1118                     FOREIGN RELATIONS.

  said Secretary expressed his opinion that the treaty between, Sweden
  and Norway and the United States of July 4, 1827, contains no stipula-
  tion authorizing the steamers of the line aforesaid to claim the privi-
  leges which have been granted to the Belgian line.
    The Secretary added that if his decision was considered unjust, the
  parties interested might appeal to the courts.
    I communicated this reply to my government, which has instructed me
  to try once more to obtain the recognition, diplomatically, of the rights
  which we claim, by submitting the question anew to the consideration
  of the American Government.
    In obedience to these instructions, I take the liberty of calling your
  attention, Mr. Secretary of State, in the first place, to article 8 of
the
  treaty of 1827, which is as follows:
  The two high contracting parties engage not to impose upon the navigation
between
  their respective territories, in the vessels of either, any tonnage or
other duties of any
  kind or denomination which shall be higher or other than those which shall
be imposed
  on every other navigation.
    It seems to me very difficult, Mr. Secretary of State, not to admit that
 this article secures to each of the two contracting countries for their
 navigation to the other country in their own vessels the usage of the
 most favored nation in everything relating to "1 tonnage or other duties."
   In the second place, I take the liberty of observing to you, Mr. Sec-
 retary of State, that by article 17 of the treaty of 1827, it is stipulated
 that several articles of the treaty of April 3, 1783, between Sweden and
 the United States, shall be "revived, and made applicable to all the
 countries under the dominion of the present high contracting parties.
 and shall have the same force and value as if they were inserted in the
 context of the present treaty," and that among the articles thus revived
 is the second, which reads thus:
   The King and the United States engage, mutually, not to grant hereafter
any par-
 t'cular favor to other nations in respect to commerce and navigation, which
shall not
 i nmediately become common to the other party.
   It seems to me impossible, Mr. Secretary of State, to find, in a treaty,
 terms more explicit, and bearing more directly upon questions of the
 nature of that which now occupies our attention.
   It is, therefore, in basing my request upon these direct and formal
 terms of existing treaties that, with frll confidence in the sentiments
of
 justice and good will which actuate the Government of the United
 States, I have the honor to beg you, Mr. Secretary of State, to be pleased
 again to take into consideration the subject of my note of October 2,
 1872, and to use your good offices to the end that the request therein
 made may be granted.
       I avail, &c.,
                                                    0. STENERSEN.

                                0No. 755.

                       Mr. Fish to Mr. Stenersen.

                                   DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
                                          Washin~gton, April 10, 1874.
  SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the
25th ultimo, renewing the request made by you on the 2d of October,
1872, that the line of steamers plying between Norway and the United