nation who persists in the support of this doctrine, as making part of the law of nations, is the first maritime power of Europe, whom their interest, as they are the strongest, and as there is hardly a maritime war in which they are not involved, leads to wish for a continuation of a custom which gives additional strength to their overbearing dominion over the seas. All the other nations have different sentiments and a different interest. During the American war, in the year 1780, so fully convinced were the neutral nations of the necessity of introducing that doctrine of free bottoms making free goods, that all of them, excepting Portugal, who was in a state of vassalage to, and a mere appendage of, Great Britain, united in order to establish the principle, and formed for that purpose the alliance known by the name of the armed neutrality. All the belligerent powers, except England, recognized and agreed to the doctrine. England itself was obliged, in some measure, to give, for a while, a tacit acquiescence. America, at the time, fully admitted the principle, although then at war. Since the year 1780, every nation, so far as my knowledge goes, has refused to enter into a treaty of commerce with England, unless that provision was inserted. Russia, for that reason, would not renew their treaty, which had expired in 1786; although I believe that, during the present war, and in order to answer the ends of the war, they formed a temporary convention, which I have not seen, but which, perhaps, does not include that provision. England consented to it in her treaty with France, in 1788, and we are the first neutral nation who has abandoned the common cause, given up the claim, and by a positive declaration inserted in our treaty, recognized the contrary doctrine. It has been said that, under the present circumstances, it could not be expected that Great Britain would give up the point; perhaps so; but the objection is not, that our negotiator has not been able to obtain that principle, but that he has consented to enter into a treaty of commerce which we do not want, and which has no connection with an adjustment of our differences with Great Britain, without the principle contended for making part of that treaty. Unless we can obtain security for our navigation, we want no treaty; and the only provision which can give us that security, should have been the _sine qua non_ of a treaty. On the contrary, we have disgusted all the other neutral nations of Europe, without whose concert and assistance there is but little hope that we shall ever obtain that point; and we have taught Great Britain that we are disposed to form the most intimate connections with her, even at the expense of recognizing a principle the most fatal to the liberty of commerce and to the security of our navigation.