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materially changed by the act of Congress passed at their last session, in alteration of the several acts imposing duties on imports, and by acts of more recent date of the British Parliament. The effect of the interdiction of direct trade, commenced by Great Britain, and reciprocated by the United States, has been, as was to be foreseen, only to substitute different channels for an exchange of commodities indispensable to the colonies, and profitable to a numerous class of our fellow citizens. The exports, the revenue, the navigation, of the United States, have suffered no diminution by our exclusion from direct access to the British colonies. The colonies pay more dearly for the necessaries of life, which their government burthens 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 construction given to the recent acts of Parliament, will be manifestly imcompatible with the positive stipulations of the commercial convention existing between the countries. That convention, however, may be terminated, with twelve months' notice, at the option of either party.

"A treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce, between the United States and His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, has been prepared for signature by the Secretary of State, and by the Baron de Lederer, instructed with full powers of the Austrian Government. Independently of the new and friendly relations which may be thus commenced 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 and of fair reciprocity which intertwine with the exchange of commerce the principles of justice, and the feelings of mutual benevolence. This system, first proclaimed to the world in the first commercial treaty ever concluded by the United States, that of February 6th, 1778, with France, has been invariably the cherished policy of our Union. It 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 unfavorable to the interest of any foreign nation, has been essentially defensive and counteracting to similar regulations of their operations against us.

"Immediately after the close of the war of independence, commissioners were appointed 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 Prussia. During those wars, treaties with Great Britain and Spain had been effected, and those with Russia 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 regulations, 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 establishments, chartered companies,

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and ship building influence, pervaded and encumbered the legislation of all the great 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, accommodated to their existing laws and anterior engagements.

"The colonial system by which this whole hemisphere was bound has fallen into ruins; totally abolished by revolutions, converting colonies into independent nations, throughout the two American continents, excepting a portion of territory chiefly at the northern extremity of our own, and confined to the remnants of dominion retained by Great Britain over the insular archipelago, geographically 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 also had manifested approaches to the adoption of a free and liberal intercourse between her colonies and other nations, though, by a sudden and scarcely explained revulsion, the spirit of exclusion has been revived for operation upon the United States alone.

"The conclusion of our last treaty of peace with Great Britain was shortly afterwards followed by a commercial convention, placing the direct intercourse between the two countries upon a footing of more equal reciprocity than had ever before been admitted. The same principle has since been much farther extended by treaties with France, Sweden, Denmark, and Hanseatic cities, Prussia in Europe, and with the republics of Colombia and of Central America, in this hemisphere. The mutual abolition of discriminating duties and charges upon the navigation and commercial intercourse between the parties is the general maxim which characterizes them all. There is reason to expect that it will, at no distant period, be adopted by other nations, both of Europe and America, and to hope that, by its universal prevalence, one the fruitful sources of war, of commercial competition, will be extinguished." (Gales & Seaton's Register, page 2 of Appendix to vol. 5.) The statistics upon which reliance is placed by some to show the alleged favorable effects of the operation of discriminating duties between 1789 and 1815 are in the main untrustworthy and very incomplete. As early as 1800 the Hon. Albert Gallatin, Secretary of the Treasury, stated: "There is good reason to believe that the total difference between the actual tonnage of every description and the tonnage returned in the statement as such was not less than 200,000 tons on the last day of the year 1800-that is to say, instead of the 972,000 tons exhibited in this statement the United States did not possess over 770,000 tons." (State Papers, Vol. I, p. 494.)

Partial efforts to secure correct returns were made from time to time, and in 1818 the Treasury accounts were carefully revised and corrected. Referring to the correction and giving the following statement of tonnage of the United States, registered for foreign trade:

The Register of the Treasury, Joseph Nourse, in his report dated February 27, 1822, says of the year 1818: "The decrease of tonnage in this year arises principally from the registered tonnage having been corrected in 1818 by striking off all the vessels, the registers of which were

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granted prior to the year 1815, and which were supposed by the collectors to have been lost at sea, captured, etc., etc." (State Papers, Vol. II, p. 648.)

Yet the incorrect figures from 1800 down to 1818 have been used by those not informed of this fact as proof of the rapid increase of our merchant marine under discriminating duties, while the decrease of 200,000 tons, effected in 1818 to correct the books, has been charged as a result of the reciprocity treaty negotiated in 1815 by Clay, Gallatin and Adams.

So incomplete and misleading had our statistics become that in 1819 a committee of the Senate was appointed to devise a complete and accurate system of statistical accounts of the foreign commerce of the United States. Upon this report (American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, Vol. II, pp. 391-403) was based the system of Treasury statistics on commerce and navigation in use since 1821. This report establishes the following facts:

First-Exports.-Up to 1821 there were no statistics to show what exports were carried in American and what in foreign vessels. The committee reported: "We have no statement of the amount or national character of the tonnage departing which is considered as that employed in taking away exports. *** We should know how much of our own tonnage is now employed with these countries (Great Britain, the Netherlands, Sweden, Prussia, Hamburg, and Bremen), and how much of their tonnage now passes through our ports. These facts are not known; without them we can not estimate the effects of the system of equal duties between ourselves and those countries, nor can we compare the effects of this system with the effects of the system of discriminating duties."

