192 



in the first article of the treaty of 1783, was abrogated by the WAV 

 of 1812, from the first hour of its declaration by Congress, Great 

 Britain might have treated us as rebels t as she had done through the 

 whole war of the Revolution. 



Was the boundary line of the treat}?- of 1783 abrogated by the 

 war of 1812 ? The American plenipotentiaries certainly did not 

 so consider it, when they spoke of it in one of their notes, as the 

 line &quot; as it now is.&quot; Nor did the British plenipotentiaries so consi 

 der it, when they demanded the express stipulation of another line, 

 by the treaty then to be concluded. They claimed it, not because 

 the boundary of the treaty of 1783 was abrogated, but by the right 

 of conquest, as a cession of our territory ; and the demand was 

 resisted on that ground. The articles in the treaty of Ghent, 

 which refer to the boundary line, do not renew or confirm the arti 

 cles of the treaty of 1783, which they recite. They refer to 

 them, as reference is always made to treaties in full force, and 

 merely add new stipulations for ascertaining the line described by 

 them, according to the true intent and meaning of that treaty. 



If, then, none of the rights, liberties, or possessions, recognised 

 b&amp;gt; the first and second articles of the treaty of 1783, as belonging 

 to tte United States, were abrogated by the war of 1812, by what 

 right, and upon what principle, could Mr. Russell consider the 

 fishing ^berty, recognised as belonging to them by the third article, 

 to be entirely at an end, -without a new stipulation for its revival, 

 The wholt. of the third article, concerning the fisheries, was as 

 much a recognition of pre-existing rights, liberties, and posses 

 sions, as the fii^t and second articles. With regard to that identi 

 cal portion of th% article, which Mr. Russell considers entirely at 

 an end, the words of i or( j Loughborough, which I have cited, prove 

 that it was universal! j considered, at the time when the treaty of 

 1783 was made, as a recognition of existing rights, as much as all 

 the rest. Mr. Russell say: that the fishing liberty, within exclusive 

 British jurisdiction, was unnecessary to perfect the jurisdiction of 

 the United States. What thei.? It was not a perfection of juris 

 dictions, but a division of common property. The whole fishery 

 had been the joint property of boti. parties! When the separation 

 was to be consummated, it was agrted that that property should 

 still be held in common ; that the people of the United States 

 should continue to enjoy the right of exercising the faculty upon 

 the banks and open seas, and should have the liberty of exercising 

 it in the unsettled bays, creeks, and harbours, where thev had be^ 

 fore exercised it as British subjects, but which were thenceforth to 

 be within a foreign jurisdiction. There is nothing in the import of 

 the term liberty, nothing in the limitations expressed in the articlej 

 nothing in the principles of English law, or of the laws of nations 

 applicable to fisheries, which can warrant the pretension that this, 

 more than the rest of the article, or than any other article in the 

 treaty, was a grant of privilege, revocable at the pleasure of Great 

 Britain, or forfeitable by war. Mr Russell, in his letter, frequent 



