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Indiana University Studies 
recommending the President to pursue further and friendly 
negotiations with the British Government for the purpose, 
among other things, first, “of opening and establishing on a 
satisfactory footing the navigation, trade, and intercourse be- 
tween the United States and His Majesty’s colonies in the 
West Indies and on the Continent of America”. The Senate 
Committee on Foreign Relations opposed the adoption of this 
resolution, however, on the ground that the most unremitting 
efforts had been employed by the President to obtain satis- 
factory arrangements upon these points, and that if any fur- 
ther evidence of a disposition of the British Government to 
arrange them on just and equal conditions appeared, the Exec- 
utive would seize all the advantages it might disclose.®^ This 
belief seems to have been justified, for after the consideration 
of Cyrus King’s resolution was postponed in the House, John 
Quincy Adams, American minister in London, was instructed 
to propose to the British Government a new convention, the 
first and most urgent subject of which, in the view of the 
American Government, was the trade between the United 
States and the British colonies in North America and the West 
Indies.®^ 
During the summer of 1816, Adams labored with Lord 
Castlereagh in an attempt to secure some modification of the 
British colonial system. He explained to him how the opera- 
tion of the commercial convention of 1815, together with the 
British regulations, resulted not only in the whole of the Brit- 
ish West India trade being carried on exclusively by British 
vessels, but to the very great injury of the general shipping 
interests of the United States as well.'^^ He explained, too, 
that all his country desired was the permission of American 
vessels equally with the British ships to carry to the British 
colonies the articles which could be supplied only from the 
United States ; Great Britain might still prohibit the importa- 
tion from the United States of such articles as she chose to 
supply herself.®® 
Lord Castlereagh maintained, however, that to admit 
foreigners to trade with the British colonies in the West Indies 
Reports of Com. on For. Rel., VI, 19. 
^^Ibid., VIII, 22, 23. 
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, III, 391, 394. 
^^Ihid., Ill, 389, 394. 
^Uhid., Ill, 394. 
