years, with very 

 temporary exceptions, has been against this country. The debt due 

 for imported articles being always to be paid by the debtor, and in 

 the country of the creditor, the cost of the transmission is added to 

 the price of the goods, and is thus paid by the consumer. The re 

 cently opened ports of England receiving our Breadstuffs, has not 

 come from either ihe legislation or the diplomacy of that country ; 

 nor from that of our own — but it has come to us as the boon of Fam- 

 ine. What diplomacy could not accomplish, nor legislation coerce, 

 the Potatoe Rot has provided, and has, for the time, repealed the 

 the Corn Laws of England, and opened to us — for the first time in 

 the history of our country — an equal trade. In one short year the 

 balance of trade has been equal or in our favor. The result has 



Dates. Exchange on London. Spanish dollars. 



July Ij 1842 7 1-2 per cent. prem. 4 per cent. prem. 



Jan. 1, 1843 6 " 5 " 



July 1, " 8 1-2 " 3 " 



Jan. 1, 1844 9 " 5 '' 



July 1, " 9 1-2 " 4 



Jan. 1, 1845 10 " 4 " 



July 1, " 9 1-2 " 4 " 



Jan. 1, 1846 9 " 5 " 



July 1, " 8 " 4 " 



Jan. 1, 1847 5 1-2 " 3 



July 1, " 6 " 5 " 



Nov. 10 " 10 " 3 



