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Indiana University Studies 
communicated to him the disposition of the President, with regard to 
the four articles, in a manner altogether congenial to the spirit of that 
formula of the British constitution by which the dissent of the crown is 
signified to an act which has passed both Houses of Parliament — le Roy 
s’avisera.®^ 
The clearness and Americanism of this method have, with 
right, been questioned.®^ 
The failure of diplomatic negotiation in 1817 to bring about 
an agreement in regard to the British colonial trade resulted 
in a further countervailing measure on the part of the United 
States. President Monroe in his annual message laid the 
whole matter before Congress, informing them of the unwill- 
ingness of the British Government to depart from its colonial 
system, and asking them to consider whether, in consequence, 
they should make any further regulations for the protection 
and improvement of American shipping.®^^ 
The first move came in the House where the Committee on 
Foreign Relations, to which this part of the President’s mes- 
sage had been referred, submitted a long report on the state 
of the commercial intercourse between the United States and 
the British West India and North American colonies. After 
giving facts to show why this trade was in the worst possible 
state for American shipping while at the best possible for Brit- 
ish, they maintained that justice and policy required of every 
wise government its best exertions to secure for its citizens, 
in the transportation of merchandise, a perfect equality with 
the people of every nation with which it had commercial inter- 
course. This could be accomplished in the case of Great 
Britain either by a convention based on reciprocity, or by leg- 
islative acts operating exclusively against British navigators 
engaged in this trade. That the former method had failed 
was due, they believed, to the fact that no adequate motive yet 
existed to induce Great Britain to arrange the trade by con- 
vention. This ‘‘adequate motive” they proposed to supply by 
a further legislative act on the part of the American Gov- 
ernment, the only question being whether the act should be 
total prohibition of all intercourse with the British colonies, 
or burdensome charges on the trade if confined to British 
vessels. The Committee preferred the latter measure because 
of its slower but equally certain effect, and its facility of exe- 
Am. State Papers, For. Rel., IV, 15, 16. 
Tazewell, Review of Negotiations betiveen the U.S. and Great Britain, 45. 
Richardson, Messages and Papers, II, 12, 13. 
