the time of the settlement of North America was the origin of the liberties of the United States in respect to the fisheries, and their independence, as recognised in 1783, was, as further argued by him, the mere recognition of rights and liberties previously existing, (which must have been in virtue of their independence), it would seem to follow that their independence was recognised from the time of the settlement of North America-for no other period can be assigned. The undersigned is totally unable to collect when the American Minister considers the independence of his country to have commenced; yet this is a point of no small importance, if other rights are to be represented as coeval with it, or dependent on it.

As to the origin of these privileges, in point of fact, the undersigned is ready to admit that, so long as the United States constituted a part of the dominions of His Majesty, the inhabitants had the enjoyment of them, as they had of other political and commercial advantages, in common with His Majesty's subjects. But they had, at the same time, in common with His Majesty's other subjects, duties to perform; and when the United States, by their separation from Great Britain, became released from the duties, they became excluded also from the advantages of British subjects. They cannot, therefore, now claim, otherwise than by treaty, the exercise of privileges belonging to them as British subjects, unless they are prepared to admit, on the part of Great Britain, the exercise of the rights which she enjoyed previous to the separation.

If it be contended, on the part of the United States, that, in consequence of having been once a part of the British dominions, they are now entitled, as of right, to all the privileges which they enjoyed as British subjects, in addition to those which they have as an independent people, the undersigned cannot too strongly protest against such a doctrine; and it must become doubly necessary for Great Britain to hesitate in conceding the privileges which are now the subject of discussion, lest, by such a concession, she should be supposed to countenance a principle not less novel than alarming.

But, though Great Britain can never admit the claim of the United States to enjoy those liberties, with respect to the fisheries, as matter of right, she is by no means insensible to some of those considerations with which the letter of the American Minister concludes.

Although His Majesty's Government cannot admit that the claim. of the American fishermen to fish within British jurisdiction, and to use the British territory for purposes connected with their fishery, is analogous to the indulgence which has been granted to enemy's subjects engaged in fishing on the high seas, for the purpose of conveying fresh fish to market, yet they do feel that the enjoyment of the liberties, formerly used by the inhabitants of the United States, may be very conducive to their national and individual prosperity, though they should be placed under some modifications; and this feeling operates most forcibly in favour of concession. But Great Britain can only offer the concession in a way which shall effectually protect her own subjects from such obstructions to their lawful enterprises as they too frequently experienced immediately previous to the late war, and which are, from their very nature, calculated to produce collision and disunion between the two States.

It was not of fair competition that His Majesty's Government had reason to complain, but of the preoccupation of British harbours and

creeks, in North America, by the fishing vessels of the United States, and the forcible exclusion of British vessels from places where the fishery might be most advantageously conducted. They had, likewise, reason to complain of the clandestine introduction of prohibited goods into the British colonies by American vessels ostensibly engaged in the fishing trade, to the great injury of the British

revenue.

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The undersigned has felt it incumbent on him thus generally to notice these obstructions, in the hope that the attention of the Government of the United States will be directed to the subject; and that they may be induced, amicably and cordially, to co-operate with His Majesty's Government in devising such regulations as shall prevent the recurrence of similar inconveniences. His Majesty's Government are willing to enter into negotiations with the Government of the United States for the modified renewal of the liberties in question; and they doubt not that an arrangement may be made, satisfactory to both countries, and tending to confirm the amity now so happily subsisting between them.

The undersigned avails himself of this opportunity of renewing to Mr. Adams the assurances of his high consideration.

BATHURST.

No. 20.-1816, January 22: Letter from Mr. Adams to Viscount

Castlereagh.

13 CRAVEN STREET, January 22, 1816.

The undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from the United States of America, has received, and communicated to the Government of the United States, the answer of Lord Bathurst to a letter which he had the honour of addressing to his Lordship on the 25th September last, representing the grounds upon which the American Government consider the people of the United States entitled to all the rights and liberties in and connected with the fisheries on the coasts of North America, which had been enjoyed by them previously to the American revolution, and which, by the third article of the treaty of peace of 1783, were recognised by Great Britain as rights and liberties belonging to them. The reply to Lord Bathurst's note has been delayed by circumstances which it is unnecessary to detail. It is for the Government of the United States alone to decide upon the proposal of a negotiation upon the subject. That they will at all times be ready to agree upon arrangements which may obviate and prevent the recurrence of those inconveniences stated to have resulted from the exercise by the people of the United States of these rights and liberties, is not to be doubted; but as Lord Bathurst appears to have understood some of the observations in the letter of the undersigned as importing inferences not intended by him, and as some of his Lordship's remarks particularly require a reply, it is presumed that, since Lord Castlereagh's return, it will, with propriety, be addressed to him.

