....

Exports from the United States to France .... .$18,230,949 Exports from France to the United States .$32,531,321 These amounts, the correctness of which is published in the United States, can give an idea of the mass of merchandise going out of each of the two countries destined for the other; but can these amounts give a true appreciation of the value and origin of the commercial exchanges between the two countries?

It is necessary to remark on that point that, in the thirtytwo millions of exportation from France to the United States, are included the numerous foreign products which only pass through France: such as the silks from Switzerland and Italy; and even those which come from the ports of the North sea are, for instance, carried from Hamburg to Havre; and merely touch the soil of France to be almost immediately, after their landing, re-shipped in American packets.

For the Doc. No. 251, published by the Treasury Department, no mention whatever is made of this circumstance, although, in the same document, the exportation from the United States is carefully divided into two distinct parts: domestic produce and foreign produce. For France, says this document, the exportation from the United States of foreign produce amounted to $2,264,841; the exportation of domestic produce amounted to $15,966,108. This last amount, alone, is then to be considered as forming, at the exportation from the United States, the American part of the commercial exchanges between the two countries.

The question now is to know what will be the French part in the exportation from France to the United States. Will it be correctly indicated by the sum of $32,531,321 stated in the American document? Evidently not.

This amount gives the whole value of all the products brought from France; it must therefore, like the amount of the American exportation, be divided into two distinct parts -domestic produce and foreign produce. On this subject the Treasury document is altogether silent; but where this document says nothing, the official report of the French customs will furnish the means of making a proper division of the French exportation to the United States. The French statement does not entirely correspond, it is true, with the American Treasury report; but it cannot be otherwise, as the two reports embrace a different period of time. In the statement of France the fiscal year runs from the 1st of January to the 31st of December, 1839, while, in the American document, the same fiscal year runs from the 30th of September, 1838, to the 30th of September, 1839.

In the year 1839 a recrudescency took place in the general commercial movement between the two countries, and especially in the exportation from France to the United States. The last quarter of 1839, which in the French statement is a part of the fiscal year 1839, is the very one during which the exportation of American products is seen to stop, whilst the importation of French products in the United States becomes very extensive. In the American system, this quarter will be part of the fiscal year 1840, particularly favorable to the American exportation, and during which the balance in the general commerce amounted to 27 millions of dollars in favor of the United States.

It is, then, impossible to draw a close comparison between the documents of the two countries, but, in the different statements of the French report for 1839, it is easy to find the proportion existing in the exportation from France to the United States, between the French and the foreign products. The French document (page 23) makes the exportation from France to the United States amount, in 1839, to 204 millions francs; and at page 25 it states that out of this there was but 120 millions of French products.

It is evident that the proportion looked for in the exportation from France to the United States, between the domestic and the foreign products, has been like 54 to 46otherwise, that 54 per cent. only of the whole products sent from France to the United States are French products, when 46 per cent. are foreign.

This fact once acknowledged, let us go back to the report of the Secretary of the Treasury and complete the indicasions given it.

in favor of France, instead of one of $14,300,372, which at first seems to be the true one.

Such a result may appear surprising to the Americans, who have, in general, but a slight idea of the importance of the commerce of transit carried on between the ports of France and those of the United States, on American ships; and this even for articles bearing the most successful com petition with the products proper to France. The increase of this commerce of transit is such as to command the minute attention of those who wish to appreciate correctly the general results of the particular commerce of France with the United States.

We shall dwell for a moment on one point only of this question, and endeavor to reduce to its proper value the principal objection raised, especially lately, in the United States against the French silks.

The importation to the United States of French silks," it is said, "amounted, in 1839, to 15 millions of dollars.— These silks are admitted free of duty; it is an immense advantage given by the United States to France, who profits exclusively by this free entry. Therefore, whether this exemption of duties be maintained for French silks, or whether in the new American tariff these silks be submitted to a small duty, they will not cease to be the object of a special favor accorded to them alone; and France should acknowledge such an advantage by the concession of analogous favors in her tariff,"

Such it seems to us, is the objection in its strongest light; and, as it has been repeated so often since a few years, let us examine with what foundation.

It is evident that those who brought forward such an objection, and who support it, are not informed of the fact that the silks coming from France to the United States are not all French; or it is evident that they are not aware in what proportion the foreign silks enter into the French exports to the United States. For it is well ascertained that, during the year 1839, 55 per cent. of the silks exported from France to the United States, where they were received for French silks, were the product of other countries, and from which France derived but a slight profit on the price of their transportation through her territory, at the same time that the Americans made a profit on the freight of their packets which were exclusively employed in that trade.

