homage of our grateful acknowledgments to the Giver of all good. With the exceptions incidental to the most felicitous condition of human existence, we continue to be highly favored in all the elements which contribute to individual comfort and to national prosperity. In the survey of our extensive country, we have generally to observe abodes of health and regions of plenty. In our civil and political relations, we have peace without, and tranquillity within our borders. We are, as a people, increasing with unabated rapidity in population, wealth, and national resources; and, whatever differences of opinion exist among us with regard to the mode and the means by which we shall turn the beneficence of Heaven to the improvement of our own condition, there is yet a spirit animating us all, which will not suffer the bounties of Providence to be showered upon us in vain, but will receive them with grateful hearts, and apply them with unwearied hands to the advancement of the general good.

Of the subjects recommended to the consideration of Congress at their last session, some were then definitely acted upon. Others left unfinished, but partly matured, will recur to your attention, without needing a renewal of notice from me. The purpose of this communication will be to present to your view the general aspect of our public affairs at this moment, and the measures which have been taken to carry into effect the intentions of the legislature as signified by the laws then and heretofore enacted.

In our intercourse with the other nations of the earth, we have still the happiness of enjoying peace and a general good understanding; qualified, however, in several important instances, by collisions of interest, and by unsatisfied claims of justice, to the settlement of which the constitutional interposition of the legislative authority may become ultimately indispensable. By the decease of the Emperor Alexander of Russia, which occurred cotemporaneously with the commencement of the last session of Congress, the United States have been deprived of a long-tried, steady, and faithful friend. Born to the inheritance of absolute power, and trained in the school of adversity, from which no power on earth, however absolute, is exempt, that monarch, from his youth, had been taught to feel the force and value of public opinion, and to be sensible that the interests of his own government would be best promoted by a frank and friendly intercourse with this republic, as those of his people would be advanced by a liberal commercial intercourse with our country. A candid and confidential interchange of sentiments between him and the government of the United States, upon the affairs of South America, took place at a period not long preceding his demise, and contributed to fix that course of policy which left to the other governments of Europe no alternative but that of sooner or later recognising the independence of our southern neighbors, of which the example had by the United States already been set. The ordinary diplomatic communications between his successor, the Emperor Nicholas, and the United States, have suffered some interruption by the illness, departure, and subsequent decease of his minister residing here, who enjoyed, as he merited, the entire confidence of his new sovereign, as he had eminently responded to that of his predecessor. But we have had the most satisfactory assurances that the sentiments of the reigning emperor toward the United States are altogether conformable to those which had so long and constantly animated his imperial brother; and we have reason to hope that they will serve to cement that harmony and good understanding between the two nations which, founded in congenial interests, cannot but result in the advancement of the welfare and prosperity of both.

Our relations of commerce and navigation with France are, by the operation of the convention of 24th June, 1822, with that nation, in a state of gradual and progressive improvement. Convinced by all our experience, no less than by the principles of fair and liberal reciprocity which the United States have constantly tendered to all the nations of the earth, as the rule of commercial intercourse which they would universally prefer, that fair and equal competition is most conducive to the interests of both parties, the United States, in the negotiation of that convention, earnestly contended for a mutual renunciation of discriminating duties and charges in the ports of the two countries. Unable to obtain the immediate recognition of this principle in its full extent, after reducing the duties of discrimination so far as was found attainable, it was agreed that, at the expiration of two years from the first of October, 1822, when the convention was to go into effect, unless a notice of six months on either side should be given to the other, that the convention itself must terminate, those duties should be reduced by one fourth, and that this reduction should be yearly repeated until all discrimination should cease while the convention itself should continue in force. By the effect of this stipulation, three fourths of the discriminating duties which had been levied by each party, upon the vessels of the other in its ports, have already been removed; and on the first of next October, should the convention be still in force, the remaining fourth will be discontinued. French vessels, laden with French produce, will be received in our ports on the same terms as our own; and ours, in return, will enjoy the same advantages in the ports of France.

By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges, not only has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly dispo sitions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add, that the claims upon the justice of the French government, involving the property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow citizens, and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their condition remains unaltered.

