258 roKKKsl'ONlu.NCK, ETC., PRIOB TO TREATY OF 1818 



pari of the third article of the treaty of peace of 1783. And in their 

 note of the L9th of August, the British plenipotentiaries had de- 

 manded a new stipulation, to secure to British subjects the right of 

 navigating the Mississippi; a demand which, unless warranted by 

 another article of that same treaty of ITSJi, we could not perceive that 

 Great Britain had any colorable pretence for making. Our instruc- 

 tions had forbidden us to suffer our right to the fisheries to be brought 

 into discussion, and had not authorized us to make any distinction 

 in the several provisions of the third article of the treaty of 1783, or 

 between that article and any other of the same treaty. We had no 

 equivalent to offer for a new recognition of our right to any part of 

 the fisheries, and Ave had no power to grant any equivalent which 

 might be asked for it by the British Government. We contended 

 that the whole treaty of 1783 must be considered as one entire and 

 permanent compact, not liable, like ordinary treaties, to be abrogated 

 by a subsequent war between the parties to it; as an instrument 

 recognising the rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of the 

 United States as an independent nation, and containing the terms 

 and conditions on which the two parts of one empire had mutually 

 agreed, thenceforth, to constitute two distinct and separate nations. 

 In consenting, by that treaty, that a part of the North American 

 continent should remain subject to the British jurisdiction, the people 

 of the United States had reserved to themselves the liberty, which 

 they had ever before enjoyed, of fishing upon that part of its coasts, 

 and of drying and curing fish upon the shores, and this reservation 

 had been agreed to by the other contracting party. We saw not why 

 this liberty, then no new grant, but the mere recognition of a prior 

 right always enjoyed, should be forfeited by war, any more than any 

 other of the rights of our national independence ; or why we should 

 need a new stipulation for its enjoyment more than we needed a new 

 article to declare that the King of Great Britain treated with us as 

 free, sovereign, and independent States. We stated this principle 

 in general terms to the British plenipotentiaries, in the note, which 

 we sent to them with our yyrojet of the treaty, and we alleged it as the 

 ground ttpon which no new stipulation was deemed by our Govern- 

 ment necessary to secure to the people of the United States all the 

 rights and liberties stipulated in their favor by the treaty of 1783. 

 Xo reply to that part of our note was given by the British plenipo- 

 tentiaries, but, in returning our projet of a treaty, they added a clause 

 to one of the articles, stipulating a right for British subjects to navi- 

 gate the Mississippi. Without adverting to the ground of prior and 

 immemorial usage, if the principle were just that the treaty of 1783, 

 from its peculiar character, remained in force in all its parts, not- 

 withstanding the war, no new stipulation was necessary to secure to 

 the subjects of Great Britain the right of navigating the Mississippi, 

 so far as that right was secured by the treaty of 1783, as, on the other 

 1 in ud. no stipulation was necessary to secure to the people of the 

 United States the liberty to fish, and to dry and cure fish, within the 

 exclusive jurisdiction of Great Britain. If they asked the navigation 

 of the Mississippi as a new claim, they could not expect we should 

 grant it without an equivalent; if they asked it because it had been 

 granted in 1783, they must recognise the claim of the people of the 

 United States to the liberty to fish and to dry and cure fish, in ques- 

 tion. To place both points beyond all future controversy, a majority 



