into the United States from Canada, for which there was no remedy, as the limited power of the colonial legislatures precludes their levying duties on imports from the United States, different from those imposed on imports from Great Britain into the colonies. That stipulation has, therefore, enabled the subjects of the United States to supply Canada with teas, East India goods of all sorts, West India produce, and various articles of European and American manufacture to a very great extent; although this traffic, so beneficial to the commerce and navigation of America, is contrary to the colonial system of Great Britain, and injurious to the interests of various classes of his Majesty's subjects, and gives effect to the trade which the citizens of the United States are unfortunately allowed to carry on with the British East India settlements, which it would be an infringement of the company's charter to grant to any of his Majesty's subjects; whilst it is contrary to the spirit of the 13th article of the treaty of 1794, which restricted the introduction of East India goods to the territories of the United States only*. The demand for such commodities will naturally increase with the growing population and wealth of the King's North American provinces, and will become every year an object of greater importance to the United States.

By the second paragraph, of the same article, of that treaty, it is evidently intended not to admit articles entirely prohibited; but no goods whatever from Great Britain are prohibited to be imported; and therefore, under the stipulations of that article of the treaty, any kind of goods may be imported

* See the Judgment in Wilson v. Marryat, Ex. C. May 1799, wherein the Lord Chief Justice Eyre censures the Concession to America of a free Trade to India.

Extract from a letter from Kingston, Jamaica, dated the 2d of March, 1808.—“The quantity of nankeen cotton cloth alone consumed in this Colony and in the Leeward Islands, has been computed to be in a ratio of ten to one of smuggled from the United States, against that imported in English Bottoms; and which the officers of Custom-house with all possible vigilance cannot by any means prevent. There are so many means of landing and vending those articles that no vigilance can prevent it. The quantity of other East India goods and foreign silks is beyond calculation."

+ It is to be recollected that this relates to inland trade, as the subjects of the United States are not allowed to trade coastwise with the king's colonies, and it is expected the policy of this most salutary restriction will never be lost sight of by the government of Great Britain, and that under no circumstances whatever will the Americans be allowed to trade coastwise with the provinces. See the 28th Geo. 3. c. 6. S. 12. which ordains that no goods shall be imported from the United States into the provinces of Nova-Scotia, or New Brunswick, the

from the United States into Canada; from whence they are enabled considerably to undersell various articles directly imported into that province from Great Britain; therefore on principles of reciprocity, as not any articles whatever, excepting furs or peltries can be exported from Canada, into the inland ports of the United States without payment of duties, so with the same exception goods should not be allowed to be imported into Canada by land or inland navigation from the United States without payment of similar duties.

In the mode of calculating the duties alluded to in the latter part of the second paragraph of the 3d article of the treaty of 1794, Canada sustained an injustice which ought to be remedied.

By the revenue laws of the United States, all goods imported, the duties upon which are not specifically rated, are charged, with the duty of fifteen per cent ad valorem, excepting goods from the Cape of Good Hope, and beyond it. În calculating this duty, ten per cent is first added to the actual cost of the goods; for instance, suppose the first cost of the goods imported from Europe to be

Add ten per cent duty

Which makes

£100

10

£110

The duty of fifteen per cent upon £110 will then be sixteen pounds, ten shillings; whereas on goods exported from Canada, into the United States, the duty of ten per cent is charged, not on the cost of the goods in Europe, according to their rule with regard to other Nations, but upon their value at Montreal; it being the custom of merchants there, to consider the expence and risk of transporting merchandize from England to Montreal equal to £33 per cent; so that goods which cost in England £100 is estimated at Montreal at £133: 6: 8; therefore the revenue officers of the United States instead of levying the duty of £10 per cent island of Cape Breton, St. John or Newfoundland, or into any country or island within their respective governments, except in cases of emergency and distress, when articles of necessity may be allowed to be imported according to the regulations therein contained, and by the 13th section, no goods whatever can be imported from the United States by sea or coastwise, into Canada or the countries or islands within that government, or up the river St. Lawrence, but which was afterwards qualified by the 29 Geo. 3. c. 16, and 30 Geo. 3. c. 8. as to articles of necessity in cases of emergency only.

on the first cost of the article, calculate and charge the same on the estimated value at Montreal, namely on £133 6 8 The duty of £10 per cent on which is

13 6 8

£146 13 4

consequently the ad valorem duty of £15 per cent thereon will be £22 per cent, instead of 16: 10 per cent, as paid by every other European nation trading with the United States, which is certainly contrary to the intention of the treaty. Whilst the goods which are carried by his Majesty's subjects into the territories of the United States in the prosecution of the fur and other trades, pay so high 'a duty as £22 per cent, it is easily to be foreseen, that with such an impost, and with the serious impediments in respect to navigation, which are so industriously thrown in their way, that the fur trade from Canada, notwithstanding the advantages and experience possessed by the British merchants there, cannot long be conducted with profit to themselves, or advantage to the state; it is therefore necessary, in any future negotiation with the United States, to stipulate, that the duty on such goods shall not exceed the duty imposed by the United States on the goods of other nations, but that the same shall be fixed on principles of reciprocity, with regard to the trade of both countries.

