Benns: British West India Carrying-Trade 135 
A contemporary, the New York American, held that the pre- 
tensions set forth by Canning’s note were ‘‘exorbitant and 
inadmissible”, and even rallied to defend the claim advanced 
by Adams that American goods should enter the British West 
Indies on the same terms as Canadian.®^ 
It was early rumored that the two points against which 
the Opposition planned to direct its attack were the failure 
of the Administration to close with the propositions advanced 
by the British act of 1825, and its preference for a treaty 
rather than a legislative settlement of the colonial trade ques- 
tion/® The rumor was quickly substantiated, the New York 
Evening Post and the Richmond Enquirer leading in the at- 
tack. Criticism of the Administration ranged from mild asser- 
tions that its policy had “been short sighted”, to the most out- 
right condemnation. Speaking of the British offer of 1824, 
the New York Evening Post demanded 
Now we ask in God’s name, what more liberal, more honorable, 
more perfectly reciprocal we want than to have the intercourse between 
the United States and Great Britain placed on the precise terms here 
voluntarily offered by the latter power to the former.^^ 
“Who, then, was right, during the last winter ;” challenged an- 
other paper, “Mr. Tazewell, Gen. Smith, etc. or Messrs. 
Adams and Clay?” 
The first wished to remove the great difficulty by law — the last by 
treaty. If a law had been passed, no treaty would have been necessary. 
Our diplomatic administration set their faces against the first; and now 
they cannot accomplish the last.^“ 
A severe arraignment of the Administration was made by a 
writer in the Richmond Enquirer for “cavilling about the man- 
ner” of accepting the British proposition: 
The terms are such as the administration prefers a willingness to accede 
to by treaty, but not by an act of the legislature. Why this cavilling 
about the manner, if the thing be right itself? Folly and confusion 
seem to attend every step of this ill-fated administration which. Heaven 
grant, may be fast drawing to a close 
The editor of the same paper believed that the United States 
stood “in a most awkward and unpleasant relation to Great 
Netv York American (for the country), Dec. 19 and 2'2, 1826. 
'‘^Richmond Whig quoted in National Journal, Dec. 23, 1826. Essex Register, Dec. 
28, 1826. 
'^'^Neiv York Evening Post (for the country), Dec. 29, 1826. 
"‘'^American Statesman and City Register, Dec. 16, 1826. 
Richmond Enquirer, Oct. 10, 1826. 
