32 
Indiana University Studies 
navy, and altho the permits were produced in court, was con- 
demned together with its cargo. Several other American 
ships were reported to have been treated in a similar manner.^” 
This decision of the British Government to maintain and 
rigorously enforce its colonial system was still further im- 
pressed upon the United States during the negotiations lead- 
ing to the commercial convention of July 3, 1815. The Ameri- 
can plenipotentiaries in their opening proposals endeavored 
to include in the subjects to be treated the commercial inter- 
course between the British West Indies and the United States. 
They desired to place this trade on some more permanent 
basis than the occasional acts of the colonial authorities.^^ 
From the very beginning, however, they met a flat refusal on 
the part of the British plenipotentiaries to treat upon this sub- 
ject. Great Britain^ the latter asserted, was not prepared 
to make any change in the colonial policy to which it had so 
long adhered. 
Consequently, altho trade between the United States and 
British European ports was placed on a basis of reciprocity 
such as had been suggested by the American Tonnage Act of 
March 3, 1815,^^ the best that the American plenipotentiaries 
could do in respect to the British West India trade was to ob- 
tain the insertion of a paragraph in the second article of the 
convention stating that each party remained in the complete 
possession of its rights in regard to the intercourse,^^ a para- 
graph later characterized by the Philadelphia Aurora as 
‘Jesuitical . . . , worthy of Talleyrand or any other per- 
fidious hypocrite’' because of its meaninglessness.^® Actually, 
however, its insertion was demanded in order to safeguard 
the right of the United States to pass regulations on its own 
side in respect to the British West India trade, for the British 
plenipotentiaries had at first attempted to secure for British 
ships entering American ports from the British West Indies 
the same exemptions as for those coming from the British 
European ports, without, however, permitting American ves- 
sels to enter their West India possessions.^”^ 
Quoted from Bermuda Gazette, Aug. 23, 1815, hy Netv York Herald, Sept. 16, 1815. 
Am. State Papers, For. Rel., IV, 9. 
Ibid., IV, 10. Writings of John Quincy Adams, V, 442. 
Am. State Papers, For. Rel., IV, 10. 
Public Statutes at Large, III, 224. ‘ 
15 Am. State Papers, For. Rel., IV, 7, 8. Writings of Gallatin, I, 680, 682. 
Aurora, Dec. 16, 1816. 
11 Writings of Gallatin, I, 680, 681, 682. 
