In 1822 a convention of navigation and commerce was concluded on terms of reciprocal and equal advantage between France and the United States. In the same year the ports of the West India Islands were opened to the American Republic by act of the British parliament. The American commerce having for many years suffered greatly from the depredations of pirates in the West Indies, a small naval force was sent against them, which recaptured five American vessels in the vicinity of Matanzas in Cuba, and destroyed upwards of twenty piratical vessels. But depredations still continuing, a larger force was sent out the following year, under Commodore Porter, which broke up their retreats in these seas, and sent them to other hiding-places, whence they reappeared after a time. In 1823 congress recognised the independence of the South American republics, and ministers were sent to Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Chili. The same year, articles of convention for the suppression of the African slave-trade were signed in London by agents sent for that purpose from the United States, and officers were commissioned by each nation to capture and condemn such ships as should be concerned in this illicit traffic. During the summer of 1824 the venerable La Fayette, now seventy years of age, visited America, by express invitation from congress, after the lapse of nearly half a century. He was received at New York with every demonstration of respect, and made a tour through all the states of the Union, upwards of 5,000 miles, which was in fact a triumphal progress, state vying with state as to which should show him most affection and honour. Finally he sailed from Washington, in September, in an American frigate prepared for his accommodation, and called the Brandywine, from the battle in which he was wounded. In the year 1825, John Quincy Adams was inaugurated as president, and J. C. Calhoun, of South Carolina, vice-president. The administration of the ex-president had been marked by singular prosperity. Sixty millions of dollars of the national debt had been paid off, and party-feeling had so much abated that this period is signalised as “the era of good-feeling.” The new president, taking a review of the past in his inaugural speech, remarked: “The year of jubilee since the first formation of our Union is past, that of our Declaration of Independence is at hand. Since that period a population of 4,000,000 has multiplied to 12,000,000. A territory bounded by the Mississippi had been extended from sea to sea. New states have been admitted to the Union in numbers almost equal to those of the first confederation. Treaties of peace, amity, and commerce have been concluded with the principal dominions of the earth. The people of other nations, inhabitants of regions acquired not by conquest but by compact, have been united to us in the participation of our rights and duties, our burdens and our blessings.”