request, and of informing him that proper arrangements have been made for the free embarcation of his suite and baggage.

The undersigned, however, declares to Mr Nelson, by order of the King, that, although he may have thought proper to quit the country, yet the Sicilian Government does not consider the negotiation terminated; as his Majesty, actuated by that spirit of conciliation which forms so distinguished a trait in his character, has con⚫ ceived certain propositions, which, being similar to those agreed upon in the late convention between France and the United States, seem likely to accommodate the existing differences.

His Sicilian Majesty, urged by a sincere desire to maintain and strengthen his amicable relations with the United Sates, and to dispel the existing difficulties, is determined to bring the affair in question to a conclusion, and, as the departure of Mr Nelson will render that impossible here, his Majesty will send immediately to the United States a Diplomatic Agent, furnished with proper instructions, and with the powers necessary for making a treaty, and thus ending the negotiations here begun.

Having thus communicated to Mr Nelson the determination of his Majesty, the undersigned renews to that gentleman the assurances of his esteem.

THE PRINCE OF CASSARO.

141. Mr Nelson to Mr Livingston.

Issue of the Negociation.

Naples, October 8th, 1832. Sir: I have the honor to inform you that, after I had received my passports, which my last despatch apprized you I had demanded, and on the very day assigned for my audience of leave, I received a note from the Prince of Cassaro, in which he stated that urgent duties would prevent the King from seeing me according to appointment, and suggested the expediency of another interview on the following day. To this proposal I, of course, acceded, and have been constantly occupied since in the business of my negotiation, which I have great pleasure in informing you has been brought to an issue, highly favorable, as I think, to the interests of the claimants. The treaty is now preparing, and will be signed in a day or two. In the meantime, I have obtained from the Secretary for Foreign Affairs a written statement of the terms of the settlement.

By this agreement, this Government stipulates the payment of two millions one hundred and fifteen thousand ducats, in instalments, with interest. This sum, I believe, will very nearly cover the principal of all the just and well-founded claims. The negotiation has been a very arduous one; but if the result should prove satisfactory to the Government of the United States, I shall find in its approbation a full remuneration for the toils and vexations to which I have been exposed during it progress. I have the honor to be, &c. JOHN NELSON.

The treaty, made in 1782, having no limitation, continued in force till the creation of the kingdom of the Netherlands and the consolidation of the Dutch and Belgic provinces in 1814 and '15. Separate from the great and lucrative trade carried on with the Dutch East and West Indies, and colonies on the American

con

tinent, this country has had from 1794 (with the exception of '99, when Holland was invaded by an English and Russian army, and during nearly the whole year her ports declared to be in vigorous blockade) a vast direct commerce till 1808 and 9. But the diplomatic relations, subject to uncommon vicissitudes, have been interrupted the greater part of the time. Holland fell the same year with Austrian Flanders, and the country on the left bank of the Rhine.

From that period we trace the original Dutch confederacy through the successive changes of a national assembly, a Batavian republic, an aristocratic legislature, an elective monarchy, an hereditary monarchy, a department in 1810 of the imperial government, and lastly, to its union in 1814 and '15, with Belgium. The United States have not followed step by step these revolutions in its government; but a friendly intercourse has always been maintained, and till the abdication of Louis in July, 1810, many openings were found for trade, notwithstanding the severity, with which the continental system was attempted to be enforced. The special application of that system to Holland, however, in 1809, and the following years, subsequently gave rise to the same controversy, on the subject of illegal seizures, the government has had with Spain and Naples. American property to a great amount was unjustly seized, and, ultimately, confiscated. * That, which was not liable to the operation of the Berlin and Milan decrees, was sequestered under the 10th article of the treaty of Paris of March 1810. It is in these words:

"Every description of merchandise that has arrived in the ports of Holland in Ame rican vessels since the 1st January, 1809, or which shall hereafter so arrive, shall be pat under sequestration, and shall belong to France, to be disposed of according to circumstan ces and the political relations of that country with the United States."

This treaty, the Dutch admiral Verhuel was obliged to sign with M. de Champagny. It was the preliminary step to the abdication of Louis, an event, indeed, that followed a few months after. Louis in his own hand made observations on the different provisions of this treaty. They have been preserved, and have since been published in a manner, that leaves no doubt of their authenticity. In regard to the 10th article just quoted he remarks: "I expect, from the justice of the Emperor, that he will express his intentions in a different way, as it respects this property. I think it should be treated as property, under similar circumstances, has been in Spain and Naples, and that the same date should be assigned for the application of the article." This arrangement would have placed the property in depôt subject to future examination and decision. The history of the clains of this country on the Dutch government does not differ in principle from that on Spain or Naples.