From these observations, it is manifest, that in the late treaty with the United States, no adequate protection was obtained or secured for the trade of the British colonies in North America, but that the same was overlooked and neglected, and left under circumstances peculiarly harassing and distressing, to negotiation and discussion at a future period!

*

These circumstances and the important facts disclosed in the case of the American sloop, Falmouth, which is reprinted, in order, to attract the attention of the mother country, to the present state of the loyal colonies in North America, renders it requisite, before any treaty is concluded between Great Britain and the United States, that the boundaries of the British provinces in North America, which remain undefined or questioned, should be ascertained and defi

*See Appendix, No. 1. (A.)

nitively fixed; and the terms and conditions on, which the inland trade of the colonies with the United States, is to be carried on, regulated; and the islands in Passamaquoddy Bay, which have been taken possession of by their subjects, unequivocally acknowledged by the United States, to belong to the crown of Great Britain, in full sovereignty; otherwise they will from their proximity continue to be a constant source of dispute and inquietude: yet until some definitive arrangement is adopted respecting them and the adjacent waters, it is to be presumed, the king's officers in the colonies will not shrink from their duty, and continue to tolerate the illicit trade carried on there by the subjects of the United States, but enforce the laws of the mother country, in which they should be encouraged and protected by his Majesty's government and his representatives in the provinces.

These islands, it will appear by reference to the treaty of 1783, were admitted to form part of Nova Scotia, now New Brunswick, the former having been divided into two provinces in 1784; but since, by the unjustifiable encroachments of the subjects of the United States, they have been wrested from Great Britain, without any interference or exertion to prevent it; on the contrary, they were to have been, by the unratified convention of May, 1803, most impolitically ceded to the United States.

From these islands the Americans carry on an illicit trade, most lucrative to themselves, but seriously detrimental and ruinous to the provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, whose inhabitants are supplied by them from thence with liquors, tobacco, teas, and all kinds of India and other manufactured goods, and occasionally with small quantities of pitch, tar, and turpentine, for which they receive in return specie, peltry, fish, lumber, grindstones, gypsum and other things, and thus they drain the British provinces of their most valuable articles.

The greatest part of the fish caught in the adjoining bays and rivers by British subjects, and cured on these islands, as well as the lumber prepared there, instead of being sold to merchants residing in the King's provinces, and exported from thence, according to law, is disposed of* to the American traders at these places, who send it coastwise in American

*See Mr. Baring's examination of the conduct of Great Britain towards the Neutral Commerce of America, p. 173,

vessels to Boston and New York, from whence it is again shipped in their own bottoms to the British West-India Islands: thus the freight of these commodities to market is lost to the British ship owner, and the British West-India planters are induced to think these articles of supply can only be furnished from the United States, though a very considerable part of the supplies annually imported into the British WestIndia islands in American bottoms, is in fact the produce of the King's colonies in North America.

Another important object is gained by the United States from such usurpations, their subjects being allowed to retain possession of the islands, it affords them the opportunity of engrossing in a great measure the gypsum trade of the British provinces. The importance of this trade is not sufficiently known; gypsum, or as it is there called plaister of Paris, is now, generally, used throughout the United States as a manure, having been found from experience to be preferable to any other, producing the most abundant crops, from impoverished, or such as were before considered sterile lands*.

This highly valuable article, after several ineffectual attempts to discover veins of it within the United States, has been ascertained to be the produce of the British colonies only, reserved as it were by the bounty of Providence as a reward for the former sufferings of their loyal inhabitants. May no innovating hand deprive them of this inestimable and increasing source of trade and wealth!

The quantity dug in 1806, from the quarries in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick only, was upwards of 40,000 tons, for which the demand was regular; but unfortunately, from the illegal practices prevalent at these islands, threefourths at least of that quantity was carried from thence to market in American, instead of British shipping. It is a fact ascertained by persons in the islands, that during the summer of that year, there were from fifty to seventy sail of Ame rican vessels, constantly lying in Passamaquoddy bay, waiting to complete their ladings of gypsum, from the small craft in which it is brought down from the quarries in the provinces. On the contrary, if the statute of the 7th and 8th of

* See Parkinson's American Farmer, p. 365, who admits its very valuable qualities, but says it is not of so much use but where the land is by nature rich or dunged.