that the British Government,
seeing the justice of the proposal and its importance to the colonies,
will ere long accede to it.
The commissioners who were appointed for the adjustment of the boundary
between the territories of the United States and those of Great Britain,
specified in the fifth article of the treaty of Ghent, having disagreed
in their decision, and both Governments having agreed to establish that
boundary by amicable negotiation between them, it is hoped that it may
be satisfactorily adjusted in that mode. The boundary specified by the
sixth article has been established by the decision of the commissioners.
From the progress made in that provided for by the seventh, according to
a report recently received, there is good cause to presume that it will
be settled in the course of the ensuing year.
It is a cause of serious regret that no arrangement has yet been finally
concluded between the two Governments to secure by joint cooperation
the suppression of the slave trade. It was the object of the British
Government in the early stages of the negotiation to adopt a plan for
the suppression which should include the concession of the mutual right
of search by the ships of war of each party of the vessels of the other
for suspected offenders. This was objected to by this Government on
the principle that as the right of search was a right of war of a
belligerent toward a neutral power it might have an ill effect to extend
it by treaty, to an offense which had been made comparatively mild, to
a time of peace. Anxious however, for the suppression of this trade,
it was thought advisable, in compliance with a resolution of the House
of Representatives, founded on an act of Congress, to propose to the
British Government an expedient which should be free from that objection
and more effectual for the object, by making it piratical. In that
mode the enormity of tho crime would place the offenders out of the
protection of their Government, and involve no question of search or
other question between the parties touching their respective rights.
It was believed, also, that it would completely suppress the trade
in the vessels of both parties, and by their respective citizens and
subjects in those of other powers, with whom it was hoped that the odium
which would thereby be attached to it would produce a corresponding
arrangement, and by means thereof its entire extirpation forever. A
convention to this effect was conc
|