DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 279 



looking back upon our past history, I recollect no case where we have 

 not found doubts and opposition among our own citizens in our con- 

 troversies with foreign Powers. I hope this case will yet prove an 

 exception, as the right is so manifestly with us, and that we shall 

 be found united in feeling and in action. Such an exhibition of 

 patriotism would be worth more and do more than " an army with 

 banners." 



Now, Sir, no man, it appears to me, can read the letter of Mr. John 

 Quincy Adams to Lord Balhard, [Sic.'\ written, I believe, in 1816, 

 without being satisfied that our claims are not in the least affected, 

 either in their strength or duration, by the use of one or the other 

 of those words, rights or liberties,' and the subject is placed beyond 

 dispute by Mr. John Adams in the letter to which I have already re- 

 ferred, and in which he explains the origin of the difference, and 

 shows that it had no relation to the pretensions of the parties: 



Further Extract from the Teller of Mr. John Adams before referred to. 



And the word " right " was in the Article as agreed to by the British Minis- 

 ters, but they afterwards requested that the word " liberty " might be substi- 

 tuted instead of right. They said it amounted to the same thing; for liberty 

 was righl, and privilege was right, but the word right might be more displeasing 

 to the people of England than liberty ; and we did not think it necessary to con- 

 tend for a word. 



And I cannot refrain from asking the attention of the Senate to the 

 able and interesting letter of Mr. Stevenson, then our Minister in 

 England, to Lord Palmerston, dated March 27, 1841. It is written 

 with great force and with a full knowledge of this whole subject, 

 and Mr. Stevenson successfully combats what the Republic of this 

 city well terms the preposterous pretension of fhigland. 



The danger and impropriety of transferring the course to be pur- 

 sued in such delicate questions to the Colonial authorities, locally 

 interested in the establishment of their own construction, is well 

 shown in this letter ; and I am glad to see that Mr. Webster, in some 

 recents remarks at Marshfield, advances views similar to those of 

 Mr. Stevenson. The Colonial Legislatures are authorized to pass 

 laws, and to make regulations upon the matter, and these laws and 

 regulations carefully follow the words of the Convention, but in their 

 administration colonial interests are kept prominently in view, and 

 the peace of two great countries is put to hazard by petty interests, 

 as exemplified in the complaints about offal and fishing bait. 



Mr. President, I said on a recent occasion, and I repeat emphat- 

 ically, that I desire no war with England. Far from us and them 

 from the world, indeed far be such a calamity. No two countries 

 on earth have stronger inducements, moral and political, to remain 

 in amity with each other than have the United States and England, 

 and woe be to either of them which voluntarily changes the pacific 

 relations that now hold them together. But, Sir, the way to avoid 

 war is to stand up firmly but temperately for our clear rights. Sub- 

 mission never yet brought safety, and never will. To yield, when 

 clearly right, is to abandon at once our interest and our honour, and 

 to show to the world how the finger of scorn can be best pointed at 

 us. I am one among the feeblest of the sentinels placed upon 

 166 the watchtowers of the country, and perhaps the one among all 

 others the tenure of whose interest in our common property is, 



