y foreign power. It has, however, been
productive of great inconveniences; it has prevented our acting
with vigor in our disputes with the Dutch and French. The former
refuse to this day the payment of the _bahor peshcush_, although
the right is incontestably against them, and we have threatened to
enforce it. Both nations refuse to be bound by our decrees, or to
submit to our regulations; they refuse to submit to the payment of
the duties on the foreign commerce but in their own way, which
amounts almost to a total exemption; they refuse to submit to the
duty of ten per cent which is levied upon foreign salt, by which,
unless a stop can be put to it by a more decisive rule, they will
draw the whole of that important trade into their own colonies; and
even in the single instance in which they have allowed us to
prescribe to them, namely, the embargo on grain, on the
apprehension of a dearth, I am generally persuaded that they
acquiesced from the secret design of taking advantage of the
general suspension, by exporting grain clandestinely under cover of
their colors, which they knew would screen them from the rigorous
examination of our officers. We are precluded from forming many
arrangements of general utility, because of the want of control
over the European settlements; and a great part of the defects
which subsist in the government and commercial state of the country
are ultimately derived from this source. I have not the slightest
suspicion that a more open and decided conduct would expose us to
worse consequences from the European nations; on the contrary, we
have the worst of the argument while we contend with them under
false colors, while they know us under the disguise, and we have
not the confidence to disown it. What we have done and may do under
an assumed character is full as likely to involve us in a war with
France, a nation not much influenced by logical weapons, (if such
can be supposed to be the likely consequence of our own trifling
disagreements with them,) as if we stood forth their avowed
opponents. To conclude, instead of regretting, with Mr. Francis,
the occasion which deprives us of so useless and hurtful a
disguise, I should rather rejoice, were it really the case, and
consider it as a crisis which freed the constitution of