126 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



two nations only by the mutual pledge of faith to the new social 

 relations established between them; and hence it was that the stipula- 

 tions of that treaty were in the nature of perpetual obligation, and 

 not liable to be forfeited by a subsequent war, or by any declaration 

 of the will of either party without the assent of the other. 



In this view, it certainly was supposed by the undersigned that 

 Great Britain considered her obligation to hold and treat with the 

 United States as a Sovereign and independent Power as derived 

 only from the preliminary articles of 1782, as converted into the 

 definitive treaty of 1783. The boundary line could obviously rest 

 upon no other foundation. The boundaries were neither recogni- 

 tions nor acknowledgments of title. They could have been fixed 

 and settled only by treaty, and it is to the treaty alone that both 

 parties have always referred in all discussions concerning them. 

 Lord Bathurst's note denies that there is in any one of the articles of 

 the treaty of Ghent any express or implied reference to the treaty 

 of 1783 as still in force. It says that, by the stipulation for a 

 mutual restoration of territory, each party necessarily " reverted to 

 their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the title by 

 which their possessions were acquired, or to the mode in which their 

 boundaries had been previously fixed." 



There are four several articles of the treaty of Ghent, in every one 

 of which the treaty of 1783 is not only named, but its stipulations 

 form the basis of the new engagements between the parties for carry- 

 ing its provisions into execution. These articles are the fourth, fifth, 

 sixth, and seventh. The undersigned refers particularly to the 

 fourth article, where the boundaries described are not adverted to 

 without reference to the title by which they were acquired; but 

 where the stipulation of the treaty of 1783 is expressly assigned as 

 the basis of the claims, both of the United States and of Great 

 Britain, to the islands mentioned in the article. 



The words with which the article begins are, " Whereas it was 

 stipulated by the second article in the treaty of peace of one thou- 

 sand seven hundred and eighty-three, between His Britannic Maj- 

 esty and the United States of America, that the boundary of the 

 United States should comprehend all islands," &c. 



It proceeds to describe the boundaries as there stipulated; then 

 alleges the claim of the United States to certain islands, as founded 

 upon one part of the stipulation, and the claim of Great Britain as 

 derived from another part of the stipulation; and agrees upon the 

 appointment of two commissioners " to decide to which of the 

 74 two contracting parties the islands belong, in conformity with 

 the true intent of the said treaty of peace of 1783." The same 

 expressions are repeated in the fifth, sixth, and seventh articles; and 

 the undersigned is unable to conceive by what construction of lan- 

 guage one of the parties to those articles can allege that, at the time 

 when they were signed, the treaty of 1783 was, or could be, con- 

 sidered at an end. 



When, in the letter of the undersigned to Lord Bathurst, the treaty 

 of 1783 was stated to be a compact of a peculiar character, importing 

 in its own nature a permanence not liable to be annulled by the fact 

 of a subsequent war between the parties, the recognition of the sov- 

 ereignty of the United States and the boundary line were adduced 

 as illustrations to support the principle; the language of the above- 



