Proclamation 33—Levying Discriminating Duties on British Vessels Trading Between the United States and Certain British Colonies

Whereas by the sixth section of an act of Congress entitled "An act to regulate the commercial intercourse between the United States and certain British colonial ports," which was approved on the 1st day of March, A. D. 1823, it is enacted "that this act, unless repealed, altered, or amended by Congress, shall be and continue in force so long as the above-enumerated British colonial ports shall be open to the admission of the vessels of the United States, conformably to the provisions of the British act of Parliament of the 24th of June last, being the forty-fourth chapter of the acts of the third year of George IV; but if at any time the trade and intercourse between the United States and all or any of the above-enumerated British colonial ports authorized by the said act of Parliament should be prohibited by a British order in council or by act of Parliament, then, from the day of the date of such order in council or act of Parliament, or from the time that the same shall commence to be in force, proclamation to that effect having been made by the President of the United States, each and every provision of this act, so far as the same shall apply to the intercourse between the United States and the above-enumerated British colonial ports in British vessels, shall cease to operate in their favor, and each and every provision of the 'Act concerning navigation,' approved on the 18th of April, 1818, and of the act supplementary thereto, approved on the 15th of May, 1820, shall revive and be in full force;" and

Whereas by an act of the British Parliament which passed on the 5th day of July, A. D. 1825, entitled "An act to repeal the several laws relating to the customs," the said act of Parliament of the 24th of June, 1822, was repealed; and by another act of the British Parliament, passed on the 5th day of July, A. D. 1825, in the sixth year of the reign of George IV, entitled "An act to regulate the trade of the British possessions abroad;" and by an order of His Britannic Majesty in council, bearing date the 27th of July, 1826, the trade and intercourse authorized by the aforesaid act of Parliament of the 24th of June, 1822, between the United States and the greater part of the said British colonial ports therein enumerated, have been prohibited upon and from the 1st day of December last past, and the contingency has thereby arisen on which the President of the United States was authorized by the sixth section aforesaid of the act of Congress of the 1st March, 1823, to issue a proclamation to the effect therein mentioned:

Now, therefore, I, John Quincy Adams, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the trade and intercourse authorized by the said act of Parliament of the 24th of June, 1822, between the United States and the British colonial ports enumerated in the aforesaid act of Congress of the 1st of March, 1823, have been and are, upon and from the 1st day of December, 1826, by the aforesaid two several acts of Parliament of the 5th of July, 1825, and by the aforesaid British order in council of the 27th day of July, 1826, prohibited.

Given under my hand, at the city of Washington, this 17th day of March, A. D. 1827, and the fifty-first year of the Independence of the United States.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

By the President:

H. CLAY,

Secretary of State.