24 
Indiana University Studies 
Maryland, as commissioners plenipotentiary and extraordinary 
for settling all matters of difference between the United States 
and Great Britain relative to wrongs which had been com- 
mitted between the parties on the high seas or other waters, 
and for establishing the principles of navigation and com- 
merce between them.®^ 
The treaty which these commissioners concluded, Theodore 
Lyman, in his Diplomacy of the United States, published in 
1826, considered “the most favorable arrangement ever made 
with Great Britain’', “in every view an important event in the 
diplomatic history of the country”.®® Nevertheless, it settled 
neither the matter of impressments on the high seas nor the 
British West India trade, and, principally on the ground of 
the former. President Jefferson, without even consulting the 
Senate, refused to ratify it.®® But for the sake of tracing the 
thread of British West India negotiations, it is worth while to 
pause long enough to note the minimum proposals of the 
United States regarding that trade and the British attitude 
in response. 
At that time the least which was acceptable to the Govern- 
ment of the United States was the admission of American ves- 
sels loaded only with articles of American growth, produce, or 
manufacture, the importation of which in British vessels was 
not prohibited. Their entry to British West India ports should 
be on the same terms as the entry of British vessels in Ameri- 
can ports when loaded only with colonial articles. The Ameri- 
can Government was willing, however, to make two conces- 
sions; first, that American vessels might be prohibited from 
exporting from the British West Indies in sugar and coffee, 
more than one-half of the proceeds of their inward cargoes; 
and secondly, either that American vessels should export such 
sugar and coffee only to the United States, or that they should 
be obliged to return and land their cargoes in the United 
States; provided, however, that they might, on their return 
trip, touch at any other West India island, or the Bahamas, 
to complete their cargo. These restrictions were intended to 
remove effectually any apprehensions that American vessels 
might become carriers of British West India products to any 
other country than the United States, but at the same time 
Richardson, Messages and Papers, I, 402. 
Lyman, Diplomacy of the U.S., 233, 
Schuyler, American Diplomacy, 428. Lyman, Diplomacy of the U.S., 235. 
