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Subject Area: Economics
Subject Area: Political Theory

GALLATIN TO HENRY CLAY. - Albert Gallatin, The Writings of Albert Gallatin, vol. 2 [1879]

Edition used:

The Writings of Albert Gallatin, ed. Henry Adams (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott, 1879). 3 vols.

Part of: The Writings of Albert Gallatin, 3 vols.

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GALLATIN TO HENRY CLAY.

No. 10.

London, 14th September, 1826.

Sir,—

I received last night at ten o’clock Mr. Canning’s answer (dated 11th instant) to my note of the 26th of August. It is much too long to be transcribed in time for this packet. In hopes that this letter may yet reach Liverpool in time, I enclose a transcript of the last paragraphs, which is all that I have time to do.

The enactment alluded to in the first line of the enclosed transcript is that clause of the Act of Congress of 1823 which I had overlooked in my note of the 26th of August to Mr. Canning, and which provides in substance that no British ship entering an American port from the United Kingdom or from any other British possession, except directly from the West India colonies, shall be allowed to clear out from any port of the United States for any of those colonies. It is made a prominent reason for the course now adopted by this government, that this clause was suffered to remain in force after the restrictions of the Act of Parliament of 1822, on which it was professedly founded, had been done away by the Act of Parliament of 1825, and I understand that enactment to be the pretension, recorded in the Act of Congress aforesaid, which, so long as it remains the law of the United States, will prevent the British government from consenting to any renewal of the negotiation upon the colonial intercourse.

In your instructions to me you observe, in relation to the Act of Parliament of 1825, that according to its provisions “the foreign vessel is restricted to a direct intercourse between the country to which it belongs and the British colony, adhering in this respect to the old principle of her Navigation Law.”

I am thence led to infer that it was not understood that the restriction was done away by the Act of Parliament, and that to that circumstance must be ascribed the continuance in force of the corresponding restriction of the Act of Congress of 1823.

Mr. Canning’s note is not written in the most assuaging manner, and there are at least some observations which might have been omitted. I will take my own time to answer it.

I have not time to add anything more, and have the honor to be, &c.