PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF 1818. 321 



admit that this treaty was to be regarded as in force because the 

 treaty of Ghent had referred to it on the subject of boundaries. One 

 object of the latter treaty was, the mutual restoration of territory 

 taken by either party from the other during the war. As a necessary 

 consequence of such a stipulation, each party reverted to their bound- 

 aries as before the war; and the treaty of 1783 having fixed these, 

 the treaty of Ghent had referred them as facts, nothing more. She 

 contended that it was not unusual for treaties containing recognitions 

 and acknowledgements of perpetual obligation, to contain likewise 

 grants of privileges liable to be revoked. The treaty of 1783 con- 

 tained provisions of different characters; some in perpetuity; others 

 from their nature, temporary. If it were inferred because some of 

 the advantages specified would not be lost by a war, that therefore 

 all were designed to be permanent, it ought first to be shown that the 

 advantages themselves were the same; or at least of similar character. 

 But what necessary connexion was there between a right to national 

 independence, and a liberty to fish within British jurisdiction, or use 

 British territory? Liberties within British limits, were as capable 

 of being exercised by a dependent, as an independent state; they 

 could not therefore be the necessary consequence of independence. 

 The independence of a nation was that which could not be correctly 

 said to be granted by a treaty, but to be acknowledged by one. In 

 the treaty of 1783 the independence of the United States was acknowl- 

 edged by Great Britain, as it had already been by the powers of 

 Europe; and by Britain herself, in her previous consent in November 

 1782, to enter into provisional articles. Their independence might 

 have been acknowledged without either the treaty or provisional 

 articles; but by whatever mode acknowledged, the acknowledgement 

 was. in it- nature, irrevocable. A power of revoking or even modi- 

 fying it, would be destructive of the thing itself, and was therefore 

 necessarily renounced when the acknowledgement Avas made. She 

 urged as corroborative of her reasoning, notwithstanding the explana- 

 tions ted by the American plenipotentiaries, the use of the 

 word RIGHT when the United States were to take fish on the banks, 

 and other places from which Great Britain could not pretend to 

 exclude any independent nation, and LIBERTY when they were to 

 cure and <\vy within British territory. The latter was also made to 

 depend on agreements with the proprietors of the soil, whenever the 

 territory mighl become settled. A- to the origin of the fishing privi- 

 leges in point of fact, she admitted that whilst the United States 

 made pari of the British dominions, their inhabitants had the enjoy- 

 ment of them in common with other British subjects; but they had 

 :it the -.Mne time, like British subjects every where, duties to perform. 

 When therefore the United States, by their separation from Great 

 Britain, became released from the duties, they became excluded also 

 from the privileges of British subjects. The above is a summary of 

 the reasoning in it chief parts, againsl our claim. It was embodied 

 in a paper By Lord Batnurst, in October 1815, prepared with the 

 force and zeal that the subjed demanded. The view- of each party 

 on the que tion, had not been left out of sight in negotiating the 

 t reaty 01 ( rhent. 



To the distinction so much insisted on bv Great Britain between 

 LIBERTY and RIGHT, it was replied for (he United States, that 



