any negroes, or other property, of the American inhabitants, withdraw all his armies, garrisons, and fleets, from the said United States, and from every port, place, and harbor, within the same."

But the British garrisons were not withdrawn with all convenient speed, nor have ever yet been withdrawn from Machilimackinac, on Lake Michigan; Detroit, on the strait of Lakes Erie and Huron; Fort Erie, on Lake Erie; Niagara, Oswego, on Lake Ontario; Oswegatchie, on the river St. Lawrence; Point Au-fer, and Dutchman's Point, on Lake Champlain.

2d. The British officers have undertaken to exercise a jurisdiction over the country and inhabitants in the vicinities of those forts; and

3d. They have excluded the citizens of the United States from navigating, even on our side of the middle line of the rivers and lakes established as a boundary between the two nations.

By these proceedings, we have been intercepted entirely from the commerce of furs with the Indian nations, to the northward -a commerce which had ever been of great importance to the United States, not only for its intrinsic value, but as it was the means of cherishing peace with those Indians, and of superseding the necessity of that expensive warfare we have been obliged to carry on with them, during the time that these posts have been in other hands.

On withdrawing the troops from New York, 1st. A large embarkation of negroes, of the property of the inhabitants of the United States, took place before the commissioners on our part, for inspecting and superintending embarkations, had arrived there, and without any account ever rendered thereof. 2d. Near three thousand others were publicly carried away by the avowed order of the British commanding officer, and under the view, and against the remonstrances of our commissioners. 3d. A very great number were carried off in private vessels, if not by the express permission, yet certainly without opposition on the part of the commanding officer, who alone had the means of preventing it, and without admitting the inspection of the American commissioners; and 4th. Of other species of property carried away, the

commanding officer permitted no examination at all. In support of these facts, I have the honor to enclose you documents, a list of which will be subjoined, and in addition to them, I beg leave to refer to a roll signed by the joint commissioners, and delivered to your commanding officer for transmission to his court, containing a description of the negroes publicly carried away by his order as before mentioned, with a copy of which you have doubtless been furnished.

A difference of opinion, too, having arisen as to the river intended by the plenipotentiaries to be the boundary between us and the dominions of Great Britain, and by them called the St. Croix, which name, it seems, is given to two different rivers, the ascertaining of this point becomes a matter of present urgency; it has heretofore been the subject of application from us to the Government of Great Britain.

There are other smaller matters between the two nations, which remain to be adjusted, but I think it would be better to refer these for settlement through the ordinary channel of our ministers, than to embarrass the present important discussions with them; they can never be obstacles to friendship and harmony.

Permit me now, sir, to ask from you a specification of the particular acts, which, being considered by his Britannic Majesty as a non-compliance on our part with the engagement contained in the 4th, 5th, and 6th articles of the treaty, induced him to suspend the execution of the 7th, and render a separate discussion of them inadmissible. And accept assurances, &c.

REPORT ON THE PRIVILEGES AND RESTRICTIONS ON THE COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES.1

The Secretary of State, to whom was referred by the House of Rep resentatives, the report of a committee on the written message of the President of the United States, of the 14th of February, 1791, with instructions to report to Congress the nature and extent of the privileges and restrictions of the commercial intercourse of the United States with foreign nations, and the measures which he should think proper to be adopted for the improvement of the commerce and navigation of the same, has had the same under consideration, and thereupon makes the following Report:

The countries with which the United States have their chief commercial intercourse are Spain, Portugal, France, Great Britain, the United Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden, and their 1 Transmitted to Congress in the following letter:

[DECEMBER 16, 1793.] "SIR,-According to the pleasure of the House of Representatives, expressed in their resolution of February 23, 1791, I now lay before them a report on the privileges and restrictions on the commerce of the United States in foreign countries. In order to keep the subject within those bounds which I supposed to be under the contemplation of the House, I have restrained my statements to those countries only with which we carry on a commerce of some importance, and to those articles also of our produce which are of sensible weight in the scale of our exports; and even these articles are sometimes grouped together, according to the degree of favor or restriction with which they are received in each country, and that degree expressed in general terms without detailing the exact duty levied on each article. To have gone fully into these minutiæ, would have been to copy the tariffs and books of rates of the different countries, and to have hidden, under a mass of details, those general and important truths, the extraction of which, in a simple form, I conceived would best answer the inquiries of the House, by condensing material information within those limits of time and attention, which this portion of their duties may justly claim. The plan, indeed, of minute details which have been impracticable with some countries, for want of information.

Since preparing this report, which was put into its present form in time to have been given in to the last session of Congress alterations of the conditions of our commerce with some foreign nations have taken place—some of them independent of war; some arising out of it.

"France has proposed to enter into a new treaty of commerce with us, on

American possessions; and the articles of export, which constitute the basis of that commerce, with their respective amounts, are,

Breadstuff, that is to say, bread grains, meals, and bread,

To descend to articles of smaller value than these, would lead into a minuteness of detail neither necessary nor useful to the present object.

The proportions of our exports, which go to the nations before mentioned, and to their dominions, respectively, are as follows: liberal principles; and has, in the meantime, relaxed some of the restraints mentioned in the report. Spain has, by an ordinance of June last, established New Orleans, Pensacola, and St. Augustine into free ports, for the vessels of friendly nations having treaties of commerce with her, provided they touch for a permit at Corcubion in Gallicia, or at Alicant; and our rice is, by the same ordinance, excluded from that country. The circumstances of war have necessarily given us freer access to the West Indian islands, whilst they have also drawn on our navigation vexations and depredations of a most serious nature. "To have endeavored to describe all these, would have been as impracticable as useless, since the scenes would have been shifting while under description. I therefore think it best to leave the report as it was formed, being adapted to a particular point of time, when things were in their settled order, that is to say, to the summer of 1792. I have the honor to be, &c.

"To the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the United States of

America,"

See vi, pp. 179, 184, 186, and 188.

These imports consist mostly of articles on which industry has been exhausted.

Our navigation, depending on the same commerce, will appear by the following statement of the tonnage of our own vessels, entering in our ports, from those several nations and their possessions, in one year; that is to say, from October, 1789, to September, 1790, inclusive, as follows:

Of our commercial objects, Spain receives favorably our breadstuff, salted fish, wood, ships, tar, pitch, and turpentine. On our meals, however, as well as on those of other foreign countries, when re-exported to their colonies, they have lately imposed duties of from half-a-dollar to two dollars the barrel, the duties being so proportioned to the current price of their own flour, as that both together are to make the constant sum of nine dollars per barrel.