It thus appears that the English Ministers communicated their intentions formally and explicitly to the American Government, and, through that Government to the American people, a day before they chose to inform the English Parliament and the nation, somewhat vaguely, in the Queen’s Speech, of the course they might, eventually, be led to pursue. A year previously, on the 21st of December, 1846, the Shipowners’ Society of London had had an interview with Lord Clarendon at the Board of Trade. On that occasion, as appears from the Minutes of the Society, they were graciously received, and assured in distinct language, that no intention was entertained on the part of her Majesty’s Government of making any alteration in these laws. Three months later, on the 15th March, 1847, these gentlemen, entertaining a feeling of mistrust in the then governing powers, went again to the Board of Trade and asked the same question, and were once more assured that there was no intention on the part of Government to interfere with the fundamental principles of the Navigation Laws; that an individual member, Mr. Ricardo, had indeed mooted the subject of a committee, which Government could not refuse, but that the committee should be a fair one, with Mr. Milner Gibson[83] as chairman, as they were desirous to give satisfaction to all parties interested. So far no intention was expressed of tampering with these laws; and we have seen that Mr. Robinson, on scrutinising the terms of the Queen’s Speech in November, acquiesced in its propriety, no suspicion having entered his mind, that, already, these laws were foredoomed by Ministers, still less that, the very day before Parliament met, they had communicated their intentions to a foreign maritime Power—a nation, too, which, at that moment, was straining every nerve to wrest from us the supremacy of the ocean. Under such circumstances as these, the following article, first published in the ‘Washington Union,’[84] created intense astonishment. Nor is it surprising that it should have done so:— [Sidenote: Interview between Lord Palmerston and Mr. Bancroft published in ‘Washington Union.’]