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peculiar character, abrogated by tbe war, Mr. Adams not only *v, 

 asserts, but alleges to have obtained, when first suggested by him at 

 Ghent, the unanimous assent of the American mission. The prooi 

 of this allegation appears to be inferred from the signature, by alt 

 that mission, of a note, to the British ministers, of the 10th of No 

 vember, in which that principle was partially adopted. It has al 

 ready been seen, even from the avowal of Mr. Adams himself, that 

 the paragraph, offered by Mr. Clay, admitting that doctrine, was a 

 substitute to a proposition which the minority had opposed. To 

 adopt, partially, in the spirit of compromise, a doctrine, as a pretext, 

 to preserve the fishing privilege and to get rid of a proposition con 

 firmative of the British right to the navigation of the Mississippi, 

 cannot fairly be considered a? an unanimous acknowledgment by the 

 American mission, of the orthodoxy of that doctrine. The consti 

 tution of the United States was, avowedly, the result of compro 

 mise, and thence some, at least of those who signed that instrument, 

 must necessarily have subscribed to provisions which they did not 

 desire, and to opinions which they did not approve. The infer 

 ence of Mr. Adams is, therefore, not correct. I do not recollect, 

 indeed, that any member of the mission, excepting Mr. Adams him 

 self, appeared to be a very zealous believer in that doctrine. Even 

 Mr. Gallatin, in his separate letter of the 25th of December, 1814, 

 (c) speaks only of this doctrine as one that had been assumed. Sure 

 it is that the minority consented to admit that doctrine as an expe 

 dient only to prevent the proposition, already decided on by the 

 majority, from constituting an article of our project. So far and no 

 farther were the minority willing to go in adopting that doctrine* 

 but whenever it was proposed to sanction the British right to navi 

 gate the Mississippi, they uniformly resisted it. 



Mr. Adams also asserts that the proposal confirming the British 

 right to the navigation of the Mississippi and ours to the fishing 

 privilege, was made not by a majority, but by the whole of the Ame 

 rican mission, and refers to the protocol of the conference of the 

 1st of December, at which that proposal was, at length, made, and 

 to our note of the 14th of that month, signed by all the American 

 mission, which said that &quot; to such an article, which they viewed as 

 merely declaratory, the undersigned had no objection, and have of 

 fered to accede.&quot; 



(c) Extract of a letter from Albert Gallatin, Esq. to the Secretary of State, 



dated 25(h December, 1814. 



&quot; On the subject of the fisheries, within the jurisdiction of Great Britain, 

 we hare certainly done all that could be done. If according to the construction 

 of the treaty of 1783, which we assumed, the right was not abrogated by the 

 war, it remains entire, since we most explicitly refused to renounce it, eillier di 

 rectly or indirectly. In that case it is only an unsettled subject of difference be* 

 tween the two countries. If the right must be considered as abrogated by the 

 war, we cannot regain it without an equivalent. We had none to give but the 

 recognition of their right to na\igate the Mississippi, and we offtred it. On this 

 last supposition this right is also lost to them ; and, in a general point of view, 

 we certainly hav lost nothing. &quot; 