Thus, in this importation of 1839, which is stated in the report of the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States to amount to $15,000,000, from September, 1838, to September, 1839, and in the report of the French customs to 104,391,161 francs from January, 1839, to January, 1840, France can only acknowledge as being French products 444 per cent. of the whole sum.*

* In order to give an idea of the importance of the exports brought from Switzerland, in transit, through the territory of France, it is sufficient to say that, (as far as silks are con

This fact, leads us, naturally, to examine if the silk ques tion can be considered as one affecting France alone, as the Americans pretend it does, when they require an acknowledgment of France alone for the consumption of all European silks entering the country.

In the Doc. No. 251, 26th Con., 1st Sess., p. 24, at the bottom of the column headed "Silks from other places than India, will be found a total amounting to $19,030,785, for silks imported in the United States. In that sum, $15,191,661 are stated to be the amount of the French products included in that category. If we deduct from this, the 55 per cent. constituting the part of foreign silks brought from France merely in transit, and upon which she made no commercial profit, $6,800,000 only will be left to represent the part of the products actually French. Finally, then, in the importation of European silks, France only comes in for less than 374 per cent. It is evident, then, that France is not the only country deriving profit from the exemption of duty on silks. And it is doubly wrong to consider the discriminating duties laid on Chinese silks as a favor accorded to the French silks exclusively. It has been proved above, (p. 6,) this discriminating duty had been established to favor the manufactories of the New England States; and we prove now, it seems to us, that if this duty favors the silks coming from this side of the Cape of Good Hope, the French silks are far from being alone in the enjoyment of this advantage. The proportion of the commerce of transit, in the French exportation to the United States being thus ascertained, let us establish the true commercial position of the two countries, by repeating that, during the American fiscal year 1839, The exportation from the United States to

France in domestic produce amounted to $15,966,108 And that the exportation from France to the United States in domestic produce amounted to ..

Leaving a balance in favor of France of....

17,566,913

$1,600,805

We will now endeavor to show that the profits made upon the freight by the Americans, modified this commercial balance in such a way as to create a positive reciprocity in the advantages derived by each of the two countries from their commercial intercourse.

The transportation of exchanged products between France and the United States employed in 1839, (see pages 274 and 275 of the report of the Secretary of the Treasury, document 251,) 223,552 tons. Out of these, 182,766 tons belonged to the United States, and 40,786 only to France and other countries.

Estimating the freight at $12 a ton, the United States would have realized a profit of $2,193,192, and France, together with other nations, one of $489,432, leaving a difference of $1,703,760, which amply covers the balance, purely commercial, of $1,600,805, standing against the United States. If the freight was thought too high at $12 a ton, let it be rated at $11-the difference would still be $1,561,780 in favor of the United States. Were it even brought

down to $10 a ton, the product of navigation being $1,419,800, it would yet be sufficient to render insignificant a definitive balance of $181,005 in favor of France, especially in a year so exceptional as that of 1839.

We must however notice that the rate of 1 per cent. paid at New Orleans during the last two years for freight to the ports of France being taken as an average, and the rate of $20 per hhd. of tobacco, paid for freight to the same destination, being also taken as an average of last year's prices, for 7,000 hhds. of Kentucky tobacco which did not employ more than 4,500 tons, permit us to suppose that there is no exaggeration in estimating the freight at $12 a ton.

It will not be useless, before we end this note, to refute an objection often raised against the first part of it during the last session of Congress. It was contended that the facts stated in this document ought not to have been introduced before an American Congress, because they evidently came from a French source.

It will be observed that this is a very singular objection: that truth should not be admitted because it arises from a French source. Is not truth always useful, whatever source it may come from?

Although this last observation is sufficient to reduce the above objection to its proper value, we will add that the statements contained in this note have not been presented in a view hostile to the United States, and exclusively useful to France. On the contrary, the intention has been to convince all liberal and enlightened minds that the commercial relations now existing between Erance and the United States are established on a footing of reciprocity equally advantageous to both countries. There is certainly nothing hostile in this. There is nothing hostile either in adding the expression of a desire that no alteration should take place in the state of those relations.

Far from pretending to restrain the sovereign right possessed by the United States to regulate their internal legislation, France in this very document claims the same right for herself.

France says to the United States: "I have, on many occasions, proved to you that I was a useful friend, always ready to fulfil his promises; our commercial relations are now equally advantageous to both of us; avoid then making any alteration to their basis, for I might find myself obliged, in order to satisfy the complaints of those who would suffer from the changes in your legislation, to adopt, much to my regret, measures prejudicial to your interest."

