The Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1837-1845, 1842-03-22
Foreign correspondence.
BREMEN, 20th Of January, 1912.

The affairs of the United States have produced a
great sensation in this place. You well know that
Bremen is that German port which has more COM
munication and a more extended commerce Wit
America than any other, and which employs more
than ninety vessels exclusively in that commerce.
great number of American securities are held here
and in Hamburg partly for Hanseatc account, partly
on account of people living in the interior or in the
southern provinces of Germany. The news from
Mississippi has been thunder-clap for merchants
and capitalists that from Pennsylvania, the Other
hand has proved an oasis in the desert There are q
goodly number of Pennsylvania Elves held in this
place, and if that State is able to pay the interest
due in lS42 without resorting to a direct taxation
or the infinitely worse method of making new
loans to pay the interest the old debt will dc
much to revive the deeply sunken credit OF the States
The United States Bank never enjoyed much credit
in Germany since the first protest of the HOtingers
in Paris, and Rothschild would not then have come
forward so literally and accepted for the honor OF
the Bank, had not Mr.. Jaudon in London, covered
the amount or rather than double it, by railroad
and State securities. Thus the credit of the Bank,
which was first based on the credit of the United
the individual States, but the enormous amount OF
State stocks which it threw the European markets.
naturally caused the decline of them. Still there
exists great faith in the ability of those States to re-
deem their pledges and in the honest willingness OF
the American People to discharge their just obliga-
tons. President Tyler's message produced very
good effect although it is clear that Congress posses
ses no compulsory power over the States, and will
not and ought not to assume and consolidate the debt
of the States.
am sorry to say that the American commerce
with this place. which formerly carried on most
ly in American vessels is almost entirely confn
ed to Hanseatc bottoms not than from Is to sc
vessels of the United States entering this port pei
annum and more than half of these leaving agar
in ballast But the treaty between the United States
and the Hanseatic towns of Hamburg, Lubbock ane
Bremen, which was concluded in 1927 and expired III
1885, being still in force, it is impossible for Amer
can vessels to compete with the ships of the Hanse
towns Provisions in Germany are from so to 0pel
cent cheaper than in the United States; the expens
es of building and sailing ships are, by 80 per cent.
less; wages are lower-in short, on the principle Of
reciprocity, the United States must be content te
export their tobacco, rice, and cotton, in Bremen
vessels to all the northern continental ports of Eu
rope, and to receive the manufactures and produce
of the northern nations of Europe in vessels sailing
under the same hag-for not only the direct trade
with Germany almost wholly carried on in Hanseatit
bottoms, but also the carrying trade between Ger
many, Prussia, Russia, and in great proportion
also Sweden, Norway, and Denmark This canno
be matter of indifference to the United States ane
deserves the attention of Congress.
But this is not all. There are annually going to
the United States, from this port alone from twelve
to sixteen thousand emgrants who pay for their pas
sage not less than $400O the passengers returning
probably amount to one fifth of this number, that
their passage money may be estimated at 100000
exclusive of freights. The whole of this sum is
earned by Hanseatic ship owners, who have then
agents in every part of Germany and engage them re-
guary long before they to this port The autho-
rites here prohibit the emgrants coming here be-
fore they have engaged and paid for their passage
cause they want to make sure of not being troubled
wards arrive in the United States whether by their
restitution they become at once public burden to
our large Atlantic cities, is matter Of less soctude
here but of great moment in the United States. AS
matters are now arranged throughout Europe, the
whole business of emigration is in the hands of au-
thoritcs private individuals who have no further
interest in the welfare of the emgrans than that OF
getting them safely out Of the country what becomes
of them afterwards, whether he proves advantage
or disadvantage to the country Of his adoption,
whether he possesses the means of pursuing his jour-
ney westward, after his landing in New York, Phila-
dephia Baltimore, all this does not concern them
in the least and yet the United States who are so
deeply concerned in this question, who to bear
the consequences of their arriving in state of pow
erty and Distress and the other hand gain by the
wealth and industry of these people, have not taken
one single step to watch their embarkation for, and
arrival in, America. The American Consuls at the
different sea-ports who might advise and counsel and
protect the emigrants, who might be the means of
direct communication between the American land
and the European capitalists, and thereby pre-
vent much disappointment and much loss of time and
money are absolutely left powerless, and must re-
main calm spectators when these future citizens OF
the United States are eeced their astpenny, or
to America by the way of Texas or the West Indies.
Whole cargoes of Germans were, last year, sent to
Trinidad de Cuba and other ports of the West Indies
to meet untimely grave, when their industry and
property might have enriched the valley of the Mis-
sissipp While the industrious, honest, moneyed emf
grant, is thus deprived of the means of making him
self useful to his new country, or prevented from
reaching the desired port paupers and malefac-
tors may find their way thither and poison the morals
and habits of the People of the United States do
not believe that the latter applied to the Ger
man emigrants, with the exception Of those whom
the Duke of Mecklenburg sent to America-princi-
pally to Bresil-and who, is well known, were ia
ken from the prisons of the country. 1t is in vain
that the United States of the States north of
the Potomac require many dollars per head for all