DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. Ill 



whose sensibilities had been thus excited had probably not considered 

 the question of right in the point of view in which it had been re- 

 garded by us; that they were the sensibilities of a partial and 

 individual interest, stimulated by the passions of competition, and 

 considering the right of the Americans as if it had been a privilege 

 granted to them by the British Government. If this interest was 

 to have weight in determining the policy of the Cabinet, there was 

 another interest liable to be affected in the opposite manner, which 

 would be entitled equally to consideration the manufacturing inter- 

 est. The question of right had not been discussed at the negotiation 

 of Ghent. The British plenipotentiaries had given a notice that the 

 British Government did not intend hereafter to grant to the people 

 of the United States the right to fish, and to cure and dry fish within 

 the exclusive British jurisdiction in America, without an equivalent, 

 as it had been granted by the treaty of peace in 1783. The American 

 plenipotentiaries had given notice, in return, that the American 

 Government considered all the rights and liberties in and to the 

 fisheries on the whole coast of North America as sufficiently secured 

 by the possession of them, which had always been enjoyed previous 

 to the revolution, and by the recognition of them in the treaty of 

 peace in 1783 ; that they did not think any new stipulation necessary 

 xor a further confirmation of the right, no part of which did they 

 consider as having been forfeited by the war. It was obvious that 

 the treaty of peace of 1783 was not one of those ordinary treaties 

 which, by the usages of nations, were held to be annulled by a sub- 

 sequent war between the same parties ; it was not simply a treaty of 

 peace ; it was a treaty of partition between two parts of one nation, 

 agreeing thenceforth to be separated into two distinct sovereignties. 

 The conditions upon which this was done constituted, essentially, 

 the independence of the United States; and the preservation of all 

 the fishing rights, which they had constantly enjoyed over the whole 

 coast of North America, was among the most important of them. 

 This was no concession, no grant, on the part of Great Britain, which 

 could be annulled by a war. There had been, in the same treaty of 

 1783, a right recognised in British subjects to navigate the Mis- 

 sissippi. 



This right the British plenipotentiaries at Ghent had considered 

 as still a just claim on the part of Great Britain, notwithstanding 

 the war that had intervened. The American plenipotentiaries, to 

 remove all future discussion upon both points, had offered to agree 

 to an article expressly confirming both the rights. In declining this, 

 an offer had been made on the part of Great Britain of an article 

 stipulating to negotiate in future for the renewal of both the rights, 

 for equivalents, which was declined by the American plenipoten- 

 tiaries, on the express ground that its effect would have been an im- 

 plied admission that the rights had been annulled. There was, there- 

 fore, no article concerning them in the treaty, and the question as 

 to the right was not discussed. I now stated the ground upon which 

 the Government of the United States considered the right as sub- 

 sisting and unimpaired. The treaty of 1783 was, in its essential 

 nature, not liable to be annulled by a subsequent war. It acknowl- 

 edged the United States as a sovereign and independent Power. It 

 would be an absurdity, inconsistent with the acknowledgment itself, 

 to suppose it liable to be forfeited by a war. The whole treaty of 



