_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States_:
In the course of the last summer a negotiation was commenced with
the Government of the Netherlands with a view to the revival and
modification of the commercial treaty existing between the two
countries, adapted to their present circumstances.
The report from the Secretary of State which I now lay before Congress
will show the obstacles which arose in the progress of the conferences
between the respective plenipotentiaries, and which resulted in the
agreement between them then to refer the subject to the consideration
of their respective Governments. As the difficulties appear to be of a
nature which may, perhaps, for the present be more easily removed by
reciprocal legislative regulations, formed in the spirit of amity and
conciliation, than by conventional stipulations, Congress may think it
advisable to leave the subsisting treaty in its present state, and to
meet the liberal exemption from discriminating tonnage duties which has
been conceded in the Netherlands to the vessels of the United States
by a similar exemption to the vessels of the Netherlands which have
arrived, or may hereafter arrive, in our ports, commencing from the time
when the exemption was granted to the vessels of the United States. I
would further recommend to the consideration of Congress the expediency
of extending the benefit of the same regulation, to commence from the
passage of the law, to the vessels of Russia, Hamburg, and Bremen, and
of making it prospectively general in favor of every nation in whose
ports the vessels of the United States are admitted on the same footing
as their own.