government of the United States, for the same reason. By an act of March 3, 1815, however, Congress offered to abolish all discriminating duties, both of tonnage and of impost, on foreign vessels laden with the produce or manufactures of their own country, on condition of the concession of a reciprocal privilege to American vessels. By "discriminating duties" are meant all duties in excess of what would be charged in the particular country on one of its own vessels and the cargo imported in it. This principle first found conventional expression in the treaty of commerce and navigation with Great Britain of July 3, 1815; but its operation was therein confined, on the part of that power, to the British territories in Europe. By the act of Congress of March 1, 1817, the offer made in the act of 1815 was enlarged, by including vessels belonging to citizens either of the country by which the goods were produced or manufactured, or of the country from which they could only be, or most usually were, first shipped for transportation. The final step was taken in the act of March 24, 1828, which is still in force, and by which a standing offer was made for the reciprocal abolition of all discriminating duties, without regard to the origin of the cargo or the port from which the vessel came. The provisions of this statute have been extended to many countries by proclamation, and the principle on which they are founded is confirmed by numerous treaties.
With the passing away of the old system of exclusions and discriminations in the West, the activities of American diplomacy were directed more and more to the East, where the expansion of commerce was hindered by various conditions, presenting every phase of obstruction from general insecurity to positive non-intercourse. In 1830 a treaty of commerce and navigation was concluded with the Ottoman Empire, with which a trade had been carried on under the somewhat costly shelter of the English Levant Company. But a wider field awaited the spirit of enterprise in the Far East. In August, 1784, less than a year after the definitive peace with Great Britain, a New York ship, the Empress of China, bore the American flag into Canton. Before the close of the century, American vessels had prosecuted their adventures in trading and in fishing into all parts of the Pacific. It was an American ship, fitted out at Boston for the fur trade, that entered and explored in 1792 the "River of the West" and gave to it its name, "Columbia." Even the stern barriers of Spanish colonial exclusion failed to withstand the assaults of American energy in the trade carried on between the shores of America and the shores of Asia. In time, private initiative was powerfully reenforced by the action of government. In 1832, Edmund Roberts, a sea-captain of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was appointed by President Jackson as "agent for the purpose of examining in the Indian Ocean the means of extending the commerce of the United States by commercial arrangements with the powers whose dominions border on those seas." Taking with him blank letters of credence, he embarked in March, 1832, on the sloop-of-war Peacock for his long voyage.
If we were to judge by the provision made for his comfort and remuneration, we should infer that little importance was attached to his mission. Rated on the Peacock as "Captain's clerk," his pay was barely sufficient to defray the cost of an insurance on his life for the benefit of his numerous children; and for three months he was obliged to lie on the sea-washed gun-deck with the crew, all the available space in the cabin being occupied by a chargé d'affaires to Buenos Ayres, whose name is now forgotten. He touched at all the important countries eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, except those on the Bay of Bengal. He visited Java three times, on one occasion remaining at Batavia nearly two months. On March 30, 1833, he concluded a treaty of amity and commerce with Siam, and on the 21st of September signed a similar treaty with the Sultan of Muscat. He returned to the United States in 1834 on the U.S.S. Lexington. His treaties were promptly approved by the Senate. He then returned to the East, sailing again in a man-of-war. His diplomatic career ended in 1836 at Macao, where he fell a victim to the plague. In 1839 Congress, recognizing the gross inadequacy of the recompense that had been made for his excep-
