ursued it with the most effect. But while he was battering the ministry
upon paltry topics, which had neither root or stem, he had declared
himself emphatically and repeatedly upon their side on the only subject
on which their fate and the destiny of the nation altogether
depended--the controversy with America. The course he took in the early
stage of that conflict, and his disappearance from the theatre of
politics at the time when it was ripening into the magnitude of its
nature, have marked Junius in my mind as a man of small things--a
splendid trifler, a pompous and shallow politician."

In July, 1816, Mr. Adams showed Lord Castlereagh his authority and
instructions to negotiate a new commercial convention with the British
government, stating "that one object was to open the trade between the
United States and the British colonies in North America and the West
Indies, as great changes had occurred since the existing convention
between the countries was signed. That convention equalized the duties
upon British and American vessels, in the intercourse between Europe and
the United States, and thereby admitted British vessels into the ports
of the United States upon terms of equal competition with American
vessels. But, since that time, the exclusive system of colonial
regulations had been resumed in the West Indies with extraordinary
rigor. American vessels had been excluded from all the ports, and some
seizures had been made with such severity that there were cases upon
which it would soon become his duty to address the British government in
behalf of individuals who had suffered, and deemed themselves entitled
to the restitution of their property. The consequence of these new
regulations, as combined with the operation of the commercial
convention, was, that British vessels being admitted into our ports upon
equal terms with our own, and then being exclusively received in the
British West India ports, not only thus monopolized the trade between
the United States and the West Indies, but acquired an advantage in the
direct trade from Europe to the United States, which defeated the main
object of the convention itself, of placing the shipping of the two
countries upon equal terms of fair competition. In North America the
same system was pursued by the colonial government of Upper Canada. An
act of the Colonial Legislature was passed at their last session,
vesting in the Lieutenant-Governor and Council of the province t