Our efforts to effect this good work
will be persevered in while they are deemed useful to the parties and
our entire disinterestedness continues to be felt and understood. The
act of Congress to countervail the discriminating duties to the
prejudice of our navigation levied in Cuba and Puerto Rico has been
transmitted to the minister of the United States at Madrid, to be
communicated to the Government of the Queen. No intelligence of its
receipt has yet reached the Department of State. If the present
condition of the country permits the Government to make a careful and
enlarged examination of the true interests of these important portions
of its dominions, no doubt is entertained that their future intercourse
with the United States will be placed upon a more just and liberal
basis.
The Florida archives have not yet been selected and delivered. Recent
orders have been sent to the agent of the United States at Havana to
return with all that he can obtain, so that they may be in Washington
before the session of the Supreme Court, to be used in the legal
questions there pending to which the Government is a party.
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