The negotiations with the Kingdom of the Netherlands, since the peace of 1815, present little variety or novelty. They relate solely to claims for spoliations, and to the concluding of a commercial convention, containing the doctrine of recip rocal importation and charges and duties.

In 1918 an attempt was made by the United States to renew the ancient treaty of 1782 with modifications, adapted to the actual condition of both countries. This failed in consequence of the law of March 3d, 1815, requiring the repeal of

These confiscations, known as the "Antwerp" and the "Helland” claims, are now in a course of liquidation: the memorials, in both cases, have been received by the commissioners under the French treaty of July 4, 1851.

all discriminating duties on the part of foreign nations, as it regarded the United States, while it provided only a partial repeal on the United States, as it regarded foreign countries. The statute did not rescind the charge on tonnage, and the import only on merchandise, the produce or manufacture of the nation, to which the vessel, in which imported, belonged. On the other hand, the Netherlands law repealed the countervailing duty both on tonnage and merchandise whatever might be its origin. This inequality of municipal regulations proved fatal to a renewal of the treaty of 1782, one of the most ancient in the collection, and the only one, concluded with the Dutch Government. The course of trade of the Netherlands, alsc, presented great difficulties. Few articles, either of the produce or manufacture of that kingdom, were objects of exportation, that branch of trade consisting principally of foreign productions.

In the supposition, that the law of March, 1815, was abrogated in regard to the Netherlands, it would have been necessary to have gone through an entire revision of all the modern commercial treaties. The proposition of the U. S. demanding to be admitted into the Dutch colonies on the footing of the most favored nation, constituted another serious obstacle. This was rejected from the considera. tion, that the United States possessed no colonies, and could offer no terms of reciprocity in that particular; a refusal, partaking somewhat of an invidious air, for, as most other nations held colonies, whether small or large, the prohibition appeared to apply exclusively to this country.

That power, at the close of the great political reforms, regenerations, remodellings and recastings of 1814, 1815, owned but the small and decayed islands of St. Eustatia and Curacoa, (and two others so obscure as hardly to merit being mentioned) whose whole produce was confined to a few articles and in limited quantities. On the other hand, a country, affording the greatest variety of native staple products, able at this moment to supply all Europe with flour, tobacco, lumber and cotton wool, with a most extensive coast, and whose markets must every day become more valuable from the rapid increase of wealth and population, was denied almittance to these islands, because she possessed no colonies, whose trade could be offered in return. The application of the principle in this particular case, certainly, appears altogether abstract. There are, also, occasions, when a trade with the United States is of indispensable necessity to save the islands from starvation, caused by drought or hurricanes. No foreign country, it is true, is under an obli-` gation, (except, indeed, urged by those great principles of humanity and civilization, which fall little short, of necessity, of the most rigid kind) to rescue a popu lation in that unfortunate condition from suffering or death. All are at liberty to forego the temporary advantages, that this lamentable state of things offers. Dut there seems to be some equity, or reason in requiring, that a trade, occasionally of the greatest importance to the islands themselves, should be accompanied with a benefit and security of a less precarious and even capricious character to the people, that can alone conduct it. In a practical view it is the more remarkable, that the Netherlands should hold to a colonial monopoly with so much earnestness, as the commerce of the kingdom is now confined chiefly to a traffic in foreign products and manufactures.

The commercial treaty of 1822, was not renewed by the American minister, but arrangements equally beneficial, though of a less permanent character, was

effected by means of corresponding municipal regulations. In October, 1816, the Netherlands adopted the terms offered by the countervailing duty law of March 1815, to which we have already referred, and in all imposts and tonnage charges, placed the trade of this country on a footing of equality and reciprocity. But as the act of March 1815 repealed only the impost on merchandise under certain circumstances, the United States, in order to establish on their part a more perfect equality and reciprocity, in April 1818, removed, also, the tonnage charged in regard to Netherlands ships. Matters remained in this state till the Autumn of 1822, when the Netherlands government, either perceiving that the carrying trade from their ports was falling into foreign hands, or not deriving equal advantages with the United States from the system of reciprocity, in consequence of the circumstance, that most of their exportations consisted of articles, not the produce or manufacture of their own country, in favour of which only our countervailing duties were rescinded, published a new tariff of duties, which, among other things, provided, that "one tenth of the duties, paid upon the importation or exportation of all goods, shall be returned, when the same are imported, or exported in Dutch vessels." It is unnecessary to say, that this provision was a direct bounty on Dutch navigation, and as direct an encroachment on the system of equality and reciprocity, though the minister, M. de Nagell was not disposed to affix to it that interpretation.

