PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF GHENT. 259 



of us determined to offer to admit an article confirming both the 

 rights, or we offered at the same time to be silent in the treaty upon 

 both, and to leave out altogether the article defining the boundary 

 from the Lake of the Woods westward. They finally agreed to this 

 last proposal, but not until they had proposed an article stipulating 

 for a future negotiation for an equivalent to be given by Great 

 Britain for the navigation of the Mississippi, and by the United 

 States for the liberty as to the fisheries within British jurisdiction. 

 This article was unnecessary with regard to its professed object, since 

 both Governments had it in their power, without it. to negotiate upon 

 these subjects if they pleased. We rejected it, although its adoption 

 would have secured the boundary of the forty-ninth degree of lati- 

 tude west of the Lake of the Woods, because it would have been a 

 formal abandonment, on our part, of our claim to the liberty as to 

 the fisheries, recognised by the treaty of 1783. 



You will perceive by the correspondence, that the ninth article was 

 offered us as a sine qua non and an ultimatum. We accepted it, not 

 without much hesitation, as the only alternative to a rupture of the 

 negotiation, and with a perfect understanding that our Government 

 was free to reject it, as we were not authorized to subscribe to it. 



To guard against any accident which might happen in the trans- 

 mission of a single copy of the treaty to the United States, the 

 British plenipotentiaries have consented to execute it in triplicate: 

 and, as the treaty with the British ratification may be exposed to the 

 same danger, the time- for the cessation of hostilities, the restoration 

 of captures at sea, and the release of prisoners, have been fixed, not 

 from the exchange of ratifications, but from the ratification on both 

 sides, without alteration by either of the contracting parties. We 

 consented to the introduction of this latter provision at the desire of 

 the British plenipotentiaries, who were willing to take a full, but 

 were unwilling to incur the risk of a partial, ratification, as the period 

 from which the peace should be considered as concluded. 



We are informed by them that Mr. Baker, their secretary, is to go 

 out to America with the British ratification. 



We have the honor to be, very respectfully, sir. your most humble, 

 and obedient servants, 



John Quincy Adams, 



J. A. I) WARD, 



TI. Clay, 



Jon \ in an Russell, 



Albert ( S-allatin. 



Mr. Gallatin to Mr. Monroe, 



< i in \ i . Dern rrihi r .''. 1S1 ',. 

 Sir: The treaty winch we 3igned yesterday with the British min 

 Latere is. in my opinion, as favorable as could be expected, under es 

 isting circumstance . o far as they were known to us. The attitude 

 taken by the State of Mn achn etts, and the appearances in some 

 of the neighboring States, had a most unfavorable effect. Of the 

 probable result of the congre at Vienna we had do correct infor- 

 mal ion. The views of all the Buropeaii Powers were precisely 



92909' —8. l»o<-. 870, 81 3, vo 2 18 



