Of the exports, nearly one-half was carried to the kingdom of Great Britain and its dominions; of the imports, about four-fifths were brought from the same countries. The American shipping amounted to two hundred and seventy-seven thousand, five hundred and nineteen tons, of which not quite one-sixth was employed in the trade with Great Britain and its dominions.

In all the nations of Europe, most of the articles produced in the United States were subjected to heavy duties, and some of them were prohibited. In England, the trade of the United States was in the general on as good a footing as the trade of other countries; and several articles were more favoured than the same articles of the growth of other countries.

The statements and arguments of this report tended to enforce the policy of making discriminations which might favour the commerce of the United States with France, and discourage that with England; and which might promote the increase of American navigation as a branch of industry, and a resource of defence.

This was the last official act of the secretary of state. Early in the preceding summer, he had signified to the President his intention to retire in September from the public service; and had, with some reluctance, consented to postpone the execution of this intention to the close of the year. Retaining his purpose, he resigned his office on the last day of December.

He resigns.

This gentleman withdrew from political station at a moment when he stood particularly high in the esteem of his countrymen. His determined opposition to the financial schemes which had been proposed by the secretary of the treasury, and approved by the legislative and executive departments of the government; his ardent and undisguised attachment to the revolutionary party in France; the dispositions which he was declared to possess in regard to Great Britain; and the popularity of his opinions respecting the constitution of the United States; had devoted to him that immense party whose sentiments were supposed to comport with his, on most, or all of these interesting subjects. To the opposite party he had, of course, become particularly unacceptable. But the publication of his correspondence with Mr. Genet dissipated much of the prejudice which had been excited against him. He had, in that correspondence, maintained with great ability the opinions embraced by the federalists on those points of difference which had arisen between the two republics; and which, having become universally the subjects of discussion, had in some measure displaced those topics on which parties were previously divided. The partiality for France that was conspicuous through the whole of it, detracted nothing from its merit in the opinion of the friends of the administration, because, however decided their determination to support their own government in a controversy with any nation whatever, they felt all the partialities for that republic which the correspondence expressed. The hostility of his enemies therefore was, for a time, considerably lessened, without a corresponding diminution of the attachment of his friends. It would have been impracticable, in office, long to preserve these dispositions. And it would have been difficult to maintain that ascendency which he held over the minds of those who had supported, and probably would continue to support, every pretension of the French republic, without departing from principles and measures which he had openly and ably defended.

Is succeeded by Mr. Randolph.

He was immediately succeeded by Mr. Edmund Randolph; and the office of attorney general was filled by Mr. William Bradford, a gentleman of considerable eminence in Pennsylvania.

1794

[On] the fourth of January, the house resolved itself into a committee of the whole, on the report of the secretary of state, relative to the privileges and restrictions of the commerce of the United States; when Mr. Madison, after some prefatory observations, laid on the table a series of resolutions[13] for the consideration of the members.