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Indiana University Studies 
can shipping.^® The British Government, therefore, probably 
felt some hesitancy about committing itself either in one 
way or the other. 
As the weeks passed with no definite news, favorable or 
unfavorable, regarding the colonial trade negotiation, news- 
papers in the United States endeavored to fill the gap with con- 
jectures based chiefly on hopes and party inclinations. Altho 
now and then some enthusiastic Administration editor ven- 
tured to announce faintly that all was going well, the majority 
were content to remain silent, evidently awaiting the issue 
not without some misgivings themselves. That intrepid and 
usually positive Administration organ, the New York Evening 
Post, believed it was true that a prospect of recovering the 
West India trade for the United States did exist, but that it 
was true also that the difficulties in the way were very great, 
so that it ought not to be a matter of disappointment should 
they eventually prevent the success of the negotiation. The 
mild tone of this paper led the Daily National Journal to con^ 
elude that all the Administration “anticipations’’ were mere 
“delusions”, and to exult with joy because McLane had 
“totally failed” to conciliate the British minister. This in 
general was the tone of the Opposition press in the early part 
of the year 1830.^° 
Even Jackson himself at length began to lose patience. 
On April 10, 1830, he wrote Van Buren as follows : 
We ought to be prepared to act promptly in case of a failure. We 
have held out terms of reconciling our differences with that nation of 
the most frank and fair terms. Terms, which, if England really had a 
wish to harmonize, and act fairly towards us, ought to have been met 
in that spirit of frankness and candor and friendship with which we 
proposed them. These terms being rejected our national character and 
honor requires, that we should now act with that promptness and energy 
due to our national character. Therefore let a communication be pre- 
pared for Congress recommending a non-intercourse law between the 
United States and Canada, and a sufficient number of cutters com- 
manded by our naval officers and our own midshipmen made revenue 
officers and a double set on every vessel & &. This adopted and carried 
into effect forthwith and in six months both Canada and the West India 
Islands will feel, and sorely feel, the effects of their folly in urging 
their government to adhere to our exclusion from the West India trade. 
Quebec Gazette, waA Montreal Gazette, in Ne^o York Evening Post, Jan. 19, 1830. 
St. Johns paper in Niles’ Register, XXXVI, 430. 
Neiv York Evening Post, Jan. 14, 1830, 
Daily National Journal, Jan. 18, 1830. 
