The Sun.
London, England, 1827-03-27 00:00:00

STATE PAPERS.

CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO COMMERCIAL VNTERCOURSE BE-
TWEEN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND THE BRITISH WEST
INDIA COLONIES, AUGUST, 1826, TO JANUARY, 1821, PRESENTED
TO BOTH HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT NY COMMAND OF HIS MAJESTY,
1827.

(The following letters have not yet been published) :
No. 4.—Mr. Secretary Canning to Albert Gallatin, Esq.

Foreign-Office, Nov. 13, 1826.

The Undersigned, tee. would willingly have abstained
from offering any observations on the note addressed to him
by Mr. Gallatin, Sze. on the 22d of September, in reply to
the answer which had been returned by the Undersigned
to Mr. Gallatin's note of the •26th of August ; the facts of
the question agitated between Mr. Gallatin and the Un-
dersigned, admitting of no dispute, and their previous
correspondence having exhausted all the arguments on each
side of which the matter in discussion is susceptible.
But, upon re-perusal of Mr. Gallatin's note, after an in-
terval of a few weeks, there appear to the Undersigned to
be two or three points much relied upon by Mr. Gallatin,
which it would be improper to leave unnoticed.
The first of these points, and that which affects, more
or less, the whole of Mr. Gallatin's reasoning, is the ques-
tion of right—the right of a - :other country to monopo-
lize the trade of its colonjes. Mr. Gallatin discusses this
question much at length, and attaches himself in that dis•-
cussion rather, perhaps, to the terms, than to the substance
of the proposition intended to he put forward by the Un-
dersigned.

The proposition of the Undersigned is simply, that there
is a right in a mother country, universally admitted araong
nations, to interdict to foreign nations a trade with her
colonies.

It may be true (as stated by Mr. Gallatin) that every
country :ias the same " right" to interdict with foreign
nations a trade with itself. But, be the abstract " right"
what it may, this, at least, can not be denied—that the
exercise of that " right" has been so usual in one case,
and so unusual in the other, that the difference of usage
(if it be no more) amounts almost to a difference of
principle.
Foreign nations might justly complain of the one inter-
diction,—that of trade with the mother country, as an in-
novation, but they have no just ground of complaint (and
no other nation than the United States has ever complain-
ed) of the interdiction of trade to the colonies ; became,
in all ages, all nations having colonies have maintained
such an interdiction.

Mr. Gallatin, after having objected, in the beginning of
his note, to the use of the word " right," as applied by the
Undersigned to the colonial trade of Great Britain, applies
the same word himself, (inadvertently, perhaps,) in a sub-
sequent part of his note, to thi• ,aterdiction by the United
States of a trade in British ships between the United States
and the British West India colonies.
That trade Mr. Gallatin describes as a trade which had
been carried on merely by " permission"--a permission
which (says Mr. Gallatin) the United States had a right
to grant or to withhold."
Now, as according to Mr. Gallatin's doctrine, the
United States have, in strictness, a " right" to exclude
British trade altogether from their ports, the Undersigned
cannot presume to contend that they have not the same
" right" to prohibit a trade between those ports and the
British colonies.

- But the Undersigned ventures to affirm, that the right
which they have exercised in the latter prohibition has no
peculiar and separate character growing out of long and
general usage, to distinguish it in principle from a prohibi-
tion of all trade whatever with the United States.

Up to the year 1818, Mr. Gallatin admits that the
trade since prohibited by the United States, was enjoyed
by British vessels, in common with those of all other coun-
tries. The interdiction, therefore, is not of ancient usage,
and Po far is it from being generally applied by the United
States to Foreign vessels, that it operates against Great
Britain alone.

Is it not at least singular that Mr. Gallatin should re-
serve for a practice thus novel and thus partial, the character
of " right," which he denies to en usage as ohi as the es-
Itahlishment of colonies, and universal among all nations to
. .
Which colonies have belonged?

Is it not singular also,-that while Mr. Gallatin denies
any claim on the part of Great Britain to the continued
enjoyment of a trade in the United States, which she is
admitted by Mr. Gallatin to have enjoyed uninterruptedly
up to the year 1618. Mr. Gallatin puts forward a claim
on the part of the United States to trade with the West
India Colonies of Great Britain, on the ground of usage
and practice?

The United Stater, says Mr. Gallatin, found " their re-
clamation to participate in that commerce" (the trade with
the British West India Colonies) on this ground—
" That trade has been allowed by Great Britain, it may
be said, from the beginning, and at all times, and has be-
come thereby so far assimilated to that with the European
dominions of Great Britain, that the United States did
think that they had the same claim to a participation in
both."--" As early as the year 1783, the Government of
Great Britain, deviating from that principle of the colonial
system, according to which her colonies were prohibited
from trading directly with any other country, allowed her
West India colonies to trade directly with the United States
of America in British vessels."
It may be observed as to these facts, as stated by Mr.
Gallatin himself, that no two things can be much more
different than a permission (on the one hand) given by
Great Britain to British vessels to trade directly between a
British colony and another country (the vessels of that
other country remaining by law, and, in fact, excluded
from the ports of the colony) and that " participation" on
the other hand, which imnlice s trade between the United

