of benevolence which the sovereign of the Danish dominions has through every vicissitude of fortune maintained.

The general aspect of the affairs of our neighboring American nations of the south, has been rather of approaching than of settled tranquillity. Internal disturbances have been more frequent among them than their common friends would have desired. Our intercourse with all has continued to be that of friendship and mutual good-will. Treaties of commerce and of boundaries with the United Mexican States have been negotiated, but from various successive obstacles, not yet brought to a final conclusion.

The civil war which unfortunately still prevails in the republic of Central America has been unpropitious to the cultivation of our commercial relations with them; and the dissensions and revolutionary changes in the republics of Colombia and of Peru, have been seen with cordial regret by us, who would gladly contribute to the happiness of both. It is with great satisfaction, however, that we have witnessed the recent conclusion of a peace between the governments of Buenos Ayres and Brazil, and it is equally gratifying to observe that indemnity has been obtained for some of the injuries which our fellow-citizens had sustained in the latter of those countries. The rest are in a train of negotiation, which we hope may terminate to mutual satisfaction, and that it may be succeeded by a treaty of commerce and navigation, upon liberal principles, propitious to a great and growing commerce already important to the interests of our country.

The condition and prospects of the revenue are more favorable than our most sanguine expectations had anticipated. The balance in the Treasury, on the 1st of January last, exclusive of the moneys received under the convention of 13th of November, 1826, with Great Britain, was five millions eight hundred and sixty-one thousand nine hundred and seventy-two dollars, eighty-three cents. The receipts into the Treasury from the 1st of January to the 30th of September last, so far as they have been ascertained, to form the basis of an estimate, amount to eighteen millions six hundred and thirty-three thousand nine hundred and eighty dollars, twenty-seven cents, which, with the receipts of the present quarter, estimated at five millions four hundred and sixty-one thousand two hundred and eighty-three dollars, forty cents, form an aggregate of receipts during the year, of twentyfour millions ninety-four thousand eight hundred and sixty-three dollars, sixty-seven cents. The expenditures of the year may

probably amount to twenty-five millions six hundred and thirtyseven thousand five hundred and eleven dollars, sixty-three cents; and leaving in the Treasury on the 1st of January next, the sum of five millions one hundred and twenty-five thousand six hundred and thirty-eight dollars, fourteen cents.

The receipts of the present year have amounted to near two millions of dollars more than was anticipated at the commencement of the last session of Congress.

The amount of duties secured on importations from the 1st of January to the 30th of September was about twenty-two millions nine hundred and ninety-seven thousand dollars, and that of the estimated accruing revenue is five millions of dollars; leaving an aggregate for the year of near twenty-eight millions of dollars. This is one million more than the estimate made last December, for the accruing revenue of the present year, which, with allowances for drawbacks and contingent deficiencies was expected to produce an actual revenue of twenty-two millions three hundred thousand dollars. Had these only been realized, the expenditures of the year would have been also proportionably reduced. For, of these twenty-four millions of dollars received, upward of nine millions have been applied to the extinction of the public debt, bearing an interest of six per cent a year, and, of course, reducing the burden of interest annually payable in future, by the amount of more than half a million. The payments on ac

count of interest during the current year exceed three millions of dollars; presenting an aggregate of more than twelve millions of dollars, applied during the year to the discharge of the public . debt, the whole of which remaining due on the 1st of January next, will amount only to fifty-eight millions three hundred and sixty-two thousand one hundred and thirty-five dollars, seventyeight cents.

That the revenue of the ensuing year will not fall short of that received in the one now expiring, there are indications which can scarcely prove deceptive. In our country, a uniform experience of forty years has shown that whatever the tariff of duties upon articles imported from abroad has been, the amount of importations has always borne an average value nearly approaching to that of the exports, though occasionally differing in the balance, sometimes being more and sometimes less. It is, indeed, a general law of prosperous commerce, that the real value of exports should, by a small, and only a small balance, exceed that

of imports, that balance being a permanent addition to the wealth of the Nation. The extent of the prosperous commerce of the Nation must be regulated by the amount of its exports; and an important addition to the value of these will draw after it a corresponding increase of importations.

It has happened, in the vicissitudes of the seasons, that the harvests of all Europe have, to the late summer and autumn, fallen short of their usual average. A relaxation of the interdict upon the importation of grain and flour from abroad has ensued, a propitious market has been opened to the granaries of our country, and a new prospect of reward presented to the labors of the husbandman, which, for several years, has been denied. This accession to the profits of agriculture in the middle and western portions of our Union is accidental and temporary. It may continue only for a single year. It may be, as has been often experienced in the revolutions of time, but the first of several scanty harvests in succession. We may consider it certain that, for the approaching year, it has added an item of large amount to the value of our exports, and that it will produce a corresponding increase of importations. It may, therefore, confidently be foreseen that the revenue of 1829 will equal, and probably exceed, that of 1828, and will afford the means of extinguishing ten millions of dollars more of the principal of the public debt.

