Lancaster gazette. [volume] (Lancaster, Mass.) 1828-1830, 1828-12-09

ent channels for an exchange OF commodi-
ties indispensable to the colonies, and profit
able to a numerous class of our fellow
citizens. The exports, the revenue, the
navigation of the United States, have suffer-
ed no dirninution by our exclusion from
direct access to the British Colonies. The
Colonies pay more dearly for the necessaries
of life, which theirAGovernmen burdens
with the charges of double voyages, freight,
insurance and commission, and the profits
Of our exports are somewhat impaired, and
more injuriously transferred from one portion
of our citizens to another. The resumption
of this old and otherwise exploded system
of Colonial exclusion has not secured to
the shipping interest of Great Britain the
relief which, at the expense of the distant
colonies, and of the United States, it was
expected to afford. Other measures have
been resorted to, more pointedly bearing
upon the navigation of the United States,
and which, unless modified by the construc-
ton given to the recent Acts of Parliament,
will be manifestly incompatible with the
positive stipulations of the commercial con-
vention existing between the two countries.
That convention, however, may be termin-
ated, with twelve months notice, at the
option of either party.
A treaty of Amity, Navigation and Com
merce, between the United States and His
Majesty the Emperour of Austria, King of
Hungary and Bohemia, has been prepared
for signature BY the Secretary of State,
and by the Baron de Lederder, intrusted
with full powers of the Austrian Govern
ment. Independently of the new and
friendly relations which may be thus COM
menced with one of the most eminent and
powerful nations of the earth, the occasion
has been taken in it, as in other recent
treaties concluded by the United States, to
extend those principles of liberal intercourse
the exchanges of commerce the principles
of justice, and the feelings of mutual benev-
olence. This system first proclaimed to the
world in the first commercial treaty ever
concluded by the United States, that of 9th
FEBRUARY 1878, with France, has been inva-
riably the cherished policy of our Union.
1t is by treaties of commerce alone that it
can be made ultimately to prevail as the
established system of all civilized nations.
With this principle our fathers extended the
hand of friendship to every nation Of the
globe, and to this policy our country has
ever since adhered-whatever of regulation
in our laws has ever been adopted unfavour-
able to the interest of any foreign nation,
has been essentially defensive and counter
acting to similar regulations of their ope-
rating against us.
Immediately after the close Of the war of
independence, Commissioners were appoint
ed BY the Congress of the Confederation,
authorized to conclude treaties with every
nation of Europe disposed to adopt them.
Before the wars of the French revolution,
such treaties had been consummated with
the United Netherlands, Sweden, and Prus-
STA. During those wars, treaties with Great
Britain and Spain had been effected, and
thase with Prussia and France renewed. In
all these, some concessions to the liberal
principles of intercourse proposed by the
United States had been obtained; but as, in
all the negotiations, they came occasionally
in collision with previous internal regula-
tons, or exclusive and excluding compacts
of monopoly, with which the other parties
had been trammelled, the advances made in
them towards the freedom of trade were
partial and imperfect. Colonial establish
ments, chartered companies, and ship-build-
ing influence, pervaded and encountered the
legislation of all thegreat commercial states
and the United States, in offering free trade
and equal privilege to all, were compelled
to acquiesce in many exceptions with each
of the parties to their treaties, accommodate
ed to their existing laws and anterior en-
gagements.
The colonial system, by which this whole
hemisphere was bound, has fallen into ruins
Totally abolished by revolutions, converting
colonies into independent nations, through
out the two American Continents, except
ing portion of territory chiefly at the north
ern extremity of our own, and confined to
the remnants of dominion retained by Great
Britain over the insular Archipelago, geo.
graphically the appendages of our part of
the globe. With all the rest we have free
trade-even with the insular colonies of all
the European nations, except Great Britain.
Her Government had also manifested ap-
proaches to the adoption of free and libe-
raj intercourse between her colonies and
other nations, though, by a sudden and
scarcely explained revulsion, the spirit of
exclusion has been revived for operation up
on the United States alone.
The conclusion of our last Treaty of Peace
with Great Britain was shortly afterwards
followed by Commercial Convention, plac-
ing the direct intercourse between the two
countries upon footing of more equal reci-
procity than had ever before been admitted.
The same principle has since been much
farther extended, by Treaties with France,
Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic Cities,
Prussia in Europe, and with the Republicks
of Colombia, and of Central America, in this
hemisphere. The mutual abolition of dis
eliminating duties and charges, upon the
navigation and commercial intercourse be-
tween the parties, is the general maxim
which characterizes them all. There is rea-
son to expect that it viii, at no distant peri
cd, be adopted by other nations. both of En-