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and yet retain a right ; or whether it was an argument, or an agree 

 ment, that was forbidden. They understood, that the fisheries were 

 not to be surrendered. 



The demand made by the British government was first advanced 

 in an artful and ensnaring form. It was by assuming the principle 

 4hat the right had been forfeited hy the war, and by notifying the 

 American commissioners, as they did at the first conference, &quot; that 

 the British government did not intend to grant to the United 

 States, gratuitously, the privileges formerly granted hy treaty to 

 them, of fishing within the limits of the British sovereignty, and 

 of using the shores of the British territories for purposes con 

 nected with the fisheries.&quot; Now to obtain the surrender of thus 

 much of the fisheries, all that the British plenipotentiaries could 

 possibly desire, was, that the American commissioners should ac 

 quiesce in the principle, that the treaty of 1783 was abrogated by 

 the war. Assent to this principle would have been surrender of 

 the right. Mr. Kussell, if we can make any thing of his argument, 

 would have assented, and surrendered, and comforted himself with 

 the reflection, that, as the right had not been brought into discus 

 sion, the instructions would not have been violated. 



But, however clearly he expresses this opinion in his letter, and 

 however painfully he endeavours to fortify it by argument, he ne 

 ver did disclose it to the same extent at Ghent. The only way in 

 which it was possible to meet the notification of the British pleni 

 potentiaries, without surrendering the rights which it jeopardized, 

 was by denying the principle upon which it was founded. This 

 was done by asserting the principle, that the treaty of Independ 

 ence of 1783 was of that class of treaties, and the right in question 

 of the character, which are not abrogated by a subsequent war ; 

 that the notification of the intention of the British government not 

 to renew the grant, could not affect the right of the United States, 

 which had not been forfeited by the war ; and that, considering it 

 as still in force, the United States needed no new grant from Great 

 Britain to revive, nor any new article to confirm it. 



This principle I willingly admit was assumed and advanced by 

 the American commissioners at my suggestion. I believed it not 

 only indispensably necessary to meet the insidious form in which 

 the British demand of surrender had been put forth ; but sound in 

 itself, and maintainable on the most enlarged, humane, and gener 

 ous principles of international law. It was asserted and maintained 

 by the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent ; and if, in the judg 

 ment of Mr. Russell, it suffered the fishing liberty to be brought 

 into discussion, at least it did not surrender the right. 



It was not acceded to by the British plenipotentiaries. Each 

 party adhered to its asserted principle ; and the treaty was conclud 

 ed without settling the interest involved in it. Since that time, 

 and after the original of Mr. Russell s letter of the 1 1th February, 

 &quot;1815, was written, the principle asserted by the American pleni 

 potentiaries at Ghent, has been still asserted and maintained through 

 two long and arduous negotiations with Great Britain, and has passed 