Thus while the Treasury statistics, as examined by the Committee of the Senate, showed that up to 1819 it was impossible to ascertain what amount of our exports were carried in American and in foreign bottoms, tables have been devised in recent years, resting on no competent authorities, purporting to give the per cent of exports carried annually in American and foreign vessels from 1789 to 1820, and fluctuations in these percentages are made a matter of comment. It is submitted that such figures concerning our export trade, however devised, are condemned by the reports of the Treasury, and of Congress itself, as untrustworthy. The Senate committee in 1819 appropriately concluded: "It may be better to have no official statements of our foreign commerce than those which are in any great degree defective or erroneous.''

Second-Imports.—"Goods free from duty have never been comprised in the statements of imports in any manner whatever," said the Senate committee in 1819. * * * "The statements of the Treasury, accordingly, present all articles subject to specific duties with accuracy in respect to their kinds and qualities. But the official statements present no valuation whatever of any of the articles subject to specific duties. * ** The imports subject to ad valorem duties are presented in a different form. * * * As many columns are stated as there are rates of ad valorem duties, and under each column the aggregate value of all the imports paying the same rate of duty and nothing else is stated." * * * More than one-third of all the merchandise imported into the United States consists of articles subject to specific duties. The whole of this great mass is presented without any statement of its value."

These extracts from the report of the committee show that there were no statistics up to 1819 giving the full value of our imports, yet tables

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have been devised in recent years, resting on no competent authority, purporting to show the percentage of imports annually carried in American vessels from 1789 to 1820, and fluctuations in these percentages are made the basis for conclusions in favor of discriminating duties on historical and statistical grounds. Adam Seybert, the American statistician, in 1817 made an estimate of the total valuation of our imports for several years previous to 1817, making a careful investigation of prices current of articles subject to specific duties, and these estimates are generally accepted as the only ones now obtainable on the valuation of imports. He did not undertake to estimate the percentage of imports carried in American and foreign vessels.

The generally untrustworthy nature of the early figures upon which reliance is placed by some to support the policy of discriminating duties has already been indicated. There are, however, certain statistics in the American State Papers, Commerce and Navigation, Vols. I, II, which are of some value concerning the tonnage of American and foreign vessels entering the United States. Up to 1821 there are no statistics showing the clearances of American and foreign vessels separately for any number of years.

The preparation of the statistics of entries in the foreign trade was necessary, as tonnage tax was imposed on American and foreign vessels, and customs officers were compelled, in levying the tax, to ascertain the tonnage and report it to the Treasury. The table below is taken from Treasury reports found in the two volumes above referred to, the page being given in each instance:

The foreign tonnage entered in fourteen of the thirty-four years under consideration is taken from Pitkin's Statistical Review (p. 445), published in 1817, as no official figures have been found. Representing actual

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entries, the table above shows the relative activity of American and foreign vessels for the calendar years included. They include vessels with cargo and in ballast, and so do not show exactly the carrying done by either class. As our export carrying trade has always been more valuable to American vessels than our import carrying trade, it is probable that in the figures above relatively a greater American than foreign tonnage entered in ballast. The figures relate, of course, solely to vessels which actually made voyages from a foreign port to an American port. In spite of the imperfection noted, the statistics above are of much more value than the statistics of tonnage registered for the foreign trade. For example, the registered tonnage of the United States in 1812 was apparently 760,624 tons, while the registered American tonnage entering our ports was 655,776 tons, showing the active employment of our shipping in foreign trade. Just before the close of the war of 1812, in 1814 our registered tonnage still amounted apparently to 674,663 tons, but it had been so driven to the shelter of our ports that only 58,756 tons entered the United States during the year. The above table shows the tonnage and percentage of American and foreign vessels entering the United States annually from 1789 (five months only) to 1821, when our present exact plan of statistics was put into operation. The columns giving volume and page refer to American State papers, commerce and navigation, and are included as a guaranty of accuracy. The statistics above may naturally be divided into two periods-first, from 1789 to 1815, the period of incessant European warfare, except for the brief respite in 1801–2 afforded by the treaty of Amiens. Within this period is included the period of the embargo acts, 1808-9, when, as the table indicates, the entries of American vessels sunk one-half, and of the war of 1812, at the close of which nearly all our shipping in foreign trade had been driven to the shelter of home ports. Those who look to acts of Congress concerning commerce as at all times more potent than natural causes, or causes to be found in the great movements of the world, attribute our maritime growth to the policy of discriminating duties from 1789 to the embargo acts and the war of 1812. Those who do not hold to that belief will recognize much force in the following from Adam Seybert's Annals, Philadelphia, 1818.

"The most memorable of revolutions was commenced in France in 1789, the wars, consequent to that event, created a demand for our exports, and invited our shipping for the carrying trade of a very considerable portion of Europe; we not only carried the colonial productions to the several parent States, but we also became the purchasers of them in the French, Spanish, and Dutch colonies. A new era was established in our commercial history; the individuals who partook of these advantages were numerous; our catalogue of merchants was swelled much beyond what it was entitled to be from the state of our population. Many persons who had secured moderate capitals from mechanical pursuits, soon became the most adventurous. The predominant spirit of that time has had a powerful effect in determining the character of the rising generation of the United States. The brilliant prospects held out by commerce caused our citizens to neglect the mechanical and manufacturing branches of industry; fallacious views, founded on temporary circumstances, carried us from these pursuits, which ultimately must constitute the resources, wealth, and power of this nation. Temporary benefits were mistaken for permanent advantages; so certain were the profits on the foreign voyages that commerce was only pursued as an art; all the knowledge which former experience has considered as essentially necessary was now unattended to; the phi