We leave it to impartial minds to decide if this is not the language of a sincere and faithful ally. WASHINGTON, June 1st, 1841.

The Secretary of the Treasury, in his report of the 2d of this month, having proposed to Congress that a duty of 20 per cent. ad valorem should be imposed on all articles mentioned in the 4th section of the Compromise Act of the 2d of March, 1833, it becomes necessary to add a few words in order to state exactly the new situation in which France would be placed if the proposition of the Secretary of the Treasury was to be adopted by Congress.

By the article 7 of the convention of the 4th of July, 1831, between France and the United States, the United States have taken the engagement that the wines of France should be imported, during 10 years, into the Union on a more favorable footing than they previously were. In return of this favor, France not only abandoned the claims which she had to make on account of the 8th article of the treaty for the cession of Louisiana, but consented to bring down the duties levied on long-staple cotton so as to make them equal to the duties imposed on other cotton.

On the 26th of August, 1840, the United States concluded with Portugal a treaty, the third article of which leaves no doubt that the advantages accorded to French wines in the United States are to cease from February next.

This state of things, so unfavorable to the French commerce, would be so much aggravated by the adoption of the plan proposed by the Secretary of the Treasury, that it would become impossible for the French Government to resist, at the same time, the complaints raised by the French ship

owners against the convention on navigation of 1822; those of the wine dealers against the consequences of the treaty with Portugal; and those of the French manufacturers against the duties imposed upon their products. The French Government would find itself, it is here repeated with the most sincere regret, in the absolute necessity of setting aside the convention of 1822, and to rescind the reduction of 50 per cent. granted to the long-staple cotton of the United States, since the execution of the treaty of July, 1831. Whatever may be the price attached by France to the preservation of her good relations with the United States, the French Government could not prevent the withdrawal of the concessions with which France paid the advantages offered to her commerce in the markets of the Union, so soon as these advantages would not only be withdrawn by the contended alterations in the American legislation, but even replaced by measures prejudicial to the interests of the French products imported into the United States.

June 10, 1841.

CIRCULAR.

ATTORNEY GENERAL'S OFFICE,
Philadelphia, August 10, 1841.

To the Several Deputy Attorneys General, of the respec-
tive counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
It has recently been communicated to me, from various
parts of the State, that sundry corporations and private per-
sons have, in open defiance of the acts of Assembly on the
subject, been engaged in issuing and circulating within this
Commonwealth, notes, checks, bills or tickets of several de-
nominations, from twelve and a half cents, to five dollars,
in amount, designed to circulate as a "paper circulating me-
dium." And in addition to this, I am assured, that the small
notes, bills, checks, &c., issued by banks, other corporations,
and private individuals in neighboring States, are introduced
and extensively circulated among the citizens in several of
our border counties.

These violations of the law render it my imperative duty to call your attention again to the letter of the Governor, and the circular which I addressed to you in pursuance of it on this subject, dated the 10th day of October, A. D., 1839, of both which documents, copies are hereto annexed. The acts of Assembly of the 22d day of March, 1817, and of the 12th day of April, 1828, and of the 23d day of February, 1830, to which reference is made in said circular, need not be now re-published, for I presume you are perfectly familiar with their provisions.

Not even the shadow of reason can be alleged to exist now, (whatever might once have been pretended) to excuse the violation of these salutary laws. Ample provision has been made by the General Assembly of this Commonwealth, for any supposed necessity that may have arisen requiring the issue of notes of a less denomination than five dollars, and there is therefore no ground to apprehend the slightest inconvenience, from a speedy and thorough suppression of these small notes which have been put into circulation contrary to law. If we expect to retain, for the purposes of business, the specie now in the hands of the people, even for transactions of a less amount than one dollar, we must rigidly and rigorously persevere in the enforcement of the penalties against those who manufacture and circulate a depreciated and worthless substitute. Small notes of the several denominations of twelve and a half, twenty-five, and fifty cents, are rapidly insinuating themselves into the place of specie in those counties where they have been unfortunately introduced, and unless checked will soon expel it entirely from general circulation. However contrary to law, and depreciated in nominal value they may be, it is exceed ingly difficult to rid the public of them, when once they have acquired a foothold. It is the part therefore of wisdom and of duty, to strike at those who issue and circulate them, at once and in earnest.