" During the European war, Great Britain found it
convenient occasionally, but repeatedly, to open her West
India ports to American vessels; at the same time that she
was asserting the principle uniformly denied by the United
States, that a neutral was not authorized by the law of na-
tions to carry on in time of war a trade with a colony in
which he was not permitted to participate in time of
peace."
First. If the ports were occasionally opened, the very
terms of the proposition show that they were generally shut.
It would be difficult to imagine either a more complete
proof of the acknowledged right to admit or exclude foreign
trade from the colonies, as the governing authorities might
think fit, or a more perfect refutation of the plea of usage in
favour of a permanently open trade.
Secondly. The rule of 1756 appears to have little appli-
cation to the point in dispute. It might to be sure be, in
all such cases, a question with the neutral, whether he
would be tempted by the open ports of one belligerent, to
run the risk of capture by the other. But the point in dis-
pute is, whether by occasionally opening her colonial ports,
Great Britain virtually abandoned the right of closing
them again, when she thought proper: and on this point,
the - merits of the rule of 1756 have not, so far as the Un-
dersigned can make out, the most distant bearing.
Thirdly.—As it is intended to prove that the United
States have a claim to participate in the colonial trade for
ever, because the ports of the colonies were occasionally
opened during the war, Mir. Gallatin describes the ports as
having been opened to American vessels. True, but not
to American vessels only, or specifically. The ports were
open to the vessels of all friendly powers. The argument,
therefore, as to the special claim of the United States, falls
-to the ground.
The truth, however, is, that under the words "right"
and " so frequently recurring in this discussion, lies
the real and fundamental difference of opinion between
Great Britain and the United States, which has frustrated
all attempts to settle the disputed question of colonial in-
tercourse upon common principles, by conventional arrange-
ment.

When it is contended, that the "right" by which Great
Britain prohibits foreign countries from trading with her
colonies, is the same "right" with that by which she
might (if she thought fit) prohibit them from trading with
herself, this argument ( which is employed by the United
States alone) implies, that the special prohibition is a griev-
ance to the United States, if not of the same amount, of the
same kind as the general prohibition would

This is a doctrino which Great Britain explicitly denies.

It seems to be adinittLd, indeed, that there was a time
when the distinction between colonial trade and the trade
of the mother country was tenable. But it has been as-
sumed, in no obscure terms on the part of tho United
States, that the colonial system is now virtually at an end.
Great Britain denies this assumption.
Whatever relaxation Great Britain may think
,fit to in-
troduce for her own sake, and for that of her colonies
themselves, into her colonial system, she holds her " right"
to maintain that system, as with respect to foreign nations,
to be unaltered and entire. Great Britain, therefore, can-
not consent to any diplomatic arrangement by which such
" right" may appear to be relinquished, or by which her
assertion of it can be understood to be in any degree qua-
lified or controlled.

Hence the impracticability (already so repeatedly proved)
of any treaty upon this subject between Great Britain and
the United States.

Hence the necessity for Great Britain of doing what-
ever she means to do in the way of relaxation of her colo-
nial monopoly, by acts o' her own legislation.

This deduction brings tho Undersigned to the last point
in Mr. Gallatin's note, and that OR which he is most
anxious that there should be no misconception between
them.

Mr. Gallatin speaks of a " permanent exclusion of the
United States by Great Britain, from a trade open to the
rest of the world," as a measure different in character from
a general exclusion of all foreign nations.
But is this a just description of the effect of the Act of
1825 ?

Considerations (of which Great Britain alone is the
judge) hare induced her to open her colonial trade to other
nations. She opened it to them not as matter of special
favour, or of special " claim" to any one, but on specified
conditions, common to all nations who might think fit to
subscribe to them, and to the United States amorg the rest.
If some of the nations of the world have taken advantage
of the opening thus offered to them, by accepting the con-
ditions annexed to it, and others have omitted to do so,
and if the United States are, by their own choice, in the
latter class, sarely it is not a correct description of the
consequence of this, their own voluntary omission, to say
that the United States are " excluded" by Great Britain
from a trade, which, on the contrary, Great Britain in-
vited them to share.

Exclusion of foreigners from the colonial trade is the
general principle of colonial policy ; admission to that trade
is the exception—an exception, which, in this instance,
Great Britain was willing to grant to all those who were
ready to purchase it on terms tendered equally to all.
The United States cannot mean to put forward the pre-
tension; that what is granted to others on terms, should
he granted to them unconditionally. If not, it seems
difficult to imagine how they can feel it to be unjust or un-
kind, (it certainly is not so felt, or intended, on the part
of this country) that tho United States having, upon a
free, and (as is known from the public proceedings of
their legislature) deliberate consideration, declined to sub-
scribe to the terms on which exception from colonial pro-
hibition was tendered impartially to all nations, they
should find themselves, in common with such of those
nations as have decided like themselves, liable to that ex-
clusion, which is, and always has been, the general prin-
ciple of colonial trade.
The Undersigned avails himself, &c.
(Signed) GEORGE CANNING.
Albert Gallatin, Esq. Ex. Ecc.