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various commercial privileges arc given to the citizens of the two countries. These 

 Articles relate to the navigation of the lak"s, rivers, and canals, to the conveyance 

 of goods transshipped in bond free of duty, to the carrying trade; and as to them 

 the Treaty of Washington is a Reciprocity Treaty ; as to these matters, that which 

 is conceded on the one side is an equivalent for that which is conceded on the 

 other; and the mutual concessions arc the sole equivalents for each other. Indeed, 

 who ever heard of a Treaty of Commercial Reciprocity, where a money payment, 

 to be ascertained by arbitration, was to balance concessions granted by the one 

 side to the other? It is enough to say that in these commercial clauses of the 

 Treaty, as in all other commercial arrangements that have ever been made between 

 the two countries, there is no stipulation for compensation. It may be well to 

 in()uire on what footing the commercial relations between the United States and 

 Great Britain do rest. How have tiicy stood for more than a generation pa>-l— for 

 nearly a hundred vars? My friend Mr. Trescot has investigated the Treaties, 

 and the result, as I ..iderstand it, is this — that the Commercial Convention of 1815, 

 originilly entered into for four years, was extended during ten years more by the 

 Convention of 1S18, and extended again indefinitely in 1S27. Tlic last clause of 

 the Ilnd Article of the Convention of 1815, after providing as to the duties to be 

 levied on tlie products of each country, &c., and as to commercial intercourse 

 between the United States and Mcr Majesty's subjects in Europe, states : — • 



"The intercourse between the I'nilcil .States stiul His Uritnunic Majesty's possessions in the West 

 Indies, and on the Continent ol Nortli Anurica, shall not be atl'ected by any of ibii jmivisions of 

 this Article, but each party shall reuiuin in the complete possession of its rights, ^\ ith respect to such 

 an interconi-se." 



Tims the commercial intercuinse between the two countries is provided for by 

 the Treaty of 1815, which, as I understand it, under its various extensions, is in 

 force to-day. It refers back to former and |)re-existing rights, to fi;id which it is 

 necessary to go still further hack — to the Treaty of 1794, commonJy known as 

 Jay's Treaty. Turning to that we find that the lllrd Article deals witli the special 

 relations between the United States and the British North American Colonies. It 

 miglit l)e supposed — and the argument perhaps might be correct, though I do not 

 say whether tliis would be tlie case or not — that the war of 1812 abrogated the 

 provisions of the Treaty of IT'.U. Were it not that the Commercial Convention of 

 1815, referring to previous existing rights, quite manifestly, I think, treats as still 

 in force the provisions of this Article of the Treaty of 1794. I will not reac' the 

 whole Article, but it stipulates "that all goods and merchandize, wliose importation 

 into His Majesty's said territories in America shall not be entirely prohibited, may 

 freely, and for tiie purposes of commerce, be carried into the same, in the manner 

 aforesaid, by the citizens of the United States, and that such goods and merchandize 

 shall be subject to no liighcr or other duties than are payable by His Majesty's 

 subjects, on importing the same into the said territories; and in like manner, that 

 the floods and merchandize, whose importation into the United States shall not be 

 wiiolly prohibited, may freely, for the pur|)oscs of commerce, be carried into the 

 same by Ilia M.ijesty's subjects, and that sucii goods and merchandize shall be 

 subject to no iiigher or other duties than arc payable by the citizens of tlie United 

 States, on importing the same in American vessels into the Atlantic ports of the said 

 States ;" — anil mark this, " that ail goods not prohibited from being exported from 

 tlie said territories respectively, may, in like manner, be carried out of the same by 

 the two parties respectively, on paying duty as aforesaid," tliut is to say, as I 

 understand it, the inhabitants of each country going for the purposes of commerce 

 to the other country, may ex|H)rt its goods, so long as their exportation is not 

 wholly prohibited, upon the same terms as to export duties as would be imposed on 

 Her Majesty's subjects. Tiien the Article, after some other jiaragraphs, closes 

 thus : — " As this Article is intended to render, in a great degree, the local advan- 

 tages of each party common to both, and thereby to promote a disposition 

 favourable to friendship and good neighbourhood, it is agreed that the respective 

 Governments will mutually promote this amicable intercourse, by causing speedy 

 and impartial justice to be done, and necessary protection to be extended to all who 

 may be concerned therein." 



Gentlemen, — Such I understand to be the footing on which commercial inter- 

 course stands between the two countries to-day, if tiiere is any Treaty that governs 

 commerce between the British North Americii Provinces and the United States. 

 And if this is not the case, the relations between the two countries stand upon that 