The instructions contained in the circular of the 10th of October, 1839,* are for this purpose emphatically repeated;

* See Vol. I, p. 266,

and every Deputy Attorney General is hereby enjoined and directed, on and after the 10th day of September next, to institute the proper proceedings pointed out by the acts of Assembly above mentioned, against all corporations and persons who have issued and not redeemed, or shall continue to issue or put and keep in circulation, any bills, notes, checks, tickets, or other evidences of debt, prohibited by said acts of Assembly. I have given ample time, for those who have violated the law, to recall their illegal issues, and to prepare for its faithful observance. Should they fail to do so, however, a few well selected examples will, I trust, accomplish the desired end, and restrain all similar violations in future.

The first proceedings should be directed against those who have set the law at naught, by issuing notes, &c., in despite of its prohibition, and also against those who have been chiefly instrumental in the introduction of small notes from other States, and in giving them current among our citizens. Let these classes of wholesale offenders be effectually reached, and our great object with the rest of the community will be readily attained.

It is my sincere desire to avoid as far as possible all unnecessary appeals to the judicial tribunals for the vindication of the laws, but when the substantial interests of the public are as deeply involved as they are in this instance, when solemn acts of Assembly are totally disregarded, and their salutary penal injunctions treated as empty and idle menaces to be derided at will, there is no alternative left; the law must be rigidly and inflexibly enforced, or those who are entrusted with this enforcement, and shrink from the post of duty, will justly incur the condemnation or the contempt of the people. They must be content to be branded as faithless or pusillanimous, devoid of either honesty or firmness. I am sure no gentleman to whom this circular is addressed, will hesi tate an instant in assuming the labor and responsibility which it imposes, or falter in the performance of his duty, while a single unlawful note remains to be suppressed. I am, yours, &c. respectfully, OVID F. JOHNSON,

Attorney General.

Bituminous Wood.

It is stated in a recent number of Silliman's Journal that

a large deposit of bituminous wood has been discovered at Port Hudson, on the Mississippi river. The village is situated on a bluff sixty or seventy feet high. This bluff reposes, as the whole country does, on a thick bed of blue aluminous clay, which forms the bed of most of the water courses and wears very gradually by the action of the water. The upper surface of the clay at that place is considerably below the high water mark.

The bluff has been long falling in from being undermined by springs, which run out above the blue clay, and by the action of the current of the Mississippi; but the blue clay does not wear away near so fast, and for this reason it extends some distance beyond the base of the bluff. It seems that upon this shelf the Mississippi has made a considerable deposit, of the common kind, containing a great many fragments, and sometimes entire logs; after this deposit took place, a considerable mass of earth must have fallen, covering the former one. The remarkably low water, together with the removal of the superincumbent earth, forming a new landing.

The smaller logs are often entirely bituminated and changed into a glossy black coal, in which no trace of fiber can be perceived; still the formation must be very recent, for in the most perfectly bitumenized pieces there are frequent marks of the axe, looking as though it were done but yesterday. The limbs are very much flattened, but otherwise their external appearance is the same as usual in the species, which can easily be determined to be oak, walnut, hickory, &c.The larger logs and fragments have undergone the transformation in various degrees, some being of a soft and spongy texture. Many are in a state of perfect coal, at one end, or one side, and have undergone no change except softening at the other,

MESSAGE

OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

Returning, with his objections, the Bill to incorporate the Fiscal Bank of the United States, August 16, 1841.

To the Senate of the United States:

The bill, entitled "An act to incorporate the subscribers to the Fiscal Bank of the United States," which originated in the Senate, has been considered by me, with a sincere desire to conform my action in regard to it, to that of the two Houses of Congress. By the Constitution it is made my duty, either to approve the bill by signing it, or to return it with my objections to the House in which it originated. I cannot conscientiously give it my approval, and I proceed to discharge the duty required of me by the Constitutionto give my reasons for disapproving.

The power of Congress to create a National Bank to operate per se over the Union, has been a question of dispute from the origin of our Government. Men most justly and deservedly esteemed for their high intellectual endowments, their virtue, and their patriotism, have, in regard to it, entertained different and conflicting opinions. Congresses have differed. The approval of one President has been followed by the disapproval of another. The people at different times have acquiesced in decisions both for and against. The country has been and still is deeply agitated by this unsettled question. It will suffice for me to say, that my own opinion has been uniformly proclaimed to be against the exercise of any such power by this Government. On all suitable occasions, during a period of twenty-five years, the opinions thus entertained have been unreservedly expressed. I declared it in the Legislature of my own native State. In the House of Representatives of the United States it has been openly vindicated by me. In the Senate Chamber, in the presence and hearing of many who are at this time members of that body, it has been affirmed and re-affirmed, in speeches and reports there made, and by votes there recorded. In popular assemblies I have unhesitatingly announced it; and the last public declaration which I made, and that but a short time before the late Presidential election, I referred to my previously expressed opinions as being those then entertained by me; with a full knowledge of the opinions thus entertained, and never concealed, I was elected by the people Vice President of the United States. By the occurrence of a contingency provided for by the Constitution, and arising under an impressive dispensation of Providence, I succeeded to the Presidential office.

