21 MAY 1842, Page 2

Lord Atairtuarois interchanges uninterrupted hospitality and kind expressions with the

Americans at Washington. They are pleased with the elegant liberality of his table ; the assiduity of his fourteen itagmen z livery has touched Republican hearts ; the anticipatory austerity Ogle journalists melts away; reports are gleefully circulated that he is liberal in his overtures to Maine, and that Maine is liberal in its dispositions to relent. If England were blameless in her courses—if her absurd injustices were not so very complicated that it is impossible to trace their consequences— every thing would-be as smooth as tide and zephyr going the same way. But England has had a " commercial system "—word of fear!—after trying to tax the citizens of the future Union against all policy and constitutional law, England has retaliated for their separation by taxing them, as a foreign people, with remarkable malignancy. The Corn-law is kept up in spite of their teeth ; and their intercourse with our Colonies in their neighbourhood is nar- rowed by prohibitions and restrictions and disqualifying regulations. A Committee of Congress have had that part of the subject under consideration, and have just published a report which comprises a strong protest against the system, and a recommendation that Ame- rica should retaliate in kind, in the event of friendly negotiations failing to procure a relaxation on the side of Great Britain. The question will be added to the troublesome list of American claims— absurd, equivocal, or reasonable—with which Lord ASHBURTON has to deal: how is he prepared to meet it ? what assurances can he give the Americans ? or what, in short, can he give them but stale excuses ? The worst of all possible positions to be forced upon a diplomatist, who comes to settle obscure and conflicting claims, is the apologetical.