Abstract
Directly after the suspension of the conferences, before Gallatin rushed away to Paris1), the American plenipotentiaries performed the final duty of their joint commission, the draughting of the official report of the negotiations to their government. They finished and dated it on September 22, 1817 2).
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The 22d of September he departed from The Hague, arriving at his residence on the 29th (Oct. 8 1817, Gallatin to Adams, D. o. S. Desp. France).
The Hague, Sept. 22 1817, Gallatin & Eustis to the Secretary of State (D. o. S. Desp. Neth., vol. 5).
On this head, as appears from a comparison with their above-mentioned conclusion, they made a difference between the content of a conventional agreement and that of an American legislative arrangement.
The Hague, Sept. 27 1817, and Bordeaux, March 7 1818, (both in D. o. S. Desp. Neth.).
Aug. 10 1818, Adams to A. H. Everett (D. o. S. Instructions). See p. 227, 228, chapter XI.
Compare, for instance, the tenor of Ten Cate’s despatches on this head, chapter XVI. Also: Goldberg and Van der Kemp’s letter of Sept. 30th, treated below, p. 301.
Febr. 16 1818, Ten Cate to Van Nageil (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724).
Sept. 27 1817, Eustis to Adams (D. o. S. Desp. Neth.). Hence Adams’ communication to Everett (Aug. 10 1818, D. o. S. Instructions): “He [Mr. Eustis] thinks it had excited the commercial jealousy of the merchants of Amsterdam, who roused an influence to prevent any liberal concession of the Government in regard to our intercourse with their colonies”.
See p. 268 footnote No. 4.
This person signs himself with the initial S., and the date of his letters is left out. Both must have been written in August or September 1817 (R. A. Coll. Goldberg Port. 210). The author cannot be ascertained; he might be Severijn, Swarth, Schas, Suermondt, Smeer, etc., all of whom may be expected to have shared the interest here expressed. The handwriting, however, is not that of Smeer’s letters.
„Het komt ons verder nog van bijzonder belang voor, dat er behoorlijke bepalingen en restrictièn daargesteld worden, betrekkelijk de vaart en handel der Noord-Ameri-kaansche schepen op onze kolonièn, zoo in Oost, als West-Indië, en dat deze vaart uitsluitend voor de schepen van dit land gereserveerd worde, of ten minste, dat men bepale, welke artikelen door Amerikaansche schepen in dezelve zouden mogen worden in- en uitgevoerd.” (Aug. 28 1817, ’t Hoen and Westrik to Goldberg; R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; enclosure No. 18 with Report of Oct. 27 1817.)
July 31 1818, Gallatin to Adams, enclosing Appleton’s memorandum, June 14 1818 (D. o. S. Desp. France). It is not probable that Van Nagell would have used any influence during the negotiations themselves. On the 9th of September he left The Hague for a short vacation (Sept. 8 1817, Circular to foreign diplomats, announcing his departure and that Le Clercq was to be charged with current affairs; R. A. B. Z. 1817 U. S. No. 2903). He returned only after the termination of the negotiations. The provisional report of the Dutch negotiators, of Sept. 22 1817 (R. A. B. Z. Coll. Goldberg Port. 209), was therefore addressed to the King himself.
It was not more than a sober confirmation of the remarks of an agent of the Czar of Russia, in July 1817, representing the baron de Nagell as „ne se maintenant dans son poste que par son aveugle soumission aux volontés de l’Angleterre” (Colenbrander Gedenkst. VIII 1815–1825, I Nos. 722, 723).
Sept. 27 1817, Eustis to Adams (D. o. S. Desp. Neth.).
Aug. 10 1818 (D. o. S. Instructions): “Mr. Eustis is persuaded that a change of policy in the Dutch Government itself was effected during the progress of the negotiation”; except for “the commercial jealousy of the merchants of Amsterdam”, “he conjectures that an external and political interposition was likewise used to defeat the Negotiation”.
Much the same views are represented, 10 years later, by a writer on the diplomatic intercourse of the United States, Theodore Lyman Jr., The diplomacy of the United States, who (vol. II p. 282) calls the Dutch attitude above mentioned: “a refusal partaking somewhat of an invidious air, for as most other nations held colonies, whether small or large, the prohibition appeared to apply exclusively to this country”. It is conceivable that such ideas would arise in a country which felt itself the only dupe of this system. There is little use in explaining it by a hostile attitude, however, when it was merely national interests which directed its adoption.
