DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 167 



that no court in England would give to the treaty of 1783 a construc- 

 tion different from that adopted by their Government, and that if 

 an Act of Parliament was wanted, it would be obtained in a week's 

 time and without opposition. If the subject was not arranged, im- 

 mediate collision must ensue, and, Great Britain proceeding under 

 legal forms to condemn our vessels, no resource remained for us but 

 to acquiesce or commence hostilities. With much reluctance I yielded 

 to those considerations, rendered more powerful by our critical situa- 

 tion with Spain, and used my best endeavours to make the compro- 

 mise on the most advantageous terms that could be obtained. After 

 a thorough examination of the communications on the subject which 

 you transmitted to us, I think that substantially we have lost very 

 little, if anything; and I only wish that it had been practicable 



to give to the agreement the form of an exchange in direct 

 98 terms; that is to say, that we give fishing rights in certain 



quarters in consideration of the right of curing fish on a part 

 of Newfoundland and of the abandonment of the British claim to 

 the navigation of the Mississippi. This, however, could not be done 

 in a positive manner, the British plenipotentiaries disclaiming any 

 right to that navigation, and objecting, therefore, to a renunciation 

 of what they did not claim. The article which they proposed on 

 this last subject was only, as they said, an equivalent for what they 

 pretended to concede in agreeing that the boundary west of the Lake 

 of the Woods should be fixed at the 49th degree of north latitude. 



No. 42. 1819, June H : Extract from Letter from Mr. Rush, Envoy, 

 <&c., at London, to Mr. Adams, Secretary of State. 



I was honoured, on the 8th instant, with your despatch No. 17, of 

 the 7th of May. 



On the 9th I addressed a note to Lord Castlereagh, to request an 

 interview, that I might proceed to lay before this Government, with- 

 out losing any time, the determinations to which the President had 

 come on the important subject of the commercial intercourse between 

 the United States and the West Indies. His Lordship appointed 

 yesterday for me to wait upon him. 



I commenced with calling to mind the point at which the discus- 

 sions had left off upon this branch of the negotiation last autumn, 

 and gave a new assurance of the President's earnest desire to see 

 this trade opened upon a footing of entire and liberal reciprocity, 

 rather than stand any longer upon the conflict of arbitrary laws. 

 In this spirit I was instructed to offer a projet, which had been care- 

 fully drawn up upon the basis of a compromise between the preten- 

 sions of the two parties, and which, indeed, would be found to fall 

 in so entirely with the propositions of Great Britain, in some respects, 

 and to make such an approximation to them in others, that a hope 

 was cherished of its proving acceptable. 



