Thirty Years' View (Vol. I of 2). Benton Thomas Hart

negotiation; but without success. The British government refused to open the question: and thus the direct access to this valuable commerce remained sealed against us. President Adams, at the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, formally communicated this fact to that body, and in terms which showed at once that an insult had been received, an injury sustained, redress refused, and ill-will established between the two governments. He said:

      "At the commencement of the last session of Congress, they were informed of the sudden and unexpected exclusion by the British government, of access, in vessels of the United States, to all their colonial ports, except those immediately bordering upon our own territory.

      "In the amicable discussions which have succeeded the adoption of this measure, which, as it affected harshly the interests of the United States, became a subject of expostulation on our part, the principles upon which its justification has been placed have been of a diversified character. It has at once been ascribed to a mere recurrence to the old long-established principle of colonial monopoly, and at the same time to a feeling of resentment, because the offers of an act of Parliament, opening the colonial ports upon certain conditions, had not been grasped at with sufficient eagerness by as 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. The British government have not only declined negotiation upon the subject, but, by the principle they have assumed with reference to it, have precluded even the means of negotiation. It becomes not the self-respect of the United States, either to solicit gratuitous favours, or to accept, as the grant of a favor, that for which an ample equivalent is exacted."

      This was the communication of Mr. Adams to Congress, and certainly nothing could be more vexatious or hopeless than the case which he presented – an injury, an insult, a rebuff, and a refusal to talk with us upon the subject. Negotiation, and the hope of it, having thus terminated, President Adams did what the laws required of him, and issued his proclamation making known to the country the total cessation of all direct commerce between the United States and the British West India Islands.

      The loss of this trade was a great injury to the United States (besides the insult), and was attended by circumstances which gave it the air of punishment for something that was past. It was a rebuff in the face of Europe; for while the United States were sternly and unceremoniously cut off from the benefit of the act of 1825, for omission to accept it within the year, yet other powers in the same predicament (France, Spain and Russia) were permitted to accept after the year; and the "irritated feelings" manifested by Mr. Huskisson indicated a resentment which was finding its gratification. We were ill-treated, and felt it. The people felt it. It was an ugly case to manage, or to endure; and in this period of its worst aspect General Jackson was elected President.

      His position was delicate and difficult. His election had been deprecated as that of a rash and violent man, who would involve us in quarrels with foreign nations; and here was a dissension with a great nation lying in wait for him – prepared to his hand – the legacy of his predecessor – either to be composed satisfactorily, or to ripen into retaliation and hostility; for it was not to be supposed that things could remain as they were. He had to choose between an attempt at amicable recovery of the trade by new overtures, or retaliation – leading to, it is not known what. He determined upon the first of these alternatives, and Mr. Louis McLane, of Delaware, was selected for the delicate occasion. He was sent minister to London; and in renewing an application which had been so lately and so categorically rejected, some reason had to be given for a persistance which might seem both importunate and desperate, and even deficient in self-respect; and that reason was found in the simple truth that there had been a change of administration in the United States, and with it a change of opinion on the subject, and on the essential point of a "right" in us to have our productions admitted into her West Indies on the same terms as British productions were received; that we were willing to take the trade as a "privilege," and simply and unconditionally, under the act of Parliament of 1825. Instructions to that effect had been drawn up by Mr. Van Buren, Secretary of State, under the special directions of General Jackson, who took this early occasion to act upon his cardinal maxim in our foreign intercourse: "Ask nothing but what is right – submit to nothing wrong." This frank and candid policy had its effect. The great object was accomplished. The trade was recovered; and what had been lost under one administration, and precariously enjoyed under others, and been the subject of fruitless negotiation for forty years, and under six different Presidents – Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Quincy Adams – with all their accomplished secretaries and ministers, was now amicably and satisfactorily obtained under the administration of General Jackson; and upon the basis to give it perpetuity – that of mutual interest and actual reciprocity. The act of Parliament gave us the trade on terms nearly as good as those suggested by Washington in 1789; fully as good as those asked for by him in 1794; better than those inserted in the treaty of that year, and suspended by the Senate; and, though nominally on the same terms as given to the rest of the world, yet practically better, on account of our proximity to this British market; and our superabundance of articles (chiefly provisions and lumber) which it wants. And the trade has been enjoyed under this act ever since, with such entire satisfaction, that there is already an oblivion of the forty years' labor which it cost us to obtain it; and a generation has grown up, almost without knowing to whom they are indebted for its present enjoyment. But it made its sensation at the time, and a great one. The friends of the Jackson administration exulted; the people rejoiced; gratification was general – but not universal; and these very instructions, under which such great and lasting advantages had been obtained, were made the occasion in the Senate of the United States of rejecting their ostensible author as a minister to London. But of this hereafter.

      The auspicious conclusion of so delicate an affair was doubtless first induced by General Jackson's frank policy in falling back upon Washington's ground of "privilege," in contradistinction to the new pretension of "right," – helped out a little, it may be, by the possible after-clap suggested in the second part of his maxim. Good sense and good feeling may also have had its influence, the trade in question being as desirable to Great Britain as to the United States, and better for each to carry it on direct in their own vessels, than circuitously in the vessels of others; and the articles on each side being of a kind to solicit mutual exchange – tropical productions on one part, and those of the temperate zone on the other. But there was one thing which certainly contributed to the good result, and that was the act of Congress of May 29th, of which General Samuel Smith, senator from Maryland, was the chief promoter; and by which the President was authorized, on the adoption of certain measures by Great Britain, to open the ports of the United States to her vessels on reciprocal terms. The effect of this act was to strengthen General Jackson's candid overture; and the proclamation opening the trade was issued October the 5th, 1830, in the second year of the first term of the administration of President Jackson. And under that proclamation this long desired trade has been enjoyed ever since, and promises to be enjoyed in after time co-extendingly with the duration of peace between the two countries.

      CHAPTER XLIII.

      ESTABLISHMENT OF THE GLOBE NEWSPAPER

      At a presidential levee in the winter of 1830-'31, Mr. Duff Green, editor of the Telegraph newspaper, addressed a person then and now a respectable resident of Washington city (Mr. J. M. Duncanson), and invited him to call at his house, as he had something to say to him which would require a confidential interview. The call was made, and the object of the interview disclosed, which was nothing less than to engage his (Mr. Duncanson's) assistance in the execution of a scheme in relation to the next presidential election, in which General Jackson should be prevented from becoming a candidate for re-election, and Mr. Calhoun should be