PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF 1818. 301 



the riotous conduct of others, I have been obliged to take precaution- 

 ary measures to prevent any of the vessels being run away with. 

 I have the honor to be, &c. 



Samuel Chambers, Captain. 



Rear Admiral Sir David Milne, K. C. B., 



Commander-in-chief, &c. 



Mr. Baqot to Lord Castlereagh. 



Washington, April 7, 1818. 



My dear Lord — You will receive by this mail a despatch from me 

 respecting the Fisheries, in which I refer to a conversation which I 

 had had upon the subject with Mr. Adams, when I communicated 

 to him the orders which Sir David Milne proposed to give to the 

 ships under his command, in regard to the American vessels found 

 fishing upon our coast during the present season. I have thought 

 it better not to mention in this despatch, but to reserve for a private 

 letter, some part of the conversation which then passed between us, 

 and which was not a little remarkable. 



I met Mr. Adams accidentally on the street, and when I told him 

 of the letter which I had received from Sir David Milne, he showed 

 some surprise, but certainly no irritation. In the course, however, 

 of our conversation, which lasted about ten minutes, he said, not 

 with a tone of anger, but with the ordinary tone of earnestness with 

 which he usually speaks upon business, that, after all, "he believed 

 that they should have to fight about it, and that his opinion was, 

 that they ought to do so." 



I deprecated in some common-place phrase a resort to such an 

 extremity, when he proceeded to say that, "holding as he did the 

 right of participation in the United States to be unequivocal, un- 

 deniable and absolute, it was a matter only to be settled by agree- 

 ment or by force; and. all arrangement by assignment of coast being 

 out of the question, he did not see distinctly what proposition of 

 arrangement could be made, which would promise a satisfactory 

 result" 



He then "-aid thai "we could have no right to seize their ships; 

 that all tin- lawyers in England with whom he had spoken upon the 

 subject wen- of that opinion; that our own judge had lad year re- 

 Leased the vessels which had been captured by the Dee, ami (hat, 

 without an Ah. df Parliament for the purpose, they could not be 

 taken; or. if they were taken, the American Government would have 

 a claim upon Great Britain cor full indemnity for them." 



The more I have reflected upon this conver a i ion, the more extraor- 

 dinary I have thought it. Mi - . Adams i<. I presume, much too 

 cautious a man i>> have suffered himself, in his official situation, to he 

 betrayed by mere temper into (he use of Buch expressions to me. < »n 



the other hand. I equally pre nine that he cannot serioudy believe 



that the point itself is a ground of war I'm- this country; or. even if 



it were, that this COUntry COUld now he excited Id a war with Great 



Britain upon a point in which two States at the utmost have any 

 immediate interest whatever. The only explanation which I can 



