320 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



treaty by which Great Britain had acknowledged the independence 

 of the United States, after a seven years contest in arms. It made 

 two empires out of one. It was a treaty of separation. The rights 

 of each party were laid down as primary and fundamental, in the 

 act of dismemberment which the treaty established. So much of 

 territory and incidental rights in America, were allotted to one, so 

 much to the other. The entire instrument implied permanence. 

 Hence all the fishing rights secured under it to the United States, 

 were placed by Great Britain upon the same foundation with their 

 independence itself. Was her acknowledgement of the latter revoked 

 by the war of 1812? or were the boundaries of the United States as 

 fixed by the treaty of 1783, annulled by that war? So far was this 

 from being the case, that the treaty of Ghent, in making provision 

 for ascertaining with further accuracy some parts of the boundary 

 line, constantly referred to the treaty of 1783; thus manifesting a 

 tacit conviction on each side, that this treaty was regarded as the 

 fundamental law of the relations between the two countries. By 

 what rule then was the war to destroy the treaty in some parts and 

 leave it whole in others ? The use of the word right in one place and 

 liberty in another, could make no difference. A liberty of unlimited 

 duration, secured by so elementary and solemn a deed, was as much 

 a right as if stipulated by any other term. In speaking of rights 

 and liberties in a national sense, both terms were alike efficacious. 

 Liberty might have seemed the more appropriate term where an 

 enjoyment was guaranteed to one party, of a thing adjoining terri- 

 tory allotted to the other ; but it took nothing from the permanence 

 of the allotment. In point of principle the United States were pre- 

 eminently entitled to all these fisheries; and in point of fact they 

 had enjoyed more of them than any other portion of the British 

 empire before the separation. The people of New England, from 

 their proximity, had been earlier led to the discovery and improve- 

 ment of the best fishing grounds, and had also, with other parts of 

 the Union, contributed amply in blood and treasure towards winning 

 from France, provinces on the coast of which some of the fisheries 

 were situated. Apart from the question of right, the claim of the 

 United States had high sanctions. These fisheries afforded subsist- 

 ence to a numerous class of their inhabitants. By the usage of 

 nations, fishermen were a portion of human society whose occupa- 

 tions, contributing to the general welfare of the species, were always 

 regarded with favour. Sometimes they were even exempt from 

 the effects of war while it raged; as when England herself allowed 

 the Dutch to fish upon her coasts at such seasons. The foregoing 

 is a synopsis of the material arguments by which the claim of the 

 United States was defended. Whatever could shed light upon it, 

 had been urged by Mr. Adams when in the English mission, with an 

 ability and fulness that left little to be said after him. 



The claim was resisted by Great Britain in a manner to give proof 

 of her equal sincerity in the opposite doctrine. She denied that the 

 treaty of 1783 had any thing in its nature to exempt it from abroga- 

 tion by a war. She knew of no exception to this rule of inter- 

 national law, and could not consent to give to her diplomatic rela- 

 tions with one state, a different degree of permanence from that on 

 which her connexion with all other states depended. She did not 