June 27 1817, Ten Cate to Van Nagell, Desp. No. 18 (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; enclosure No. 17 with Report of Oct. 27 1817). It was forwarded to Goldberg and Van der Kemp on Sept. 20th 1817 (R. A. B. Z. 1817 U. S. No. 2998).
Aug. 19 1817 (R. A. Coll. Goldberg Port. 210).
„Extrait de l’adresse présentée au Roi par les Etats-Provinciaux de la Flandre Occidentale” (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; enclosure No. 19 with Report of Oct. 27 1817).
Aug. 28 1817, ’tHoen and Westrik to Goldberg (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; encl. No. 18 with Report of Oct. 27 1817).
A concept-reply to the former is found in R. A. Coll. Goldberg Port. 210. The tenor of it is largely followed in the final letter of September 30 th.
Gallatin to Adams, Oct. 10 1817 (D. o. S. Desp. France): “They assured us that what they intended to write would require no answer from us”.
Sept. 30 1817, Goldberg and Van der Kemp to Gallatin and Eustis (enclosed with the protocols in D. o. S. and R. A. B. Z.).
“Excitement of temper”, Adams calls it, to Everett Aug. 10 1818, (D. o. S. Instructions).
Importations of cloth, linens, gin and cheese were said to suffer especially.
The note ended by the treatment of another question, of no concern here, suggested by an address of W. Willink to Goldberg, Sept. 16 1817 (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; enclosure No. 17 with Report of Oct. 27 1817). It requested the insertion of an article in the treaty to be concluded, stipulating the equal treatment of Dutch landowners in the U. S. with American citizens as for disposing freely of their possessions. This matter was regulated, however, in the Constitution of the United States, and could not be made subject to a deviating conventional agreement (Oct. 161817, Eustis to Van Nagell, D. o. S. Desp. Neth.; R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; Nov. 22(?) 1817, Goldberg to Willink, R. A. Coll. Goldberg Port. 209).
Oct. 2 1817, Eustis to Gallatin (D. o. S. Desp. Neth.).
Who judged it “far from according with our understanding on the subject”,Oct. 10 1817, Gallatin to Adams (D. o. S. Desp. France).
Oct. 9 1817, Gallatin to Eustis (L. o. C. Eustis Papers vol. 4).
Which had not come into full discussion during the negotiations.
Oct. 16 1817, Eustis to Van Nagell (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724; D. o. S. Desp. Neth.).
A provisional report which they addressed to the King, Sept. 22 1817 (R. A. Coll. Goldberg Port. 209) had contained little more than a communication of the suspension of the negotiations.
When transmitting the addresses from the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce, and from the States Provincial of Western Flanders, treated above.
Oct. 27 1817, Goldberg and Van der Kemp to Van Nagell (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724).
Nov. 14 1817, Van Nagell to the King (Ibid.).
Posthumus, Documenten III No. 20 f. It had followed from a note of Van Nagell to the Prussian minister Von Hatzfeld, of April 6 1817, in which the former explained — more explicitly than he had ever expressed his policy to Eustis — that the only trade discrimination contained by the Dutch tariff law was that of tonnage duties, so that „tout vaisseau qui par rapport à ce droit est traité comme national, est assimilé en toutes manières aux vaisseaux néerlandais”.
November 24 1817, No. 81 (R. A. B. Z. Dossier 724). —- It also ordered that the negotiators be informed of the satisfaction of the King about the performance of their duties, and that they deposit their report in the Archives of the Foreign Department, until the United States should show an inclination to renew the suspended negotiations.
„4°. Te bepalen, dat in afwachting van dat berigt, de Amerikaansche bodems ten aanzien van last en havengelden, blij ven zullen in het genot hunner tegenwoordige gelijkstelling met de Nederlandschen, echter niet langer dan den 28en Februari eerst-komende, na welken tijd zij aan de verhooging zullen onderworpen zijn, zoo niet vroeger door het Departement van Buitenlandsche Zaken aan dat van de konvoyen en licenten mogt zijn medegedeeld dat, op den alleszins billijken grond der wederkeerigheid, en volgens den inhoud van bovengemelde acte, aan onze vlag in de havens der Vereenigde Staten eene gelijke behandeling als aan de Amerikaansche zelve verzekerd is”.
Nov. 28 1817, Van Nagell to Ten Cate (R. A. B. Z. B XXI No, 4).
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© 1935 Martinus Nyhoff, the Hague, Holland
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Westermann, J.C. (1935). The Aftermath of the Negotiations; the Dutch Retaliatory Decree of November 24, 1817. In: The Netherlands and the United States. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0999-2_15
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