With the government of the Netherlands, the mutual abandonment of discriminating duties had been regulated by the legislative acts on both sides. The act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, abolished all dis criminating duties of impost and tonnage, upon the vessels and produce of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States, upon the assurance given by the government of the Netherlands, that all such duties operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued in force several years, when the discriminating principle was resumed by the Netherlands in a new and indirect form, by a bounty of ten per cent., in the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act of Congress of the 7th January, 1824, all discriminating duties in the United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the Netherlands. But the same act provides that, in the event of a restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and commerce of the United States in any of the

foreign countries referred to therein, the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the navigation of such foreign country should cease, and all the provisions of the acts imposing discriminating foreign tonnage and import duties in the United States should revive and be in full force with regard to that nation.

In the correspondence with the government of the Netherlands upon this subject, they have contended that the favor shown to their own shipping by this bounty upon their tonnage is not to be considered as a discriminatory duty. But it cannot be denied that it produces all the same effects. Had the mutual abolition been stipulated by treaty, such a bounty upon the national vessels could scarcely have been granted consistently with good faith. Yet, as the act of Congress of 7th January, 1824, has not expressly authorized the executive authority to determine what shall be considered as a revival of discriminating duties by a foreign government to the disadvantage of the United States, and as the retaliatory measure on our part, however just and necessary, may tend rather to that conflict of legislation which we deprecate, than to that concert to which we invite all commercial nations as most conducive to their interest and our own, I have thought it more consistent with the spirit of our institutions to refer the subject again to the paramount authority of the legislature to decide what measure the emergency may require, than abruptly by proclamation to carry into effect the minatory provision of the act of 1824.

During the last session of Congress, treaties of amity, navigation, and commerce, were negotiated and signed at this place with the government of Denmark in Europe, and with the federation of Central America in this hemisphere. These treaties then received the constitutional sanction of the Senate, by the advice and consent to their ratification. They were accordingly ratified on the part of the United States, and during the recess of Congress, have been also ratified by the other respective contracting parties. The ratifications have been exchanged, and they have been published by proclamations, copies of which are herewith communicated to Congress. These treaties have established between the contracting parties the principles of equality and reciprocity in their broadest and most liberal extent. Each party admitting the vessels of the other into its ports, laden with cargoes the produce or manufacture of any quarter of the globe, upon the payment of the same duties of tonnage and impost that are chargeable upon their own. They have farther stipulated, that the parties shall hereafter grant no favor of navigation or commerce to any other nation, which shall not, upon the same terms be granted to each other; and that neither party will impose upon articles of merchandise, the produce or manufacture of the other, any other or higher duties than upon the like articles, being the produce or manufacture of any other country. To these principles there is, in the convention with Denmark, an exception with regard to the colonies of that kingdom in the Arctic seas, but none with regard to her colonies in the West Indies.

In the course of the last summer, the term to which our last commercial treaty with Sweden was limited has expired. A continuation of it is in the contemplation of the Swedish government, and is believed to be desirable on the part of the United States. It has been proposed by the King of Sweden that, pending the negotiation of renewal, the expired treaty should be mutually considered as still in force; a measure which will require the sanction

of Congress to be carried into effect on our part, and which I therefore recommend to your consideration.

