The Sun.
London, England, 1827-01-10 00:00:00

MR. •CANNING TO MR. GALLATIN.

The undersigned, his Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs, has the honour to acknowledge the official note
of the 2eith ultimo, addressed to him by Mr. Gallatin, Envoy
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States
of America, on the subject of an Order in Council, issued by his
Majesty on the 27th of July.
The undersigned feels hiniself greatly indebted to Mr. Gallatin
for the full and frank exposition, which that note contains, of his
own opinions, and cf those of. his Government, upon the whole
matter to which the Order in Council related; and the, opportu-
nity thereby afforded to the undersigned for entering into an ex-
planation, equally unreserved, of the opinions and intentions of his
Majesty's Government on that matter.

It will he highly advantageous to dispose at once of a subject
which stands apart from all the other important subjects which
Mr. Gallatin is authorised to discuss with the British Govern-
ment—a subject which is to be argued on principles, and to be
decided on considerations peculiar to itself.
Mr. Gallatin will allow the undersigned to take the liberty of
remarking, that this peculiarity of character seems to have been
overlooked by Mr. Gallatin, in his note of the 26th of August.—
Througfiout that note there appears to be one pervading error.—
Mr. Gallatin treats the question as if it had turned altogether on
this single point—f' What are the equal and reciprocal conditions
under which a trade between the United States and the British
West India Colonies should be carried on ?" Assuming, as a sort
of axiom, that such trade is as open to the United States as any
other trade in the world, and never inquired whether some com-
pensation might not be due from the United States to Great Bri-
tain, for the concession of a privilege which it is her undoubted
right to give or withhold.
The undersigned is prepared to show, that even if the liberty to
trade with the British West India Colonies were gratuitously con-
ceded by England to the United States, still the footing on which
the trade, so permitted, is now carried on by the United States
is unequal and unfair.
But as the objection which the British Government feels to the
proposition for such partial equalisation of conditions, as Mr. Gal-
latin's instructions appear to be intended to establish, lies deeper
than Mr. Gallatin's proposition goes, the undersigned thinks it
right to explain, in, the first instance, the nature and grounds of
that fundamental objection.,
_ .

It is, as the undersigned has already said, the unquestionable
right, and it has, till within these few years, been the invariable
practice, of countries having colonies, to reserve to themselves the
trade with those colonies, and to relax that reservation only under
special circumstances, and on particular occasions. When a re-
laxation of that nature has been dictated and limited by the neces-
sities of the mother country, or of the colonies, the foreign coun-
tries taking advantage of it, may fairly aver, that they owed no-
thing to the•State:which had granted such relaxation. They may
even have felt themselves at liberty to decline to accept of a partial
admission into the ports of the colonies, thus evidently opened from
considerations of local or temporary convenience, unless they mire
allowed a general liberty of trade with those colonies, independ-
ently of such considerations. •

The interdiction of the American Government in ISP,O, -of any
commerce with the British West India Colonies, until American
shipping should be permitted free entry into the British colonial
ports, is to be justified upon this ground. -
The obvious way of meeting that interdiction by Great Britain,
would have been to open to other commercial and maritime powers
the trade refused by the United States.
Circumstances, not necessary to be detailed here, rendered that
expedient, at that time, 'inadvisable.
In SS22, the privilege of trading with the British West Indies
was conceded to the shipping of the United States, with certain
restrictions and limitations, under which they are content to enjoy
it ; but that privilege Great Britain still withheld from all the
powers of Europe.
The concession to the United States was, in effect, if not in
words, exclusive : for the new countries of America (not then re •
cognized by his Majesty) had no commerce or navigktion which
could interfere with those of the United States.

It capant, however, be supposed—it is not affirmed by Mr.
Gallatin—that by granting the privilege, thus in effect exclusively,
to the United States, in the first instance, Great Britain precluded
herself from extending it to other nations, whenever the course of
events should create a favourable occasion for doing so: Events,
which intervened between 1822 and 1925, created such an
occ.;44.pn.

As little c;r) it be supposed that, because Great Britain sub-
mitted, at a moment of necessity, to terms which, though not un•
just, were inconvenient to her, ;iv. Igutrid herself to continue to
submit to them when that necessity should 4ave passed away.
Scarcity may justify the demand for a high price, and mono-
poly may give the power of exacting it; but there is surely no
understood compact between the buyer and the seller, that the
former shall not endeaxonr to make himself independent of the
latter, by opening the market to general competition.
These obvious and simple considerations led to the Act of Par•
liament of 1825.

