PERIOD FROM 1836 TO 1854. 527 



Afterwards in the year 1815 a very able correspondence took place 

 between Lord Bathurst, His Majesty's principal Secretary of State, 

 & the Colonies, and Mr. John Quincy Adams, the Minister of the 

 United States in London. In this correspondence the grounds as- 

 sumed and attempted to be maintained by the British ministry are, — 

 That the right of the United States to the Eastern fisheries was 

 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 portion of the territory of another, without com- 

 pensation or corresponding indulgence, cannot rest on any other 

 foundation than conventional stipulation; that the stipulations of the 

 Treaty were founded on reciprocal advantage & mutual convenience; 

 that the duration of the privileges contained in the Treaty, depended 

 on the duration of the instrument; that Great Britain knew of no 

 exception to the rule, that all treaties are put an end to by a subse- 

 quent war between the same parties; that in the Treaty of Ghent 

 there was no reference express or implied to the Treaty of 1783, as? 

 still in force; that it is not unusual for treaties containing recogni- 

 tions and acknowledgments of titles in the nature of perpetual obli- 

 gations, to contain, likewise, grants of privileges liable to revocation, 

 and such was the character of the Treaty of 1783; the acknowledg- 

 ment of the independence of the United States was of the former 

 character & the right to fish within British limits, and to use British 

 Territory was of the latter; that The language of the Treaty itself 

 shows this distinction: for Great Britain acknowledged the right of 

 the United States to take fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, & other 

 places from which Great Britain had no right to exclude an inde- 

 pendent nation. But they were to have liberty to cure and dry their 

 fish in certain unsettled places within His Majesty's dominions. As 

 to the origin of the fishery privileges, so long as the United States 

 constituted a part of the British dominions, the inhabitants had the 

 enjoyment of them, as they had of political and commercial ad- 

 vantages: but they had, at the same time, duties to perform as Brit- 

 ish sUDJects; but when they became an independent nation, as they 

 were released from the duties, so they became excluded also from 

 the advantages of British subjects. 



To all tlii- Mr. John Quincy Adams replied that the Treaty of 

 17H: ) ,. was from its subject matter as well as from the relations pre- 

 vion-lv existing between the parties to it, peculiar: that it was in- 

 tended to con titute a new and permanent state of diplomatic rela- 

 tion- between the two Countries which would not and could not be 



annulled by the mere fact of a subsequent war between them. This 

 was tated with confidence because Lord Bathurst himself admitted, 

 that the whole of the Treaty of 1783 is of this character with the 

 exception of the article concerning the navigation «>f the Mississippi, 

 and a small part of the article concerning the fisheries. To the state- 

 ment that ureal Britain knew of ho exception to the rule that all 

 treaties are determined by a ubsequent war between the parties, it 

 was answered that it was Hot only novel, but unwarranted by any of 

 the received authorities upon the law of uations, unsanctioned by the 

 practice and u age of overeign states, and tended to multiply the 

 incitements to war. and could not be reconciled with the admission 

 that, Treaties usually contain, together with the articles of a tem- 

 porary character, Liable to revocation, recognitions and acknowledg- 



