318 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



1. That the Americans, and the adventurers to America, were the 

 first discoverers and the first practisers of the fisheries. 



2. That New England, and especially Massachusetts, had done 

 more in defence of them than all the rest of the British empire. That 

 the various projected expeditions to Canada, in which they were de- 

 feated by British negligence, the conquest of Louisbnrg, in 1745, and 

 the subsequent conquest of Nova Scotia, in which New England had 

 expended more blood and treasure than all the rest of the British 

 empire, were principally effected with a special view to the security 

 and protection of the fisheries. 



3. That the inhabitants of the United States had as clear a right to 

 every branch of those fisheries, and to cure fish on land, as the in- 

 habitants of Canada or Nova Scotia; that the citizens of Boston, New 

 York, or Philadelphia, had as clear a right to those fisheries, as the 

 citizens of London, Liverpool, Bristol, Glasgow, or Dublin. 



4. That the third article was demanded as an ultimatum, and it was 

 declared that no. treaty of peace should ever be made without it; and 

 when the British ministers found that peace could not be made with- 

 out that article, they consented; for Britain wanted peace, if possible, 

 more than we did. 



5. We asked no pardon, we requested no grant, and would accept 

 none. We demanded it as a right, and we demanded an explicit 

 acknowledgment of that as an indispensable condition of peace; and 

 the word right was in the article as agreed to by the British minis- 

 ters, but they afterwards requested that the word liberty might be 

 substituted instead of right. They said it amounted to the same 

 thing, for liberty was right and privilege was right; but the word 

 Hght might be more unpleasing to the people of England than liberty 

 and we did not think it necessary to contend for a word. To detail 

 the conferences and conversations which took place for six weeks on 

 this subject, would require volumes, if they could now be remembered. 

 Mr. Jay is the onty person now living, who was officially concerned 

 in that negotiation, and I am not afraid to appeal to his memory for 

 the truth of these facts. Lord St. Helens, then Mr. Fitzherbert, 

 though not officially concerned in the negotiation, was instructed by 

 the British minister to assist at our conferences, and h*e was freely 

 and candidly admitted by us. I dare appeal to his lordship's mem- 

 ory for the truth of these facts. There is another excellent character 

 still living, Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, of Kennebec, who was then a 

 confidential friend of Lord Shelburne, and an intimate friend of the 

 British negotiators, and I dare appeal to his recollection of the rep- 

 resentations made to him of the conferences concerning the fisheries, 

 by Mr. Oswald, Mr. Fitzherbert, and Mr. Whitefoord. 



6. We considered that treaty as a division of the empire. Our inde- 

 pendence, our rights to territory and to the fisheries, as practised 

 before the Revolution, were no more a grant from Britain to us, than 

 the treaty was a grant from us of Canada, Nova Scotia, England, 

 Scotland, and Ireland to the Britons. The treaty was nothing more 

 than mutual acknowledgement of antecedent rights. 



If there is any other question that you wish me to answer, I shall 

 be happy to do it, so long as my strength may last. I had omitted 

 what follows. 



