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been compelled to speak as in these remarks I have done, of a per 

 son distinguished by the favour of his country, and with whom I 

 had been associated in a service of high interest to this Union, has 

 been among the most painful incidents of my life. In the defence 

 of myself and my colleagues, against imputations so groundless in 

 themselves, at first so secretly set forth and now so wantonly pro 

 mulgated before the legislative assembly of the nation, it has been 

 impossible entirely to separate the language of self-vindication from 

 that of reproach. With Mr. Russell 1 can al^o rejoice that the 

 proposal offered on the 1st of December, 1814, was rejected by 

 the British government, not because I believe it now, more than I 

 did then, liable to any of the dangers and mischiefs so glaring in 

 the vaticinations of Mr. Russell, but because both the interests to 

 which it relates have since been adjusted in a manner still more 

 satisfactory to the United States. 1 rejoice, too, that this adjust 

 ment has taken place before the publication of Mr. Russell s letter 

 could have any possible influence in defeating or retarding it. The 

 convention of 20th October, 1318, is the refutation of all the doc 

 trines of Mr. Russell s letter, to which there can be no reply. It 

 has adjusted the fishing interest upon the principle asserted by the 

 American mission at Ghent, but disclaimed by Mr. Russell. It has 

 given us the boundary of latitude 49, from the Lake of the Woods 

 westward, and it has proved the total indifference of the British 

 government to the right of navigating the Mississippi, by their 

 abandonment of their last claim to it, without asking an equivalent 

 for its renunciation. 



With regard to the magnitude of the fishing interest which was at 

 stake during the negotiation at Ghent, I believe the views disclosed 

 in Mr. Russell s letter as incorrect as the principles upon which he 

 would have surrendered it. The notification of exclusion was from 

 all fisheries within exclusive British jurisdiction I have shown 

 that, historically, Great Britain had asserted and maintained exclu 

 sive proprietary jurisdiction over the whole. Had we tamely ac 

 quiesced in her principle of forfeiture, without renunciation, we 

 should soon have found that her principle of exclusion embraced 

 the. whole. That a citizen of Massachusetts, acquainted with its 

 colonial history, with the share that his countrymen had had in the 

 conquest of a great part of these fisheries, with the deep and 

 anxious interest in them taken by France, by Spain, by Great Bri 

 tain, for centuries before the American revolution ; acquainted 

 with the negotiations of which they had been the knot, and the wars 

 of which they had been the prize, betvyeenthe three most powerful 

 maritime nations of modern Europe ; acquainted with the profound 

 sensibilit} of the whole American Union, during the revolutionary 

 war, to this interest, and with the inflexible energies by which it 

 had been secured at its close ; acquainted with the indissoluble 

 links of attachment between it and the navigation, the navy, the ma 

 ritime defence, the national spirit and hardy enterprise of this great 

 republic ; that such a citizen, stimulated to the discharge of duty by 



