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an independent nation, and containing the terms and conditions on 

 ■which the two parties of one empire had mutually agreed henceforth 

 to constitute two distinct and separate nations. In consenting, by that 

 treaty, that a part of the North American continent should remain sub- 

 ject to the British jurisdiction, the people of the United States had re- 

 served to themselves the liberty, which they had ever before enjoyed, 

 of fishing upon that part of the coast, and of drying and curing fish 

 upon the shores ; and this reservation had been agreed to by the other 

 contracting party. 



" We saw not why this liberty — then no new grant, but a mere recog- 

 nition of a prior right always enjoyed — should be forfeited by a war 

 more than any other of the rights of our national independence ; or 

 why we should need a new stipulation for its enjoyment more than we 

 needed a new article to declare that the King of Great Britain treated 

 with us as free, sovereign, and independent States. We stated this 

 principle in general terms to the British plenipotentiaries in the note 

 which we sent to them w^ith our irrojct of the treaty, and we alleged it 

 as the ground upon which no new stipulation was deemed by our gov- 

 ernment necessary to secure to the people of the United States all the 

 rights and liberties stipulated in their favor by the treaty of 1783. No 

 reply to that part of our note was given by the British plenipotentia- 

 ries."* 



To Lord Falkland's second and third queries the Queen's advocate 

 and her Majesty's attorney general reply: 



" Except within certain defined limits, to which the query put to us 

 does not apply, we are of opinion that, by the terms of the treaty, 

 American citizens are excluded from the right of fishing within three 

 miles of the coast of British America; and that the prescribed distance 



* It has been suggested to me by gentlemen of high consideration in our national councils, 

 that Mr. Adams, by consencing to the convention of 1818, abandoned the principle which is 

 here so ably asserted. If it can be shown that he really did consent to that convention, the 

 suggestion is not without force, since it is manifest, that on the ground taken by our commis- 

 sioners at Ghent, no new stipulations were necessary. But I have never believed that Mr. 

 Adams, as Secretaiy of State, approved of the tonus of the convention ; and my conjecture 

 has been, that he persisted in the views which h-e entertained in 1814, and was overruled by 

 other members of Mr. Monroe's cabinet. Desirous, if possible, to ascertain the precise fact 

 upon so important a point, I addressed a note of inquiry to the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, 

 bis only surviving son and executor. This gentleman consulted his father's diary, and kindly 

 funiished me with the following minutes of a conversation with the British ministei- at Wash- 

 ington, (Mr. Bagot,) on the 15th of May, 1818. This extract will remove all doubt, as it 

 seems to me, as to the consistency of Mr. Adams, and shows that he stiinnitted, rather than 

 consented, to a negotiation which he had not the power to prevent, as well as to tenns which 

 he disliked, and which had been partially or entirely determined upon by our goveiiunent 

 before his return from England, or before he became a member of the cabinet. 



"As to the proposal which was to have been made to the British govenuneut," he recorded, 

 " and which had hitherto been delayed, its postponement had been owing to difficulties which 

 had been discovered since it was promised. It was founded on the piinciple of assuming a 

 range of coast within given latitudes for our fishermen to frequent, and abandoning the right 

 to fish for the rest. But the fish, themselves, resorted at difierent times to diilereut parts of 

 the coast, and a place which might be selected as veiy eligible now, might be in the course of 

 four or five years entirely deserted. For my oicn part, I hud always been averse to any proposal 

 of accommodation. I thought our whole right, as stipulated by the treaty o/ 1783, so clear, 

 that I teas for maintaining the tcliole; and if force shoidd be applied to prevent our fiJiermen from 

 fre^umting the coast, I would have protested against it, and reserved the right of recovering the 

 WHOLE BY FORCE, whtnevcr we should be able. It had, however, been determinkd otherwise 

 HERE, AND A PROPOSAL HAD BEEN PROMISED. Porhaps wc should ultimately ofier to give up 

 the right of drying and curing on the shore, and reseiTe the whole right of fishing." 



