Bonds required.
“After the date above mentioned, no vessel owned wholly or in part by subjects of his Britannic Majesty, though the same may have been duly entered in the United States, and the duties on goods, wares, and merchandise imported duly paid, can be cleared out laden with articles the growth, produce, or manufacture of the United States, before the owner or consignee shall have given bond and sureties, in double the value of the articles aforesaid, that they shall not be landed in any port or place in a colony or territory of his Britannic Majesty, which by the ordinary laws of navigation and trade is closed against vessels owned by citizens of the United States.”
Treaty negotiations renewed.
Such was the mode adopted by the Americans to coerce Great Britain into the relinquishment of her exclusive colonial trade. But at the very same time a negotiation was opened in London to carry out the views of the government of the United States, to settle all the differences relating to impressments, the fisheries and boundaries, and to secure a fresh treaty and convention on terms of reciprocity. Prior to entering upon the negotiations, it was agreed that the subsisting convention should be continued for a term of not less than eight years.
Dutch reciprocity.
In 1818 a reciprocity treaty was concluded between the United States and the King of the Netherlands on the same basis as the convention subsisting with Great Britain. The Dutch colonial trade was not, however, included within the conditions of the treaty.
Bremen reciprocity.
The President of the United States, in his proclamation dated the 24th of July, 1818, announced that he had received satisfactory proof that the burgomasters and senators of the free Hanseatic city of Bremen had abolished, after the 12th of May, 1815, all discriminating and countervailing duties, so far as they operated to the disadvantage of the United States; and accordingly he declared that the American Tonnage Duties Acts were repealed in so far as they affected Bremen. A very considerable trade in tobacco and other American productions resulted from this first step towards freedom of trade with Germany. Though England for a time rejected the principles of reciprocity in the form offered by the government of the United States to the nations of Europe and accepted by the Netherlands, it was found impossible to conduct to advantage the rapidly increasing commerce of the world in the face of these constantly recurring retaliatory measures. Consequently in 1820 she found it not merely necessary, but to her interest, to adopt a more liberal maritime policy, and to relax in some measure her stringent navigation laws.
FOOTNOTES:
[321] Vide ‘Annual Register,’ 1806, p. 246.