5'28 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 



ments in the nature of pervetual obligations; That if war puts an 

 end to all treaties, what could be the meaning of those articles which 

 in almost all treaties of commerce are provided expressly for the con- 

 tingency of war & which during the peace are without operation? As 

 for instance, the 10th Article of the Treaty of 1794 between the U. S. 

 & Great Britain; That there are many exceptions to the rules laid 

 down by Lord Bathurst, such as those relating to all engagements 

 contracted with the understanding that they are to operate equally in 

 war and peace, or exclusively during war, to all engagements by 

 which the parties superadd the sanction of a formal compact to prin- 

 ciples dictated by the eternal laws of morality & humanity; and 

 finally to all engagements, which are in the nature of perpetual obli- 

 gations — to which latter class belongs the Treaty of Peace of 1783 ,- 

 That Lord Bathurst was mistaken in supposing that there was no ref- 

 erence in the Treaty of Ghent, to the Treaty of 1783, whereas in four 

 of the Articles of the Treaty of Ghent, the Treaty of 1783 is not only 

 named, but its stipulations form the basis of new engagements 

 between the parties. 



Mr. Adams contended that the United States had peculiar and orig- 

 inal rights to the Fisheries, having made their discovery & improved 

 them, and from their proximity to the Fishing Banks, had prosecuted 

 them to greater advantage than they ever had been by the remoter 

 parts of the Empire, and finally because they had contributed their 

 full share, and more than their share, in securing the conquest from 

 France of the provinces on the coast, on which these fisheries are 

 situated. 



And it was from these considerations that, in the Treaty of Peace 

 of 1783, an express stipulation was inserted, recognizing the rights 

 and liberties which had always been enjoyed by the people of the 

 United States in these fisheries, and declaring that they should con- 

 tinue to enjoy the right of fishing on the Grand Bank, and other 

 places of common jurisdiction on the North American coasts, to which 

 they had been accustomed while they themselves formed a part of the 

 British nation. It was a stipulation contained in a Treaty by which 

 the king of Great Britain acknowledged the United States as free, 

 sovereign and independent states; a treaty which, by the common 

 understanding & usage of civilized nations could not be annulled by 

 a subsequent war between the same parties. The rights and liberties 

 in the fisheries were, in no respect granted by Great Britain to the 

 United States, but they were acknowledged as rights and liberties en- 

 joyed before the separation of the two countries, and which it was 

 agreed should continue to be enjoyed under the new relations, which 

 were to subsist between them. They could not be cancelled by any 

 declaration on the part of Great Britain; they could only be abro- 

 gated by the renunciation of them by the United States themselves. 

 In respect to the use of the words liberty and rigid, it was contended 

 that the term liberty, far from including in itself, either limitation of 

 time, or precariousness of tenure, is essentially as permanent as that 

 of right, and can with justice be understood only as a modification of 

 the same thing; and as no limitation of time is implied in the term 

 itself, so there is none expressed in any part of the article to which it 

 belongs. The restriction at the close of the article is itself a confirma- 

 tion of the permanency belonging to every part of the article, to which 

 it belongs. 



