val between the offering of the resolution, and the debate upon it, 

 suggestions had been made to the mover, that there might be mo 

 tives operating upon the executive, for withholding precisely the 

 information that was desired, unless the whole should be demand 

 ed ; and that a request for the correspondence would be liable to 

 fail in drawing forth the momentous disclosure, unless the protocol 

 should also be required. This special reference to the protocol, 

 would more readily occur to a person who had been concerned in 

 the negotiation, than to others, and the debate indicated at once 

 some eagerness to obtain very complete information, some appre 

 hensions that pains would be taken to suppress it, and some im 

 pression, that the evidence of the material fact to be elicited was 

 lodged in the protocol.* 



It was in the protocol of the conference of 1st December, 1814, 

 that the proposal made to the British plenipotentiaries relating to 

 the Mississippi and the fisheries was contained. But all the Ame 

 rican plenipotentiaries had been present at that conference, and on 

 the face of the protocol it appeared that the proposal had been 

 made by them as a jojnt act of all. There was a subsequent letter 

 from them of 14th December, 1814, to the British plenipotentia 

 ries, signed by all, and referring to it as an article to which they had 

 no objection, considering it as merely declaratory. There was nothing 

 in the documents showing at whose instance in the American mis 

 sion, the proposal had been offered ; but in the joint letter of the 

 mission to the* Secretary of State of 25th December, 1814, it was 

 stated that a majority of the mission had determined to offer it, and 

 in a separate letter of the same date, Mr. Russell noticing this pas 

 sage of the joint letter, acknowledged, in candour, that/ie had been 

 on that occasion in the minority ; and reserved to himself there 

 after, the power of assigning his reasons to vindicate his motives. 

 It will be seen in the course of the following papers, that the indi 

 cation in the joint letter, that the offer had been made, upon a de 

 termination of a majority, had, by an alteration of the original draft 

 been inserted, through the agency of Mr. Russell, not (as he stated) 

 at his own desire, but at that of Mr. Clay. But neither Mr. Clay, 

 nor any other member of the mission, save Mr. Russell, had 

 thought it necessary at the time to inform the government how he 



* See in the Appendix, Mr. Floyd s Letter, published in the Richmond En- 

 er of 27tli August, 1822, and the remarks upon it. 



