Their capacity for government, in its application to commerce and navigation, equalled, if it did not surpass, that of the race whence they descended; and their system of education, the only true basis of a nation’s greatness, far surpassed that of Great Britain; hence, in all diplomatic negotiations, relating either to their political independence or to their material interests, they have generally exhibited such marked tact, ability, and acuteness, as has enabled them frequently to obtain ample redress from foreign nations, and often, too, without that formal demand which, if not complied with, leads to war: from their example a few of our diplomatists, who reside abroad, would do well to take a lesson. With these elements of knowledge, wealth, and national power, combined with a martial spirit, readily kindled into action whenever the necessity arose, the Americans, under an extremely liberal government, have rapidly and deservedly assumed a proud position among nations. Not the least interesting and instructive cause of their rise was the promptitude with which they developed, by the then best known means, their great natural resources, and none more so than their maritime commerce, for, within eighty years from their Declaration of Independence, they rivalled, and, indeed, surpassed in the amount of their merchant shipping, all other nations.[2] [Sidenote: Discriminating duties levied by France, 1820, against American ships.] Nor was that high position reached without innumerable difficulties in the shape of laws adverse to her interests. Great Britain excluded her ships from all her colonies; and, though France had ceded to her by treaty in 1803, for the sum of fifteen million dollars, the State of Louisiana, that country for many years afterwards continued to levy heavy differential duties on all goods imported into France in American bottoms, while American shipowners had to contend at their port of export against the predominant interests of a country whose settlers for a long time greatly outnumbered the native Americans resident in New Orleans. Indeed, so late as 1820, a long memorial[3] was presented to Congress from twenty-four captains of American vessels then lying at New Orleans, stating that they “cannot earn a competent livelihood, owing to the fatal discriminating duties established in France in favour of its own vessels in the exclusive importation there of the staples of the United States.” The memorialists[4] further alleged that on some articles the duty was “ten times” in favour of French vessels, and that the “aggregate importation in French vessels at the port of New Orleans exceeded very much in _quantity_ the amount imported by American vessels;” being in the proportion of “nearly four to one.” In confirmation of these statements the memorialists furnished a return from the Customs which demonstrated that the carrying trade between New Orleans and France was being then rapidly transferred from American to