110 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



No. 17. 1815, September 19: Extract from Letter from Mr. Adams 

 to Mr. Monroe stating the Substance of a Conversation with Lord 

 Bathurst. 



Having formally renewed the claim for the restitution of the slaves 

 carried away contrary to the engagements of the treaty of peace, or 

 for payment of their value as the alternative, there were other objects 

 which I deemed it necessary to present again to the consideration of 

 this Government. In the first instance, it seemed advisable to open 

 them by a verbal communication ; and I requested of Lord Bathurst 



an interview, for which he appointed the 14th instant, when I 

 65 called at his office in Downing Street. I said that, haying 



lately received despatches from you respecting several objects 

 of some importance to the relations between the two countries, my first 

 object in asking to see him had been to inquire whether he had re- 

 ceived from Mr. Baker a communication of the correspondence be- 

 tween you and him relative to the surrender of Michilimackinac; to 

 the proceedings of Colonel Nichols in the southern part of the United 

 States; and to the warning given by the captain of the British armed 

 vessel Jaseur to certain American fishing vessels to withdraw from 

 the fishing grounds to the distance of sixty mile from the coast. He 

 answered, that he had received all these papers from Mr. Baker 

 about four days ago ; that an answer with regard to the warning of 

 the fishing vessels had immediately been sent ; but, on the other sub- 

 jects, there had not been time to examine the papers and prepare the 

 answers. 



I asked him if he could, without inconvenience, state the sub- 

 stance of the answer that had been sent. He said, certainly : it had 

 been that as, on the one hand. Great Britain could not permit the 

 vessels of the United States to fish within the creeks and close upon 

 the shores of the British territories, so, on the other hand, it was by 

 no means her intention to interrupt them in fishing anywhere in the ' 

 open sea, or without the territorial jurisdiction, a marine league from 

 the shore; and. therefore, that the warning given at the place stated, 

 in the case referred to, was altogether unauthorised. I replied that 

 the particular act of the British commander in this instance being 

 disavowed, I trusted that the British Government, before adopting 

 any final determination upon the subject, would estimate, in candour, 

 and in that spirit of amity which my own Government was anxiously 

 desirous of maintaining in our relations with this country, the 

 considerations which I was instructed to present in support of the 

 right of the people of the United States to fish on the whole coast 

 of North America, which they have uniformly enjoyed from the first 

 settlement of the country; that it was my intention to address, in 

 the course of a few days, a letter to him on the subject. He said 

 that they would give due attention to the letter that I should send 

 him, but that Great Britain had explicitly manifested her intention 

 concerning it; that this subject, as I doubtless knew, had excited a 

 great deal of feeling in this country, perhaps much more than its 

 importance deserved; but their own fishermen considered it as an 

 excessive hardship to be supplanted by American fishermen, even 

 upon the very shores of the British dominions. I said that those 