Our right either to open the ports of our Colonies, or to keep
them closed, as might suit our own convenience ; our right to
grant the indulgence of a trade with those Colonies to foreign
Powers, wholly- or partially, unconditionally or conditionally,
as we might think proper, and, if conditionally, on what condi-
tions we pleased, was clear: We were not bound by any engage-
ment to continue a monopoly of such indulgence to, one foreign
power against another. We had, for three years, felt the incon-
venience of such monopoly. We naturally sought, therefore, in
our new-measure, to avoid the recurrence of the like inconvenience,
by making our indulgence general to all nations; and, in order to
keep the regulation. of that indulgence in our own hands, we grant-
cl it by spontaneous legislation, and not by positive treaty.
ifteztazstion is now, therefore, no longer what it was in 1820
or. 1822, a cinestiop between Great Britain and the United States
•of America; it is a que.stio# 4etwegn- Great Britain and all the
nations of the Old and the New World ; of whom Great
Britain has tendered access to her Colonies; on condiiiona which
many pf them have 'practically accepted, and more, perhaps, are
ready to accept?
Having thus placed, as be hopes, in a clear light the general
principles of Colonial trade, and the principles and considerations
upon which Great Britain ha, acted in respect to bet own West
• India Colonies, the undersigned now proceeds to consider the de-
tails of Mr. Gallatin's notnnt6 of the 25th of August.
It harp been already said, that in tho year 1822, we opened, by
Act of Parliament, a trade with our West India Coloiliso to Ame-
rican ships, gilder certain limitations and conditions.
The United States were at full liberty to accept or to decline
those terms.
In accepting them, the 'United States imposed, at the same time
onerous charges and restrictions ppm' all British vessels which
might trade between the British West India Colonies and the
United States. One of these charges is an alien duty both upon
the ship and upon her cargo.
After ineffectual endeavours on our part, to obtain the removal
,:t* this duty, we were compelled to lay a countervailing duty to
the saz. mount, upon American ships in the Colonial ports.
M. 'Gallatin--" that by the imposition of this countervail-
ing duty, imif;l, and Atzerican vessels, employed in the inter-
cofiiise between the British•Oonies anj the United States, are
placed on a footing of the most'pel-fek enality."
informed; "a singli.act 'Of tbe
" that there is no, if he is rightly

Government of the United States can, in the view taken of
the subject by that of his Majesty, he considered as not fulfilling
the condition contemplated by the Act of Parliament of the sth of
July, 1825, as not placing the commerce and navigation of Great
Britain, anfl of her possessions abroad, upon the footing of the
most favoured nation, excepting only the continuance of the dis-
criminating tonnage duty of ninety-four cents per ton on British
vessels, and of the additional ten per cent on the ordinary, duty
charged on goods imported in British vessels entering the ports of
the United States from the British Colonie;,"

The arguments drawn by Mr. Gallatin, from these statements,
are three :—First, that the duty on the side of the United States,
and the countervailing duty on the side of Great Britain being
equal, British ships trading between the Colonies and the United
States, are as much favoured as American ships in the same
trade; secondly, that, inasmuch as, with the exception of the dis-
criminating duties in America,- Great Britain is, in all other re-
spects, treated as " the most favoured nation," there is no just
cause for the exercise, on the part of Great Britain, of the.power
of interdiction provided by the Act of 1825 ; and, thirdly, that
having in our hands two remedies for one and.the same grievance,
we ought, at all events, to have contented ourselves with applying
either, but not both by the same Order in Council.
To begin With the last of these three points—viz. the assump-
tion that " having in our hands two remedies for one grievance,
we ought to have been contented with applying either, but not
both by the same Order in Council.

The only measure which is now in the Order in Council, is
the interdiction of the trade between the British West India Co-
lonies and the United States, after a specified period. The
duties on American shipping; mentioned in that Order, are now
new. They were imposed by an Order in Council, in 1823, and
have been constantly levied since that time. They are again men-
tioned in the present Order in Councili only for the direction of
the British Custom HouSe officers in the' West Indies, who, if
those duties had not been mentioned as still existing, might have
imagined them to be superseded. .

