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Ghent did constantly refer to it as existing and in full force, nor was an intimation given that any further confirmation of it was supposed to be necessary. It would be for the British Government ultimately to determine how far this reasoning was to be admitted as correct. There were, also, considerations of policy and expediency, to which I hoped they would give suitable attention, before they should come to a final decision upon this point. I thought it my duty to suggest them, that they might not be overlooked. The subject was viewed by my countrymen as highly important, and I was anxious to omit no effort which might possibly have an influence in promoting friendly sentiments between the two nations, or in guarding against the excitement of others. These fisheries afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of people who were destitute of any other; they also afforded the means of remittance to Great Britain in payment for articles of her manufactures exported to America. It was well understood to be the policy of Great Britain that no unnecessary stimulus should be given to the manufactures in the United States, which would diminish the importation of those from Great Britain. But, by depriving the fishermen of the United States of this source of subsistence, the result must be to throw them back upon the country, and drive them to the resort of manufacturing for themselves; while, on the other hand, it would cut off the means of making remittances in payment for the manufactures of Great Britain.

I thought it best to urge every consideration which might influence a party having other views in that respect, to avoid coming to a collision upon it. I would even urge considerations of humanity. I would say that fisheries, the nature of which was to multiply the means of subsistence to mankind, were usually considered by civilised nations as under a sort of special sanction. It was a common practice to have them uninterrupted even in time of war. He knew, for instance, that the Dutch had been, for centuries, in the practice of fishing upon the coasts of this island, and that they were not interrupted in this occupation even in ordinary times of war. It was to be inferred from this, that, to interdict a fishery, which has been enjoyed for ages, far from being a usual act in the peaceable relations between nations, was an indication of animosity, transcending even the ordinary course of hostility in war. He said that no such disposition was entertained by the British Government; that to show the liberality which they had determined to exercise in this case, he would assure me that the instructions which he had given to the officers on that station had been, not even to interrupt the American fishermen who might have proceeded to those coasts, within the British jurisdiction, for the present year; to allow them to complete their fares, but to give them notice that this privilege could no longer be allowed by Great Britain, and that they must not return. the next year. It was not so much the fishing, as the drying and curing on the shores, that had been followed by bad consequences. It happened that our fishermen, by their proximity, could get to the fishing stations sooner in the season than the British, who were obliged to go from Europe, and who, upon arriving there, found all the best fishing places and drying and curing places pre-occupied. This had often given rise to disputes and quarrels between them, which in some instances had proceeded even to blows. It had dis

turbed the peace among the inhabitants on the shores; and, for several years before the war, the complaints to this Government had been so great and so frequent, that it had been impossible not to pay regard to them. I said that I had not heard of any such complaints before, but that, as to the disputes arising from the competition of the fishermen, a remedy could surely with ease be found for them, by suitable regulations of the Government; and with regard to the peace of the inhabitants, there could be little difficulty in securing it, as the liberty enjoyed by the American fishermen was limited to unsettled and uninhabited places, unless they could, in the others, obtain the consent and agreement of the inhabitants.

The answer which was so promptly sent to the complaint relative to the warning of the fishing vessels, by the captain of the Jaseur, will probably be communicated to you before you will receive this letter. You will see whether it is so precise, as to the limits within. which they are determined to adhere to the exclusion of our fishing vessels, as Lord Bathurst's verbal statement of it to me, namely, to the extent of one marine league from their shores. Indeed, it is to the curing and drying upon the shore that they appear to have the strongest objection. But that, perhaps, is because they know that the immediate curing and drying of the fish, as soon as they are taken, is essential to the value, if not to the very prosecution of the fishery. I have no expectation that the arguments used by me either in support of our right, or as to the policy of Great Britain, upon this question, will have any weight here. Though satisfied of their validity myself, I am persuaded it will be upon the determination of the American Government and people to maintain the right that the continuance of its enjoyment will alone depend.

No. 18.-1815, September 25: Extract from Letter from Mr. Adams to Lord Bathurst (British Secretary of State).

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In the conference with your Lordship, with which I was honoured on the 14th instant, I represent to you, conformably to the instructions which I had received from the Government of the United States, the proceedings of several British officers in America, and upon the American coast, marked with characters incompatible not only with those amicable relations which it is the earnest desire of the American Government to restore and to cultivate, but even with the condition of peace which had been restored between the two countries by the treaty of Ghent.

