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** or liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed m 

 * 6 relation thereto. From their nature, and from the peculiar cha- 

 &quot; racter of the treaty of 1783, by which they were recognised, no 

 ** further stipulation has been deemed necessary by the govern- 

 ** ment of the United States to entitle them to the full enjoyment of 

 &quot; all of them.&quot; 



This principle, thus assumed, the Secretary does call the Ameri 

 can side of the argument, and with his thanks to God, that it was as 

 sumed, and has since been maintained, against the British tide of the 

 argument, announced in the conference of 8th August, 1814, and 

 to which this paragraph was the formal answer, the Secretary would 

 not less heartily add his thanks to Mr. Clay, for having made this 

 principle his own, by proposing it to the mission, by signing the 

 note in which it was contained, and by maintaining it against the 

 British plenipotentiaries, as long as it was necessary for the great 

 interest at stake upon it, that he should maintain it. The Secre 

 tary would readily call it Mr. Clay s side of the argument, if he had 

 reason to suppose it as unequivocally that gentleman s individual, 

 as he had made it his official, opinion. The Secretary himself, 

 not only pledged to it his official signature, but firmly believed, and 

 still firmly believes it sound warranted by the laws of nations, 

 and sanctioned by the most eminent writers on international juris 

 prudence, as well as by many of the most eminent lawyers and 

 statesmen of Great Britain. The inaccuracy of the statement in 

 the editorial article of the Argus, is in representing the commis 

 sioners as having assumed the principle, in its application to the 

 British right of navigating the Mississippi, as well as in relation to 

 the fisheries, and on this inaccuracy is founded the censure of the 

 Secretary for calling it the American side of the argument. 



The commissioners assumed the principle, only as it was pre 

 sented by Mr. Clay, and only in relation to the fisheries. It was 

 emphatically the American side of the argument, and still continued 

 so, when afterwards the British plenipotentiaries demanded a stipu 

 lation in the treaty, that British subjects should enjoy the right of 

 navigating the Mississippi, and access to it for that purpose through 

 our territories. The American commissioners then said to them : 

 If you admit our principle, you need no new stipulation to secure 

 to you this right ; we are willing, however, to recognise it by a new 

 article, declaratory of both rights,. If you reject it, you have no 

 foundation to claim a right of navigating the Mississippi, and, there 

 fore, no pretence for asking it by n new stipulation. The British 

 plenipotentiaries could not extricate themselves from this dilemma. 

 They said they claimed the right of navigation, as an equivalent for 

 abandoning their line of boundary to the Mississippi, and agreeing 

 to the 49th parallel of latitude. We offered them to leave the 

 boundary as it was which they finally accepted. Throughout 

 the whole discussion, the principle assumed by the American com 

 missioners, was the American side of the argument. 



It was still so in the negotiations after the peace which terminated 