. _
The history of these duties is simply this. On the Ist of Alarith
1823, a law was passed by the united States, which directs an
alien duty to he levied upon British ships and cargoes coming
front the British West India Coloni!s, f' until proof shall be given,
to the satisfactioin of the President of the United States, that no
other or higher duties of tonnage or impost, and no other charges
of any kind, are exacted in the 'British Colonial ports upon the
vessels of the United States, and upon any goods, wares, or mer-
chandise, therein imported from the United States, than upon
British vessels entering the same 'ports, and upon the like goods,
wares, and merchandise imported in such vessels from elsewhere.".
The British Government at first misapprehended the import of
the term " from
.elsewhere,". conceiving it to apply •to foreign
countries alone, and not to British possessions in North America;
nor was it till after the interchange of several official notes be-
tween the British Envoy at Washington and the American Se=
cretary of State, that the British Government was made to com-
prehend (or rather was brought to believe) the full extent of the
concession required by the Act of Congress—namely, that the
produce of the United States, when imported from the United
States into the British West India. Colonies, should be placed on
an equal footing with the like produce of the mother country her-
self and het dependencies.
When such was at length ascertained to he the true construction
of the American Act of Congress• of 1823, those countervailing
duties were imposed . on the trade of the United States by the
British Government, which are now merely continued till the
Ist of December next, in the West Indies, and indefinitely in the
ports of British North America.

It is to be observed, that, by the Act of Parliament of 1822
(3 Geo. IV. cap. 44.), the British Government was enabled to
interdict all intercourse between the United States and the Bri-
tish West India Colonies, under any such circumstances as those
which had already arisen in the United States.

The milder measure of a retaliatory duty was preferred, for two
reasons :—First, we were-convinced that a claim so extraordi-
nary as that put forward by the interpretation given to the Act
of Congress of 1823, would not be persevered in after explana-
tion ; and secondly, we had assurance that a full opportunity of
that explanation would. arise in the course of the negotiation
wh.th was then about to be opened between the two Govern-
n ents on this, among other points, in which their respective. in-
terests were concerned.

That negociation took place in London in the spring of 1824.
On the part of the British Government, an offer was made to ar-
range this matter upon terms highly favourable to the Fnited
States; but the American Plenipotentiary entrenched himself
within the letter of the American law, and declared any proPosal
inadmissible which was not accompanied with the concesiion re-
quired by the final interpretation of that law.

Things remained in this state, and the British proposition hav-
ing been unnoticed for nine months before by the American Go-
vernment, the Act of Parliament of July 1825 was passed.
The American Legislature had cognizance of that Act from .the
commencement of its last Session. It had also cognizance of the
specific proposals offered by the British Government in 1824.
Farther, there was brought under its consideration, by one of
Its members, a resolution for repealing the discriminating duties.
The Session, however, ended without the enactment of. any
law for repealing or relaxing the restrictions of the Act of Con-
gress of 1823, and with the rejection, after debate, of the resolu-
tion for the repeal of the discriminating duties.
To come next to I%h. 'Gallatin's allegation, that the.discriminat-
ing duties are our only cause of complaint ; that, in other respects
Great Britain is placed by the United States on the footing of the
most iisvuured nation, in her intercourse between- her West India
colonies and the United States. •

Mr. Gallatin, in making this averment, appears to overlook
another enactment contained in the same Aet of Congress which
imposed the discriminating duties, an enactment hardly less in-
jurious to the commerce and navigation of Great Britain. That
enactment, in substance, provides that no British ship entering an
American port from the United Kingdom, or from any other British
possession, except directly front the West India Colonies, shall be
allowed to clear from any port of the United States for any of
those colonies.

If it is to be maintained that, because the British Act of 1823
permits only a direct trade between our colonies and the United
States in American ships, the prohibition of a trade through thy
United States between the Mother Country and her colonies is,
therefore, fair reciprocity, that position resolves itself, in effect, into
the first of the three arguments into which Mr. Gallatin's state-
ment has been divided, and may be comprehended in the same an-
swer. It furnishes a striking illustration of the general rniscon-
ception which has already been noticed as pervading Mr. Gallatin's
note, in respect to the character of colonial trade.