With Prussia, Spain, Portugal, and in general all the European powers, between whom and the United States relations of friendly intercourse have existed, their condition has not materially varied since the last session of Congress. I regret not to be able to say the same of our commercial intercourse with the colonial possessions of Great Britain in America. Negotiations of the highest importance to our common interests have been for several years in discussion between the two governments, and on the part of the United States have been invariably pursued in the spirit of candor and conciliation. Interests of great magnitude and delicacy had been adjusted by the conventions of 1815 and 1818, while that of 1822, mediated by the late Emperor Alexander, had promised a satisfactory compromise of claims which the government of the United States, in justice to the rights of a numerous class of their citizens, was bound to sustain. But with regard to the commercial intercourse between the United States and the British colonies in America, it has been hitherto found impracticable to bring the parties to an understanding satisfactory to both. The relative geographical position, and the respective products of nature, cultivated by human industry, had constituted the elements of a commercial intercourse between the United States and British America, insular and continental, important to the inhabitants of both countries. But it had been interdicted by Great Britain, upon a principle heretofore practised upon by the colonizing nations of Europe, of holding the trade of their colonies, each in exclusive monopoly to herself. After the termination of the late war, this interdiction had been revived, and the British government declined including this portion of our intercourse with her possessions in the negotiation of the convention of 1815. The trade was then carried on exclusively in British vessels, till the act of Congress concerning navigation, of 1818, and the supplemental act of 1820, met the interdict by a corresponding measure on the part of the United States. These measures, not of retaliation, but of necessary self-defence, were soon succeeded by an act of parliament, opening certain colonial ports to the vessels of the United States, coming directly from them, and to the importation from them of certain articles of our produce, burdened with heavy duties, and excluding some of the most valuable articles of our exports. The United States opened their ports to British vessels from the colonies upon terms as exactly corresponding with those of the act of parliament, as in the relative position of the parties could be made. negotiation was commenced by mutual consent, with the hope on our part that a reciprocal spirit of accommodation and a common sentiment of the importance of the trade to the interests of the inhabitants of the two countries, between whom it must be carried on, would ultimately bring the parties to a compromise, with which both might be satisfied. With this view, the government of the United States had determined to sacrifice something of that entire reciprocity which in all commercial arrangements with foreign powers they are entitled to demand, and to acquiesce in some inequalities disadvantageous to ourselves, rather than to forego the benefit of a final and permanent adjustment of this interest, to the satisfaction of Great Britain herself. The negotiation, repeatedly suspended by accidental circumstances, was, however, by mutual agreement and express assent, considered as pending, and to be speedily resumed. In the mean time, another act of parlia ment, so doubtful and ambiguous in its import as to have been misunderstood

by the officers in the colonies who were to carry it into execution, opens again certain colonial ports, upon new conditions and terms, with a threat to close them against any nation which may not accept those terms, as prescribed by the British government. This act, passed in July, 1825, not communicated to the government of the United States, not understood by the British officers of the customs in the colonies where it was to be enforced, was nevertheless submitted to the consideration of Congress at their last session. With the knowledge that a negotiation upon the subject had long been in progress, and pledges given of its resumption at an early day, it was deemed expedient to await the result of that negotiation, rather than to subscribe implicitly to terms, the import of which was not clear, and which the British authorities themselves in this hemisphere were not prepared to explain.

Immediately after the close of the last session of Congress, one of our most distinguished citizens was despatched as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary to Great Britain, furnished with instructions which we could not doubt would lead to a conclusion of this long controverted interest, upon terms acceptable to Great Britain. Upon his arrival, and before he had delivered his letters of credence, he was met by an order of the British council, excluding, from and after the first of December now current, the vessels of the United States from all the colonial British ports, excepting those immediately bordering upon our territories. In answer to his expostulations upon a measure thus unexpected, he is informed that, according to the ancient maxims of policy of European nations having colonies, their trade is an exclusive possession of the mother country. That all participation in it by other nations is a boon or favor not forming a subject of negotiation, but to be regulated by the legislative acts of the power owning the colony. That the British government, therefore, declines negotiating concerning it, and that as the United States did not forthwith accept, purely and simply, the terms offered by the act of parliament of July, 1825, Great Britain would not admit the vessels of the United States even upon the terms on which she had opened them to the navigation of other nations. We have been accustomed to consider the trade which we have enjoyed with the British colonies rather as an interchange of mutual benefits than as a mere favor received; that under every circumstance we have given an ample equivalent. We have seen every other nation holding colonies negotiate with other nations, and grant them freely admission to the colonies by treaty; and, so far are the other colonizing nations of Europe now from refusing to negotiate for trade with their colonies, that we ourselves have secured access to the colonies of more than one of them by treaty. The refusal, however, of Great Britain to negotiate, leaves to the United States no other alternative than that of regulating, or interdicting altogether the trade on their part, according as either measure may affect the interests of our own country; and, with that exclusive object, I would recommend the whole subject to your calm and candid deliberations.

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It is hoped that our unavailing exertions to accomplish a cordial good understanding on this interest will not have an unpropitious effect upon other great topics of discussion between the two governments. Our northeastern and northwestern boundaries are still unadjusted. The commissioners under the 7th article of the treaty of Ghent have nearly come to the close of their labors; nor can we renounce the expectation, enfeebled as it is, that they may agree upon their report to the satisfaction or acquiescence