DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC, 267 



when separated as while united. And we learn, both from the tra- 

 ditional accounts and from diplomatic and historical documents, 

 that in the very darkest period of the struggle there was no waver-- 

 ing upon this point, but that our conscript fathers held on to it with 

 as much tenacity as their Roman predecessors held on to the rights 

 and honour of Koine when the enemy Avas at the gates of the capitol. 

 That sturdy patriot, John Adams, told the story in his old age 

 and an eventful one it is valuable both as an encouragement and 

 as an example. It is contained in a letter to William Thomas, dated 



MONTEZILLO, August 10, 1822. 



DEAR SIR: The grounds and principles on which the third Article of the 

 Treaty of 's.3 was contended for on our part, and finally yielded on the part of 

 the British, were these: first, that the Americans and the adventurers to 

 America were the first discoverers and the first practisers of the fisheries; 

 secondly, that New England, and especially Massachusetts, had done more in 

 defence of them than all the rest of the British Empire; that the various pro- 

 jected expeditions to Canada, in which they were defeated by British negli- 

 gence the conquest of Louisburg in '45 the subsequent conquest of Nova 

 Scotia, in which New England had expended more blood and treasure than 

 all the rest of the British Empire were principally effected with a special 

 view to the security and protection of the fisheries: thirdly, that the inhab- 

 itants of the United States had as clear a right to every branch of the fisheries, 

 and to cure fish on land, as the inhabitants of Canada or Nova Scotia; that the 

 citizens of Boston, New York, or Philadelphia, had as clear a right to those 

 fisheries, and to cure fish on land, as the inhabitants of London, Liverpool, 

 Bristol, Glasgow, or Dublin ; fourthly, that the third Article was demanded as 

 an ultimatum, and it was declared that no Treaty of Peace should ever be 

 made without that Article. And when the British Ministers found that peace 

 could not be made without that Article, they consented for Britain wanted 

 peace, if possible, more than we did; fifthly, we asked no favour, we requested 

 no grant, and would accept none. We demand it as a right, and we demanded 

 an explicit acknowledgment of that right as an indispensable condition of 

 peace. 



The war of 1812, and the peace that followed it, left this important 

 right in a disputed and precarious condition. No arrangement could 

 be made at Ghent in relation to it; and the effort was closed by the 

 peremptory declaration made on the 10th of November, 1814, by the 

 American to the British Commissioners, 



that they were not authorized to bring into discussion any of the rights or 

 liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed in relation thereto, 

 [the fisheries.] From their nature, and from the peculiar character of the 

 Treaty of 1783, by which they are 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. 



After the Peace, during some years difficulties and troubles arose, 

 threatening serious consequences, from the almost hostile pretensions 

 of the parties, that finally led to the negotiations of Messrs. Gallatin 

 and Rush, which terminated in the existing Convention of 1818. 



There were strange claims in those days as well as now. An effort 

 was made to exclude us from coming within twenty leagues of the 

 colonial coasts; though the act was finally disavowed by the British 

 Government, wherever the design may have originated. 



And Mr. Monroe said, in his instructions to the Commissioners at 

 Ghent, that the Administration "had information, from a quarter 

 deserving attention," that a demand would be made to surrender our 

 right to the fisheries, to abandon all trade beyond the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and to cede Louisiana to Spain. 