It had been stated, in the letter to Lord Bathurst, that the treaty of peace of 1783 between Great Britain and the United States was of a peculiar nature, and bore in that nature a character of permanency,

not subject, like many of the ordinary contracts between independent nations, to abrogation by a subsequent war between the same parties. His Lordship not only considers this as a position of a novel nature, to which Great Britain cannot accede, but as claiming for the diplomatic relations of the United States with her a different degree of permanency from that on which her connections with all other States depend. He denies the right of any one State to assign to a treaty made with her such a peculiarity of character as to make it in duration an exception to all other treaties, in order to found on a peculiarity thus assumed an irrevocable title to all indulgences which (he alleges) have all the features of temporary concessions; and he adds, in unqualified terms, that "Great Britain knows of no exception to the rule that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war between the same parties."

The undersigned explicitly disavows every pretence of claiming, for the diplomatic relations between the United States and Great Britain, a degree of permanency different from that of the same relations between either of the parties and all other Powers. He disclaims all pretence of assigning to any treaty between the two nations any peculiarity not founded in the nature of the treaty itself. But he submits to the candour of His Majesty's Government whether the treaty of 1783 was not, from the very nature of its subject-matter, and from the relations previously existing between the parties to it, peculiar? whether it was a treaty which could have been made between Great Britain and any other nation? and, if not, whether the whole scope and objects of its stipulations were not expressly intended to constitute a new and permanent state of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which would not, and could not, be annulled by the mere fact of a subsequent war between them? And he makes this appeal with the more confidence, because another part of Lord Bathurst's note admits that treaties often contain recognitions and acknowledgments in the nature of perpetual obligation, and because it implicitly admits that the whole treaty of 1783 is of this character, with the exception of the article concerning the navigation of the Mississippi, and a small part of the article concerning the fisheries. The position that "Great Britain knows of no exception to the rule that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war between the same parties," appears to the undersigned not only novel, but unwarranted by any of the received authorities upon the laws of nations; unsanctioned by the practice and usages of sovereign States; suited, in its tendency, to multiply the incitements to war, and to weaken the ties of peace between independent nations; and not easily reconciled with the admission that treaties not unusually contain, together with articles of a temporary character, liable to revocation, recognitions and acknowledgments in the nature of perpetual obligation.

A recognition or acknowledgment of title, stipulated by convention, is as much a part of the treaty as any other article: and 73 if all treaties are abrogated by war, the recognitions and acknowledgments contained in them must necessarily be null and void, as much as any other part of the treaty.

If there be no exception to the rule that war puts an end to all treaties between the parties to it, what can be the purpose or meaning of those articles which, in almost all treaties of commerce, are provided expressly for the contingency of war, and which, during the

peace, are without operation? On this point, the undersigned would refer Lord Castlereagh to the tenth article of the treaty of 1794 between the United States and Great Britain, where it is thus stipulated: "Neither the debts due from individuals of the one nation to the individuals of the other, nor shares, nor moneys, which they may have in the public funds, or in the public or private banks, shall ever, in any event of war, or national differences, be sequestered or confiscated." If war puts an end to all treaties, what could the parties to this engagement intend by making it formally an article of the treaty? According to the principle laid down, excluding all exception, by Lord Bathurst's note, the moment a war broke out between the two countries this stipulation became a dead letter, and either State might have sequestered or confiscated those specified properties, without any violation of compact between the nations.