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It was highly satisfactory to be informed that the conduct of Captain Lock, commander of the sloop of war Jaseur, in warning American fishing vessels not to come within sixty miles of the coast of His Majesty's possessions in North America, was unauthorised, and that the instructions to the British officers on that station, far from warranting such a procedure, had directed them not even to molest the American fishing vessels which might be found pursuing that occupation during the present year. In offering a just tribute of acknowledgment to the fairness and liberality of these instructions issued from your Lordship's office, there only re92909°-S. Doc. S70, 61-3, vol 4

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mained the regret that the execution had been so different from them in spirit, so opposite to them in effect.

But, in disavowing the particular act of the officer who had presumed to forbid American fishing vessels from approaching within sixty miles of the American coast, and in assuring me that it had been the intention of this Government, and the instructions given by your Lordship, not even to deprive the American fishermen of any of their accustomed liberties during the present year, your Lordship did also express it as the intention of the British Government to exclude the fishing vessels of the United States, hereafter, from the liberty of fishing within one marine league of the shores of all the British territories in North America, and from that of drying and curing their fish on the unsettled parts of those territories, and, with the consent of the inhabitants, on those parts which have become settled since the peace of 1783.

I then expressed to your Lordship my earnest hope that this determination had not been irrevocably taken, and stated the instructions which I had received to present to the consideration of His Majesty's Government the grounds upon which the United States conceive those liberties to stand, and upon which they deem that such exclusion cannot be effected without an infraction of the rights of the American people.

In adverting to the origin of these liberties, it will be admitted, I presume, without question, that, from the time of the settlements in North America, which now constitute the United States, until their separation from Great Britain, and their establishment as distinct sovereignties, these liberties of fishing, and of drying and curing fish, had been enjoyed by them in common with the other subjects of the British Empire. In point of principle, they were pre-eminently entitled to the enjoyment; and, in point of fact, they had enjoyed more of them than any other portion of the Empire; their settlement of the neighbouring country having naturally led to the discovery and improvement of these fisheries, and their proximity to the places where they are prosecuted; and the necessities of their condition having led them to the discovery of the most advantageous fishing grounds, and given them facilities in the pursuit of their occupation. in those regions which the remoter parts of the Empire could not possess. It might be added, that they had contributed their full share, and more than their share, in securing the conquest from France of the provinces on the coasts on which these fisheries were situated. - It was, doubtless, upon considerations such as these that, in the treaty of peace between His Majesty and the United States in 1783, an express stipulation was inserted, recognising the rights and liberties which had always been enjoyed by the people of the United States in these fisheries, and declaring that they should continue to enjoy the right of fishing on the Grand Bank, and other places of common jurisdiction, and have the liberty of fishing and of drying and curing their fish within the exclusive British jurisdiction on the North American coasts, to which they had been accustomed while themselves formed a part of the British nation. This stipulation was a part of that treaty by which His Majesty acknowledged the United States as free, sovereign, and independent States, and that he treated with them as such.

It cannot be necessary for me to prove, my Lord, that that treaty is not, in its general provisions, one of those which, by the common understanding and usage of civilised nations, is or can be considered as annulled by a subsequent war between the same parties. To suppose that it is, would imply the inconsistency and absurdity of a sovereign and independent State, liable to forfeit its right of sovereignty, by the act of exercising it on a declaration of war. But the very words of the treaty attest that the sovereignty and independence of the United States were not considered or understood as grants from His Majesty. They were taken and expressed as existing before the treaty was made, and as then only first formally recognised and acknowledged by Great Britain.

Precisely of the same nature were the rights and liberties in the fisheries to which I now refer. They were, in no respect, grants from the King of Great Britain to the United States; but the acknowledgment of them as rights and liberties enjoyed before the separation of the two countries, and which it was mutually agreed should continue to be enjoyed under the new relations which were to subsist between them, constituted the essence of the article concerning the fisheries. The very peculiarity of the stipulation is an evidence that it was not, on either side, understood or intended as a grant from one sovereign State to another. Had it been so understood, neither could the United States have claimed, nor would Great Britain have granted, gratuitously, any such concession. There was nothing, either in the state of things, or in the disposition of the parties, which could have led to such a stipulation, as on the ground of a grant, without an equivalent, by Great Britain.