By the laws of 12th June 1821 and 10th August last, the duties remain without distinction the same for foreign ships and for national. This restitution of a tenth for merchandise, imported by the ships of the Netherlands, has done no more (as the 11th article of the law of the 12th July 1821, expresses it) than to give encouragement and proper aid to the works of the nation. This restitution, therefore, supplies the place of the premiums of encouragement, which the government might have granted to every ship, built in the Netherlands, a dispositior, which certainly never could have given room to the American government to complain of an inequality of treatment in respect to their ships. If the government of the United States had found it good to grant a similar premium to the American ships, surely the King could have found in that no cause of remonstrance. His Majesty would have only seen in it a bounty, intended to encourage or favour the manufactures of the nation.

The act of January 7, 1824, in anticipation of the restoration of countervailing duties, on the part of foreign nations, with whom the principle of reciprocity was not secured by treaty, gave full authority to the President to withdraw by proclamation from the navigation of countries, adopting that course, the privileges and advantages, conferred by the acts of March 1815 and April 1818. But as the Netherlands government maintained, in its correspondence on the subject, that the ten per cent. bounty of August 1822 was solely intended to encourage national ship building, and, by no means, to affect the tonnage or impost charges on exportations or importations, and, as the act of January 1824, did not, in precise terms, invest the executive with power to determine what should be considered a revival of countervailing duties on the part of a foreign nation to the disadvantage of the United States, a doubt arose, whether the inequality, created by the Netherlands tariff, could be counteracted by the retaliatory provisions of that law; the matter was, therefore, referred to the consideration of Congress, and a law was passed, which met the difficulty.

143. Intercourse with Portugal.

Extract from the General Instructions of the State Department to Gen. Dearborn, in 1822. Independently of the changes in the diplomatic relations of the two countries, which have resulted from the removal of the king from Rio de Janeiro to Lisbon, other accidental circumstances have concurred to cause some irregularity and disorder in them. In the spring of the year 1819, Mr. John Graham was appointed minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the Court of Brazil, to succeed Mr Thomas Sumpter, junior, who had resided there in that capacity, almost from the time of the transfer of the Portuguese government thither. Mr Graham, within little more than a year from the time of his departure on that mission from the United States, was compelled to return home, and barely lived to reach this country.

About the same time the Chevalier Correa de Serra, who had for several years resided as the minister plenipotentiary of Portugal in this country, was recalled and left the United States. A resolution of the senate of the United States in March, 1821, recommended to the President the appointment of a minister to the Court of Brazil, but the return of the king of Portugal to Europe, very shortly afterwards, rendered a compliance with this resolution unavailing.

The departure of that prince from Rio de Janeiro had been preceded by various movements of a revolutionary character, as well there, as in Portugal. He had, immediately before embarking, appointed, as his minister to the United States, the person, who since his arrival in Europe, has acted as his secretary of state for foreign affairs. And it appears that since the revolution there, which has invested the Cortes with a principal portion of the sovereign authority, the policy of maintaining ministers of the plenipotentiary rank from that country has been suspended. A chargé d'affaires has been appointed to repair to Washington, but has not yet arrived. In the mean time, that office has been discharged by the Chevalier Amado Grehon, who had been secretary of legation to Mr Correa, and recently a Mr Decosta has been here, and announced himself, as attached to the legation, and to exercise the powers of consul general.

After the invasion by the Brazilian Portuguese government of Montevideo and the eastern shore of the river La Plata, a revolutionary government under the name of the Oriental Republic of La Plata, and subject to the authority of a military chief, named Artigas, for several years maintained a defensive war, at once, against them and against the rival revolutionary republic, styled the United Provinces of La Plata. The latter, the seat of government of which was at Buenos Ayres, never came to a state of declared war with Portugal, but the Republic of Artigas did, and that commander issued commissions for privateers and letters of marque against the Portuguese, under which the commerce of that nation was, for three or four years, much annoyed. Of the captures made by these privateers, several were brought into the ports of the United States, and frequent complaints were received from Mr Correa, that some of the privateers were fitted out within the U. States, and partly manned by their citizens. To this complaint every attention, compatible with the rights of the citizens of the United States and with the laws of nations, was paid by this government. The laws, for securing the faithful performance of the duties of neutrality, were revived and enforced. Decrees of restitution were pronounced by the judicial tribunals, in all cases of Portuguese captured vessels,