At the commencement of the last session of Congress they were informed of the sudden and unexpected exclusion by the British Government of access in vessels of the United States to all their colonial ports, except those immediately bordering upon our own territories.  In the amicable discussions which have succeeded the adoption of this measure, which, as it affected harshly the interests of the United States, became a subject of expostulation on our part, the principles upon which its justification has been placed have been of a diversified character.  It has been at once ascribed to a mere recurrence to the old, long-established principle of colonial monopoly and at the same time to a feeling of resentment because the offers of an act of Parliament opening the colonial ports upon certain conditions had not been grasped at with sufficient eagerness by an instantaneous conformity to them.  At a subsequent period it has been intimated that the new exclusion was in resentment because a prior act of Parliament, of 1822, opening certain colonial ports, under heavy and burdensome restrictions, to vessels of the United States, had not been reciprocated by an admission of British vessels from the colonies, and their cargoes, without any restriction or discrimination whatever.  But be the motive for the interdiction what it may, the British Government have manifested no disposition, either by negotiation or by corresponding legislative enactments, to recede from it, and we have been given distinctly to understand that neither of the bills which were under the consideration of Congress at their last session would have been deemed sufficient in their concessions to have been rewarded by any relaxation from the British interdict.  It is one of the inconveniences inseparably connected with the attempt to adjust by reciprocal legislation interests of this nature that neither party can know what would be satisfactory to the other, and that after enacting a statute for the avowed and sincere purpose of conciliation it will generally be found utterly inadequate to the expectations of the other party, and will terminate in mutual disappointment.

The session of Congress having terminated without any act upon the subject, a proclamation was issued on the 17th of March last, conformably to the provisions of the sixth section of the act of 1st March, 1823, declaring the fact that the trade and intercourse authorized by the British act of Parliament of 24th June, 1822, between the United States and the British enumerated colonial ports had been by the subsequent acts of Parliament of 5th July, 1825, and the order of council of 27th July, 1826, prohibited.  The effect of this proclamation, by the terms of the act under which it was issued, has been that each and every provision of the act concerning navigation of 18th April, 1818, and of the act supplementary thereto of 15th May, 1820, revived and is in full force.  Such, then, is the present condition of the trade