DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 115 



It cannot be necessary for me to prove, my Lord, that that treaty 

 is not, in its general provisions, one of those which, by the common 

 understanding and usage of civilised nations, is or can be considered 

 as annulled by a subsequent war between the same parties. To sup- 

 pose that it is, would imply the inconsistency and absurdity of a 

 sovereign and independent State, liable to forfeit its right of sov- 

 ereignty, by the act of exercising it on a declaration of war. But 

 the very words of the treaty attest that the sovereignty and inde- 

 pendence of the United States were not considered or understood as 

 grants from His Majesty. They were taken and expressed as exist- 

 ing before the treaty was made, and as then only first formally recog- 

 nised and acknowledged by Great Britain. 



Precisely of the same nature were the rights and liberties in the 

 fisheries to which I now refer. They were, in no respect, grants from 

 the King of Great Britain to the United States ; but the acknowledg- 

 ment of them as rights and liberties enjoyed before the separation of 

 the two countries, and which it was mutually agreed should continue 

 to be enjoyed under the new relations which were to subsist between 

 them, constituted the essence of the article concerning the fisheries. 

 The very peculiarity of the stipulation is an evidence that it was not, 

 on either side, understood or intended as a grant from one sover- 

 eign State to another. Had it been so understood, neither could the 

 United States have claimed, nor would Great Britain have granted, 

 gratuitously, any such concession. There was nothing, either in the 

 state of things, or in the disposition of the parties, which could have 

 led to such a stipulation, as on the ground of a grant, without an 

 equivalent, by Great Britain. 



Yet such is the ground upon which it appears to have been contem- 

 plated as resting by the British Government, when their plenipo- 

 tentiaries at Ghent communicated to those of the United States their 

 intentions as to the North American fisheries, viz : " That the British 

 Government did not intend to grant to the United States, gratuit- 

 ously, the privileges formerly granted by treaty to them, of fishing 

 within the limits of the British sovereignty, and of using the shores 

 of the British territories for purposes connected with the British 

 fisheries." 



These are the words in which the notice, given by them, is recorded 

 in the protocol of conference of the 8th of August, 1814. To this 

 notice the American plenipotentiaries first answered, on the 9th of 

 August, that they had no instructions from their Government to 

 negotiate upon the subject of the fisheries; and afterwards, in their 

 note of 10th November, 1814, they expressed themselves in the follow- 

 ing terms : 



68 In answer to the declaration made by the British plenipotentiaries 



respecting the fisheries, the undersigned, referring to what passed in the 

 conference of the 9th of August, can only state that they are not authorised to 

 bring into discussion any of the rights or liberties which the United States have 

 heretofore enjoyed in relation thereto. From their nature, and from the pecu- 

 liar character of the treaty of 1783, by which they were recognised, no further 

 stipulation has been deemed necessary by the Government of the United States 

 to entitle them to the full enjoyment of all of them. 



If the stipulation of the treaty of 1783 was one of the conditions 

 by which His Majesty acknowledged the sovereignty and independ- 

 ence of the United States; if it was the mere recognition of rights 



