t
opening the colonial ports upon certain conditions had not been grasped
at with sufficient eagerness by an instantaneous conformity to them. At
a subsequent period it has been intimated that the new exclusion was in
resentment because a prior act of Parliament, of 1822, opening certain
colonial ports, under heavy and burdensome restrictions, to vessels of
the United States, had not been reciprocated by an admission of British
vessels from the colonies, and their cargoes, without any restriction or
discrimination whatever. But be the motive for the interdiction what it
may, the British Government have manifested no disposition, either by
negotiation or by corresponding legislative enactments, to recede from
it, and we have been given distinctly to understand that neither of the
bills which were under the consideration of Congress at their last
session would have been deemed sufficient in their concessions to have
been rewarded by any relaxation from the British interdict. It is one of
the inconveniences inseparably connected with the attempt to adjust by
reciprocal legislation interests of this nature that neither party can
know what would be satisfactory to the other, and that after enacting a
statute for the avowed and sincere purpose of conciliation it will
generally be found utterly inadequate to the expectations of the other
party, and will terminate in mutual disappointment.

The session of Congress having terminated without any act upon the
subject, a proclamation was issued on the 17th of March last,
conformably to the provisions of the sixth section of the act of 1st
March, 1823, declaring the fact that the trade and intercourse
authorized by the British act of Parliament of 24th June, 1822, between
the United States and the British enumerated colonial ports had been by
the subsequent acts of Parliament of 5th July, 1825, and the order of
council of 27th July, 1826, prohibited. The effect of this proclamation,
by the terms of the act under which it was issued, has been that each
and every provision of the act concerning navigation of 18th April,
1818, and of the act supplementary thereto of 15th May, 1820, revived
and is in full force. Such, then, is the present condition of the trade
that, useful as it is to both parties, it can, with a single momentary
exception, be carried on directly by the vessels of neither. That
exception itself is found in a proclamation of the governor of the
island of St. Christopher