The undersigned believes that there are many exceptions to the rule by which the treaties between nations are mutually considered as terminated by the intervention of a war; that these exceptions extend to all engagements contracted with the understanding that they are to operate equally in war and peace, or exclusively during war; to all engagements by which the parties superadd the sanction of a formal compact to principles dictated by the eternal laws of morality and humanity; and, finally, to all engagements which, according to the expressions of Lord Bathurst's note, are in the nature of perpetual obligation. To the first and second of these classes may be referred the tenth article of the treaty of 1794, and all treaties or articles of treaties stipulating the abolition of the slave trade. The treaty of peace of 1783 belongs to the third.

The reasoning of Lord Bathurst's note seems to confine this perpetuity of obligation to recognitions and acknowledgments of title, and to consider its perpetual nature as resulting from the subjectmatter of the contract, and not from the engagement of the contractor. While Great Britain leaves the United States unmolested in the enjoyment of all the advantages, rights, and liberties stipulated in their behalf in the treaty of 1783, it is immaterial to them whether she founds her conduct upon the mere fact that the United States are in possession of such rights, or whether she is governed by good faith and respect for her own engagements. But if she contests any one of them, it is to her engagements only that the United States can appeal as the rule for settling the question of right. If this appeal be rejected, it ceases to be a discussion of right; and this observation applies as strongly to the recognition of independence, and to the boundary line in the treaty of 1783, as to the fisheries. It is truly observed by Lord Bathurst, that in that treaty the independence of the United States was not granted, but acknowledged. He adds, that it might have been acknowledged without any treaty, and that the acknowledgment, in whatever mode made, would have been irrevocable. But the independence of the United States was precisely the question upon which a previous war between them and Great Britain had been waged. Other nations might acknowledge their independence without a treaty, because they had no right, or claim of right, to contest it; but this acknowledgment, to be binding upon Great Britain, could have been made only by treaty, because it included the dissolution of one social compact between the parties, as well as the formation of another. Peace could exist between the

two nations only by the mutual pledge of faith to the new social relations established between them; and hence it was that the stipulations of that treaty were in the nature of perpetual obligation, and not liable to be forfeited by a subsequent war, or by any declaration of the will of either party without the assent of the other.

In this view, it certainly was supposed by the undersigned that Great Britain considered her obligation to hold and treat with the United States as a Sovereign and independent Power as derived only from the preliminary articles of 1782, as converted into the definitive treaty of 1783. The boundary line could obviously rest upon no other foundation. The boundaries were neither recognitions nor acknowledgments of title. They could have been fixed and settled only by treaty, and it is to the treaty alone that both parties have always referred in all discussions concerning them. Lord Bathurst's note denies that there is in any one of the articles of the treaty of Ghent any express or implied reference to the treaty of 1783 as still in force. It says that, by the stipulation for a mutual restoration of territory, each party necessarily "reverted to their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the title by which their possessions were acquired, or to the mode in which their boundaries had been previously fixed."

There are four several articles of the treaty of Ghent, in every one of which the treaty of 1783 is not only named, but its stipulations form the basis of the new engagements between the parties for carrying its provisions into execution. These articles are the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. The undersigned refers particularly to the fourth article, where the boundaries described are not adverted to without reference to the title by which they were acquired; but where the stipulation of the treaty of 1783 is expressly assigned as the basis of the claims, both of the United States and of Great Britain, to the islands mentioned in the article.

The words with which the article begins are, "Whereas it was stipulated by the second article in the treaty of peace of one thousand seven hundred and eighty-three, between His Britannic Majesty and the United States of America, that the boundary of the United States should comprehend all islands," &c.

It proceeds to describe the boundaries as there stipulated; then alleges the claim of the United States to certain islands, as founded upon one part of the stipulation, and the claim of Great Britain as derived from another part of the stipulation; and agrees upon the

appointment of two commissioners "to decide to which of the 74 two contracting parties the islands belong, in conformity with

the true intent of the said treaty of peace of 1783." The same expressions are repeated in the fifth, sixth, and seventh articles; and the undersigned is unable to conceive by what construction of language one of the parties to those articles can allege that, at the time when they were signed, the treaty of 1783 was, or could be, considered at an end.

When, in the letter of the undersigned to Lord Bathurst, the treaty of 1783 was stated to be a compact of a peculiar character, importing in its own nature a permanence not liable to be annulled by the fact of a subsequent war between the parties, the recognition of the sovereignty of the United States and the boundary line were adduced as illustrations to support the principle; the language of the above