Before entering upon the duties of that office, I took an oath that I would "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Entertaining the opinions alluded to, and having taken this oath, the Senate and the country will see that I could not give my sanction to a measure of the character described, without surrendering all claim to the respect of honorable men-all confidence on the part of the people-all self-respect-all regard for moral and religious obligations-without an observance of which, no Government can be prosperous, and no people can be happy. It would be to commit a crime which I would not wilfully commit to gain any earthly reward, and which would justly subject me to the ridicule and scorn of all virtuous men. I deem it entirely unnecessary at this time to enter upon the reasons which have brought my mind to the convictions I feel and entertain on this subject. They have been over and over again repeated. If some of those who have preceded me in this high office entertained and avowed different opinions, I yield all confidence that their convictions were sincere. I claim only to have the same measure meted out to myself. Without going further into the argument, I will say that, in looking to the powers of this Government to collect, safely keep, and disburse the public revenue, and incidentally to regulate the commerce and exchanges, I have not been able to satisfy myself that the establishment, by this Government, of a bank of discount, in the ordinary acceptation of that term, was a necessary means, or one demanded by propriety, to execute those powers.

What can the local discounts of the bank have to do with the collecting, safe-keeping and disbursing of the revenue? So far as the mere discounting of paper is concerned, it is quite immaterial to this question whether the discount is obtained at a State Bank or a United States Bank. They are both equally local-both beginning and both ending in a local accommodation. What influence have local discounts, granted by any form of bank, in the regulating of the currency and the exchanges? Let the history of the late United States Bank aid us in answering this inquiry.

For several years after the establishment of that institution it dealt almost exclusively in local discounts, and during that period, the country was, for the most part, disappointed in the consequences anticipated from its incorporation.

A uniform currency was not provided, exchanges were not regulated, and little or nothing was added to the general circulation; and in 1820, its embarrassments had become so great that the directors petitioned Congress to repeal that article of the charter which made its notes receivable everywhere in payment of public dues. It had, up to that period, dealt to but a very small extent in exchanges, either foreign or domestic; and as late as 1823, its operations in that line amounted to a little more than $7,000,000 per annum; a very rapid augmentation soon after occurred, and in 1833 its dealings in exchanges amounted to upwards of $100,000,000, including the sales of its own drafts; and all these immense transactions were affected without the employment of extraordinary means.

The currency of the country became sound, and the negotiations in the exchanges were carried on at the lowest possible rates. The circulation was increased to more than $22,000,000, and the notes of the Bank were regarded as equal to specic all over the country; thus showing, almost conclusively, that it was the capacity to deal in exchanges, and not in local discounts, which furnished these facilities and advantages. It may be remarked, too, that notwithstanding the immense transactions of the Bank in the purchase of exchange, the losses sustained were merely nominal; while, in the line of discounts, the suspended debt was enormous, and proved most disastrous to the Bank and the coun try. Its power of local discount has, in fact, proved to be a fruitful source of favoritism and corruption, alike destructive to the public morals, and to the general weal.

The capital invested in banks of discount in the United States, created by the States, at this time exceeds $350,000,000; and if the discounting of local paper could have produced any beneficial effects, the United States ought to possess the soundest currency in the world, but the reverse is lamentably the fact.

Is the measure now under consideration, of the objectionable character to which I have alluded? It is clearly so, unless by the 16th fundamental article of the 11th section it is made otherwise. That article is in the following words:

"The directors of the said corporation shall establish one competent office of discount and deposit in any State in which two thousand shares shall have been subscribed, or may be held, whenever, upon application of the Legislature of such State, Congress may by law require the same. And the said directors may also establish one or more competent offices of discount and deposit in any Territory or District of the United States, and in any State, with the assent of such State; and when established, the said office or offices shall be only withdrawn or removed by the said directors prior to the expiration of this charter, with the previous assent of Congress.

Provided, in respect to any State which shall not, at the first session of the Legislature thereof held after the passage of this act, by resolution, or other usual legislative proceeding, unconditionally assent or dissent to the establishment of such office or offices within it, such assent of the said State shall be thereafter presumed: And provided, nevertheless, That whenever it shall become necessary and proper for carrying into execution any of the powers granted by the Constitution, to establish an office or offices in any of the States whatever, and the establishment thereof shall be directed by law, it shall be the duty of the said directors to establish such office or offices accordingly."