This new element of prosperity to that part of our agricultural industry, which is occupied in producing the first article of human subsistence, is of the most cheering character to the feelings of patriotism. Proceeding from a cause which humanity will view with concern, the sufferings of scarcity in distant lands, it yields a consolatory reflection that this scarcity is in no respects attributable to us. That it comes from the dispensation of Him who ordains all in wisdom and goodness, and who permits evil itself only as an instrument of good. That, far from contributing to this scarcity, our agency will be applied only to the alleviation of its severity; and that, in pouring forth from the abundance of our own garners the supplies which will partially restore plenty to those who are in need, we shall ourselves reduce our stores, and add to the price of our own bread, so as, in some degree, to participate in the wants which it will be the good fortune of our country to relieve.

The great interests of an agricultural, commercial, and manufacturing nation are so linked in union together, that no perma

nent cause of prosperity to one of them can operate without extending its influence to the others. All these interests are alike under the protecting power of the legislative authority, and the duties of the representative bodies are to conciliate them in harmony together. So far as the object of taxation is to raise a revenue for discharging the debts, and defraying the expenses of the community, it should, as much as possible, suit the burden with equal hand upon all, in proportion with their ability of bearing it without oppression. But the legislation of one nation is sometimes intentionally made to bear heavily upon the interests of another. That legislation adapted, as it is meant to be, to the special interests of its own people, will often press most unequally upon the several component interests of its neighbors. Thus, the legislation of Great Britain, when, as has recently been avowed, adapted to the depression of a rival nation, will naturally abound with regulations of interdict upon the productions of the soil or industry of the other which come in competition with its own; and will present encouragement, perhaps even bounty, to the raw material of the other State, which it can not produce itself, and which is essential for the use of its manufactures, competitors in the markets of the world with those of its commercial rival. Such is the state of the commercial legislation of Great Britain as it bears upon our interests. It excludes, with interdicting duties, all importation (except in time of approaching famine) of the great staple productions of our Middle and Western States; it proscribes with equal rigor bulkier lumber and live stock of the same portion, and also of the northern and eastern part of our Union. It refuses even the rice of the South, unless aggravated with a charge of duty upon the northern carrier who brings it to them. But the cotton, indispensable for their looms, they will receive almost duty free, to weave it into a fabric for our own wear, to the destruction of our own manufactures, which they are enabled thus to undersell.

Is the self-protecting energy of this Nation so helpless that there exists in the political institutions of our country no power to counteract the bias of this foreign legislation? that the growers of grain must submit to this exclusion from the foreign markets of their produce; that the shippers must dismantle their ships, the trade of the North stagnate at the wharves, and the manufacturers starve at their looms, while the whole people shall pay tribute to foreign industry, to be clad in a foreign garb; that

the Congress of the Union is impotent to restore the balance in favor of native industry, destroyed by the statutes of another realm? More just and more generous sentiments will, I trust, prevail. If the tariff adopted at the last session of Congress shall be found by experience to bear oppressively upon the interests of any one section of the Union, it ought to be, and I can not doubt will be, so modified as to alleviate its burden. To the voice of just complaint from any portion of their constituents the representatives of the States and people will never turn away their ears. But so long as the duty of the foreign shall operate only as a bounty upon the domestic article, while the planter, and the merchant, and the shepherd, and the husbandman shall be found thriving in their occupations under the duties imposed for the protection of domestic manufactures, they will not repine at the prosperity shared with themselves by their fellow-citizens of other professions, nor denounce as violations of the Constitution the deliberate acts of Congress to shield from the wrongs of foreign laws the native industry of the Union. While the tariff of the last session of Congress was a subject of legislative deliberation, it was foretold by some of its opposers that one of its necessary consequences would be to impair the revenue. It is yet too soon to pronounce with confidence that this prediction was erroneous. The obstruction of one avenue of trade not unfrequently opens an issue to another. The consequence of the tariff will be to increase the exportation and to diminish the importation of some specific articles. But, by the general law of trade, the increase of exportation of one article will be followed by an increased importation of others, the duties upon which will supply the deficiencies which the diminished importation would otherwise occasion. The effect of taxation upon revenue can seldom be foreseen with certainty. It must abide the test of experience. As yet no symptoms of diminution are perceptible in the receipts of the Treasury. As yet, little addition of cost has even been experienced upon the article burdened with heavier duties by the last tariff. The domestic manufacturer supplies the same or a kindred article at a diminished price, and the consumer pays the same tribute to the labor of his own countrymen which he must otherwise have paid to foreign industry and toil.

The tariff of the last session was, in its details, not acceptable to the great interests of any portion of the Union, not even to the interests which it was specially intended to subserve. Its