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under no necessity whatever to give us that notification. They 

 might have concluded the treaty without saying a word about the 

 fisheries, and then have told us that they had been forfeited by the 

 war. But they knew better. They knew that not only war, but 

 conquest, was necessary to wrest from us any right or liberty recog 

 nised by them as belonging to us by the treaty of 1783. To accom 

 plish this conquest, despairing to obtain from us an express renun 

 ciation by treaty, as they had obtained it from Spain in 1763, they 

 tried to obtain it by means of our acquiescence in this notification ; 

 and they made it in indefinite terms, seeming to strike only at the 

 portion of the fisheries within their most restricted territorial ju 

 risdiction, but susceptible, if once acquiesced in by us, of a con 

 struction sanctioned by the whole history and public law relative 

 to those fisheries, which would deprive us of them all, including 

 those of the Grand Bank. 



The article proposed by Mr. Gallatm covered the whole ground 

 disputed by the adversary ; and the advantage of it to us, if pro 

 posed and accepted, would have been, that we should have issued 

 from the war, with all the fishing rights and liberties, as enjoyed 

 before it, uncontested. When, therefore, during the discussion, 

 and before the vote had been taken, I offered to abandon this ad 

 vantage, and to rest the future defence of the fishing rights and 

 liberties upon the distinct assertion that they had not been forfeited 

 or abrogated by the war, by thus resting it, I knew that it would 

 be necessary to defend them, after the conclusion of the peace 

 to defend them against the power, and the policy, and the intel 

 lect of Great Britain. It was placing them all at the hazard of 

 future negotiation and another war : and 1 thought I offered a 

 signal concession, of deference to the mere sectional feelings of 

 one western member of the mission, by offering to accept the al 

 ternative. But I felt the most entire confidence in the soundness 

 of the principle which I asserted. I knew that it was sufficient to 

 preserve the fishing rights and liberties from surretider. I was 

 content with it as a fulfilment of our express instructions ; and I 

 relied upon the determined spirit and active energy of my country 

 to maintain it after the peace. I had no doubt of the ultimate re 

 sult, so long as our assent to the British doctrine and notification, 

 was neither expressed nor implied. 



My proposal was not however accepted, until, upon taking the 

 vote on the question whether the article proposed by Mr. (iallatin 

 should be offered to the British plenipotentiaries, it appeared there 

 was a majority of the mission in favour of it. This vote was taken 

 as has been stated, on the 5th of November ; and on the 7th the 

 substitute, being the proposition which 1 had suggested on the 4th, 

 was offered by Mr. Clay, and unanimously accepted. The article 

 was not proposed to the British plenipotentiaries, nor was the con 

 sideration of it ever after resumed. 



This transaction, therefore, was totally distinct from that of the 

 and 29th of November : and as it terminated in no act of the 



