and liable to unfair diplomacy. or friendly commerce. Moreover, the whole system of treaties so constructed was attended with a mode of bargaining, in which the clever diplomatist might frequently gain unfair advantages for the people he represented. Such a course of action was so obviously undignified in the conduct of national affairs, that all merchants of high standing in different countries at length protested against it. Statesmen, also, began to discover that, as a rule, it was better for commerce to flow on with no interference from treaties or other legislation—that, as a matter of fact, it prospers best unaided; and, further, that such a state of things, while unsatisfactory so far as the intercourse between nations is concerned, was also discreditable, alike to the nations entertaining such propositions, and to the ministers or officers by whom they were proposed.
As the whole of the treaties, with their numerous protocols and appendices, their labyrinths of "clever clauses" and mysterious paragraphs, have been published,[1] and can be examined by those of my readers who are interested in such diplomatic intricacies, it is only necessary to give here the general purport of them, as I shall have occasion to notice, hereafter, in reviewing the progress of merchant shipping, those more directly affecting that interest; but, that my readers may understand more clearly the nature of these treaties, I furnish the text of that with France.[2] It gives the general conditions embodied in such documents, and the extent of the concessions England was prepared to make with those countries which were willing to reciprocate with her.
The results of these "Reciprocity Treaties," how-*
