274 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRTOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



His Majesty's Government have not failed to give to the argument 

 contained in the letter of the 25th ultimo a candid and deliberate 

 consideration; and, although they are compelled to resist the claim 

 of the United States, when thus brought forward as a question of 

 right, they feel every disposition to afford to the citizens of those 

 Stall's, all the liberties and privileges connected with the fisheries 

 which can consist with the just rights and interests of Great Britain, 

 and secure His Majesty's subjects from those undue molestations in 

 their fisheries which they have formerly experienced from citizens of 

 the United States. The minister of the United States appears, by 

 his letter, to be well aware that Great Britain has always considered 

 the liberty formerly enjoyed by the United States of fishing within 

 British limits, and using British territory, as derived from the third 

 article of the treaty of 1783, and from that alone ; and that the claim 

 of an independent state to occupy and use at its discretion any por- 

 tion of the territory of another, without compensation or corre- 

 sponding indulgence, cannot rest on any other foundation than con- 

 ventional stipulation. It is unnecessary to inquire into the motives 

 which might have originally influenced Great Britain in conceding 

 such liberties to the United States, or whether other articles of the 

 treaty wherein these liberties are specified did, or did not, in fact, 

 afford an equivalent for them, because all the stipulations profess to 

 be founded on reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience. If 

 the United States derived from that treaty privileges from which 

 other independent nations, not admitted by treaty were excluded, the 

 duration of the privileges must depend on the duration of the instru- 

 ment by which they were granted; and if the war abrogated the 

 treaty, it determined the privileges. It has been urged, indeed, on 

 the part of the United States, that the treaty of 1783 was of a 

 peculiar character, and that, because, it contained a recognition of 

 American independence, it could not be abrogated by a subsequent 

 war between the parties. To a position of this novel nature Great 

 Britain cannot accede. She knows of no exception to the rule, that 

 all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war between the same 

 parties; she cannot, therefore, consent to give to her diplomatic rela- 

 tions with one state a different degree of permanency from that on 

 which her connexion with all other states depends. Nor can she con- 

 sider any one state at liberty to assign to a treaty made with her such 

 a peculiarity of character as shall make it, as to duration, an excep- 

 tion to all other treaties, in order to found, on a peculiarity thus 

 assumed, an irrevocable title to all indulgences, which have all the 

 features of temporary concessions. 



The treaty of Ghent has been brought forward by the American 

 minister as supporting, by its reference to the boundary line of the 

 United States, as fixed by the treaty of 1783, the opinion that the 

 treaty of 1783 was not abrogated by the war. The undersigned, how- 

 ever,' cannot observe in any one of its articles any express or implied 

 reference to the treaty of 1783 as still in force. It will not be denied 

 that the main object of the treaty of Ghent was the mutual restoration 

 of all territory taken by either party from the other during the war. 

 As a necessary consequence of such a stipulation, each party reverted 

 to their boundaries as before the war. without reference to the title 

 by which these possessions were acquired, or to the mode in which 

 their boundaries had been previously fixed. In point of fact, the 