Yet such is the ground upon which it appears to have been contemplated as resting by the British Government, when their plenipotentiaries at Ghent communicated to those of the United States their intentions as to the North American fisheries, viz: "That the British Government did not intend to grant to the United States, gratuitously, the privileges formerly granted by treaty to them, of fishing within the limits of the British sovereignty, and of using the shores of the British territories for purposes connected with the British fisheries."

These are the words in which the notice, given by them, is recorded in the protocol of conference of the 8th of August, 1814. To this notice the American plenipotentiaries first answered, on the 9th of August, that they had no instructions from their Government to negotiate upon the subject of the fisheries; and afterwards, in their note of 10th November, 1814, they expressed themselves in the following terms:

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In answer to the declaration made by the British plenipotentiaries respecting the fisheries, the undersigned, referring to what passed in the conference of the 9th of August, can only state that they are not authorised to bring into discussion any of the rights or liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed in relation thereto. From their nature, and from the peculiar character of the treaty of 1783, by which they were recognised, no further stipulation has been deemed necessary by the Government of the United States to entitle them to the full enjoyment of all of them.

If the stipulation of the treaty of 1783 was one of the conditions by which His Majesty acknowledged the sovereignty and independence of the United States; if it was the mere recognition of rights

and liberties previously existing and enjoyed, it was neither a privilege gratuitously granted, nor liable to be forfeited by the mere existence of a subsequent war. If it was not forfeited by the war, neither could it be impaired by the declaration of Great Britain, that she did not intend to renew the grant. Where there had been no gratuitous concession, there could be none to renew; the rights and liberties of the United States could not be cancelled by the declaration of Great Britain's intentions. Nothing could abrogate them but the renunciation of them by the United States themselves.

Among the articles of that same treaty of 1783, there is one stipulating that the subjects and citizens of both nations shall enjoy, for ever, the right of navigating the River Mississippi, from its sources to the ocean. And although, at the period of the negotiations of Ghent, Great Britain possessed no territory upon that river, yet the British plenipotentiaries, in their first note, considered Great Britain as still entitled to claim the free navigation of it, without offering for it any equivalent. And, afterwards, when offering a boundary line, which would have abandoned every pretension even to any future possession on that river, they still claimed, not only its free navigation, but a right of access to it, from the British dominions in North America, through the territories of the United States. The American plenipotentiaries, to foreclose the danger of any subsequent misunderstanding and discussion upon either of these points, proposed an article recognising anew the liberties on both sides. In declining to accept it, the British plenipotentiaries proposed an article engaging to negotiate, in future, for the renewal of both, for equivalents to be mutually granted. This was refused by the American plenipotentiaries, on the avowed principle that its acceptance would imply the admision on the part of the United States that their liberties in the fisheries, recognised by the treaty of 1783, had been annulled, which they declared themselves in no manner authorised to concede.

Let it be supposed, my Lord, that the notice given by the British plenipotentiaries, in relation to the fisheries, had been in reference to another article of the same treaty; that Great Britain had declared she did not intend to grant again, gratuitously, the grant in a former treaty of peace, acknowledging the United States as free, sovereign, and independent States; or, that she did not intend to grant, gratuitously, the same boundary line which she had granted in the former treaty of peace: is it not obvious that the answer would have been that the United States needed no new acknowledgment of their independence, nor any new grant of a boundary line?-that, if their independence was to be forfeited, or their boundary line curtailed, it could only be by their own acts of renunciation, or of cession, and not by the declaration of the intentions of another Government? And, if this reasoning be just, with regard to the other articles of the treaty of 1783, upon what principle can Great Britain select one article, or a part of one article, and say, this particular stipulation is liable to forfeiture by war, or by the declaration of her will, while she admits the rest of the treaty to be permanent and irrevocable? In the negotiation of Ghent, Great Britain did propose several variations of the boundary line, but she never intimated that she considered the line of the treaty of 1783 as forfeited by the war, or that its variation could be effected by the mere declaration of her intentions. She perfectly understood that no alteration of