48 
Indiana University Studies 
imported into the United States were to be charged the same 
duties as upon similar goods from any other foreign port, 
the same rule to apply to American goods imported into the 
free ports from the United States. The British Government, 
however, reserved to itself the right to impose higher duties 
upon all articles imported from the United States or any other 
foreign country than should be chargeable upon similar arti- 
cles imported from any British possession. There were sev- 
eral objectionable features to this article from the American 
viewpoint: first, the smallness of the vessels to which Amer- 
ican trade must be confined, the provision being interpreted 
by Adams to mean vessels of under 30 tons burden second, 
the restricted list of articles which might be imported and 
exported, sugar and coffee, for instance, being excluded from 
export to the United States, and the very articles which Amer- 
icans would wish to export, such as lumber, fish, salted provi- 
sions, live stock, etc., being excluded from import into the 
British West Indies; third, the right which Great Britain re- 
served to levy discriminating duties in favor of British North 
American products and vessels. 
The second article admitted American vessels to the island 
of Bermuda, permitted a much longer list of articles both of 
import and export, and placed no limitation on the size or form 
of vessels to be employed. The list of articles of trade in- 
cluded those desirable commodities which were excluded from 
the British West India trade as a whole, the purpose being, 
apparently, to supply the naval depot and station which Great 
Britain maintained there,^" and to make that island, which is 
little more than a cluster of rocks in the middle of the ocean, 
an entrepot in a circuitous trade between the United States 
and the British West Indies, a trade in which American ves- 
sels would have access to much the shorter leg. 
The third article was a short one permitting American ves- 
sels to resort to Turk’s Island, one of the southernrnost of the 
Bahamas, for the purpose of taking in cargoes of salt for the 
United States, but allowing these vessels to import only to- 
bacco and cotton, again excluding provisions, etc. 
The fourth article stipulated a free intercourse between 
the United States and those parts of the adjoining British 
provinces in North America, where the division line was the 
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, III, 492. 
90 Writings of Oallatin, II, 29, 30. 
