ls, Spanish vessels arriving in the ports of the
United States from other countries should be subjected to heavy
discriminating tonnage duties. This is neither equality nor reciprocity,
and is in violation of the arrangement concluded in December, 1831,
between the two countries. The Spanish Government have made repeated and
earnest remonstrances against this inequality, and the favorable
attention of Congress has been several times invoked to the subject by
my predecessors. I recommend, as an act of justice to Spain, that this
inequality be removed by Congress and that the discriminating duties
which have been levied under the act of the 13th of July, 1832, on
Spanish vessels coming to the United States from any other foreign
country be refunded. This recommendation does not embrace Spanish
vessels arriving in the United States from Cuba and Porto Rico, which
will still remain subject to the provisions of the act of June 30, 1834,
concerning tonnage duty on such vessels. By the act of the 14th of July,
1832, coffee was exempted from duty altogether. This exemption was
universal, without reference to the country where it was produced or the
national character of the vessel in which it was imported. By the tariff
act of the 30th of August, 1842, this exemption from duty was restricted
to coffee imported in American vessels from the place of its production,
whilst coffee imported under all other circumstances was subjected to a
duty of 20 per cent _ad valorem_. Under this act and our existing treaty
with the King of the Netherlands Java coffee imported from the European
ports of that Kingdom into the United States, whether in Dutch or
American vessels, now pays this rate of duty. The Government of the
Netherlands complains that such a discriminating duty should have been
imposed on coffee the production of one of its colonies, and which is
chiefly brought from Java to the ports of that Kingdom and exported from
thence to foreign countries. Our trade with the Netherlands is highly
beneficial to both countries and our relations with them have ever been
of the most friendly character. Under all the circumstances of the case,
I recommend that this discrimination should be abolished and that the
coffee of Java imported from the Netherlands be placed upon the same
footing with that imported directly from Brazil and other countries
where it is produced.

Under the eighth section of the tariff act of the 30th of August, 1842,
a d