To allow a foreign ship to enter colonial pmts at all, and upon
any terms, is a boon ; to withhold from a ship of a country hav-
ing colonies, trading from the mother country to a foreign State,
under a regular treaty between the two countries, the right of
clearing for another port belonging to that mother country in
another part of the world, is an injury.
That right has been denied to Great Britain by the United
States—not, perhaps, in contradiction to the letter, but un-
doubtedly in deviation from the spirit of the Treaty of 1815. It
is a right which existed and was enjoyed before the Treaty of
1815 was framed ; at a period,—that is, when no claim to any
trade to our colonies had been even whispered by the United
States; and it could not therefore. be, by any just reasoning,
connected with that trade, or made dependent upon it. It is a
right which friendly nations, trafficking with one another, are so
much in the habit of allowing to each other, that it is exercised
as matter of course, unless specifically withholden. The colonial
on the contrary, by the practice of all nations having co-
lonies, is a trade interdicted as a matter of course, unless specifi-
cally granted.
It must not he forgotten that this enactment, founded profess-
edly on the limitations of the British Act of Parliament of 1822,
is continued fourteen months after the passing of the British Act
of 1825, by which the limitations of 1822 were done away.
Since which, sth January, 1826, an American ship, trading to a
British West India colony, may clear out from thence to any part
of the world, the United Kingdom and its dependencies alone ex-
cepted. But the British ship in the American port still remains
subject to all the restrictions of the American law of 1823, prohi-
biting a trade thronli tli9
United States .between the Mother
Country and her West India P.oloniea,
Mr. Gallatin, in his note of the 26th of August, states that " it
is well known that the delay in renewing the negociation upon
the subject of colonial intercourse, on principles of mutual
accommodation, is. doe to causes not under the controul of the
United States, principally to the state of the health of Mr. King."
Upon this point the undersigned has only tp observe, that no
intimation that Mr. King had received instructions which would
have enabled him to resume the negociation, was ever before corn-
munipated to the British Government. On the contrary, the only
cnrnmunigation at all relating to this matter, t.ti h ich has ever reached
him in any authentic shape, was in a despE;:li from Mr. Vaughan,
dated the 22d of March last, whero-1 that Minister states, that
Mr. Clay bad informed him that lie.shpuld not be able to fur-
nish Mr. King with his instructions beti4e-the end of the month
of May, to enable him to recommence the negociation."
But whatever may be the date or tenor of the instructions under
which Mr. Gallatin acts, he will have collected from this note,
that, after all that has passed upon the subject of colonial inter-
course, and especially after the advised omission by the Govern-
ment and LegislatUre of the United States to meet (as other na-
tions have done) the simple and direct provisions of the Act of
82::;), the pFitish Government cannot consent to enter into any

renewed negotiation upon the intercourse between the United
States and the British colonies, so long as the pretension recorded
in the Act of 1823, and there applied to British colonies alone,
remains part of the law of the United States.

But the British Government further owes to the spirit of
frankness which it wishes to cultivate in all its relations with the
United States to declare, that, after having been compelled to
apply to any country the interdict prescribed by the Act of 1825,
the British Government cannot hold itself bound to remove the
interdict, as a matter of course, whenever it may happen to suit
the convenience of the Foreign Government to reconsider the
measures by which the application of that interdict was
occasioned.

• It is not made matter of complaint by the British Govern-
ment, that the United States have declined conditions which'
other nations have thought worthy of their acceptance.
It is, on the other hand,' not the fault of the British Govern-
ment, if the United States have suffered the time to pass by, at
which it might have been an object of greater importance to
this country to induce the United States to come into •their
proposals.

- The United States exercised, upon this point, a free judgment ;
and they can, on their part, have no reason to complain that 9reat
Britain, after allowing ample time for maturing that judgment, is
contented to abide the result of their decision.

The undersigned requests Mr. Gallatin to accept the assurances
of his high consideration.
Foreign Office, Sept. 11, 1826. GEORGE CANNING.
P.S. The undersigned, on reading over the preceding obser-
vations, finds that he has omitted to notice one or two subor-
dinate points touched upon in Mr. Gallatin's note of the 20th of
August.
The first relates to the trade between the United States and the
British possessions in the East Indies; the second to the inter-
course, by inland navigation, between the United States and the
British possessions in North America. •
With regard to the former, it is only necessary to state that
the trade with the East Indies remains upon the footing on which
it was established by the Conventions of 1815 and 1818, which
Conventions it it is expressly stated, in the Order in Council, that
the provisions of that Order are not intended in any way to in=
terfere.

In respest to the second point, relative to the intercourse, by
inland navigation, between the United States, and the British
North American provinces, the undersigned begs to inform Mr.
Gallatin, that the intercourse, so far as relates to the Canadas,
is regulated by the Act of Parliament of 1825, by which the
same duties are expressly imposed on the vessels and boats of
the. United States importing any goods into either of those pro-
vinces as are or may he, for the time being, payable in the
United States of America, on British vessels or boats entering
the harbours of the State from whence such goods shall have
been imported.

The discriminating duties, besides, only apply to trade by sea;
and if, in any instance, they have been levied upon American goods
brought into his Majesty's possessions by inland navigation, or
on the boats and vessels employed in that navigation, there will
be no difficulty in directing the amount so levied to he repaid,
unless it should appear that the like duties had been levied on the
American ports, upon the inland navigation and trade of the Bri-
tish provinces. G. C.