Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/503

lated to colonial trade, embodied the proposal that a direct and similar intercourse should be permitted between the United States and the possessions of European powers in America, or at any rate between the United States and certain free ports in such possessions; and that, if neither of these alternatives could be obtained, then each side should at least be permitted to carry its own produce and merchandise in its own vessels directly to the other. When the wars growing out of the French Revolution began, no progress had been made by the United States towards the attainment of the objects of the second resolution. American vessels laden with the produce of their own country, and in some cases when laden with the produce of other countries, were admitted into most of the European ports, including those of Great Britain, on condition of paying the customary alien dues; but the ports of the colonies continued to be closed against them, while some of the most important American products were specifically excluded from the trade which even the vessels of the dominant country were permitted to carry on between its colonies and the United States. When authorizing Gouverneur Morris, as an informal agent, in 1789, to sound the views of the British ministry concerning relations with the United States, Washington said: "Let it be strongly impressed on your mind that the privilege of carrying our productions in our vessels to their islands, and bringing in return the productions of those islands to our own ports and markets, is regarded here as of the highest importance; and you will be careful not to countenance any idea of our dispensing with it in a treaty." In the following year Morris reported that no arrangement on the subject could be made. The question was, however, revived in the instructions given to Jay, as special plenipotentiary to England, on May 6, 1794. He was directed to secure for American vessels the privilege of carrying between the United States and the British West Indies the same articles as might be transported between the two places in British bottoms, and unless he could obtain this, he was to do no more than refer to his government such concessions as might be offered. He submitted to Lord Grenville a proposal in this sense, but, although it was limited

Anson Burlingame
United States Minister to Peking (1861-67)