ls of the other in its
ports have already been removed; and on the 1st of next October, should
the convention be still in force, the remaining fourth will be
discontinued. French vessels laden with French produce will be received
in our ports on the same terms as our own, and ours in return will enjoy
the same advantages in the ports of France.

By these approximations to an equality of duties and of charges not only
has the commerce between the two countries prospered, but friendly
dispositions have been on both sides encouraged and promoted. They will
continue to be cherished and cultivated on the part of the United
States. It would have been gratifying to have had it in my power to add
that the claims upon the justice of the French Government, involving the
property and the comfortable subsistence of many of our fellow-citizens,
and which have been so long and so earnestly urged, were in a more
promising train of adjustment than at your last meeting; but their
condition remains unaltered.

With the Government of the Netherlands the mutual abandonment of
discriminating duties had been regulated by legislative acts on both
sides. The act of Congress of the 20th of April, 1818, abolished all
discriminating duties of impost and tonnage upon the vessels and produce
of the Netherlands in the ports of the United States upon the assurance
given by the Government of the Netherlands that all such duties
operating against the shipping and commerce of the United States in that
Kingdom had been abolished. These reciprocal regulations had continued
in force several years when the discriminating principle was resumed by
the Netherlands in a new and indirect form by a bounty of 10 per cent in
the shape of a return of duties to their national vessels, and in which
those of the United States are not permitted to participate. By the act
of Congress of 7th January, 1824, all discriminating duties in the
United States were again suspended, so far as related to the vessels and
produce of the Netherlands, so long as the reciprocal exemption should
be extended to the vessels and produce of the United States in the
Netherlands. But the same act provides that in the event of a
restoration of discriminating duties to operate against the shipping and
commerce of the United States in any of the foreign countries referred
to therein the suspension of discriminating duties in favor of the
navigation of such foreign country should cease and all th