308 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



chusetts from desolation, brought on through the timidity of her own, 

 her chosen and honoured statesman. Such a picture might enter into 

 a new and interesting series of political illustrations, to be entitled 

 " The Vagaries of a Presidential Election." 



Mr. President, the statesman thus impeached for want of boldness 

 and firmness in defending his country's maritime rights, is he who 

 replied to Great Britain, when claiming for the last time the right 

 to '' search " American vessels, " The ocean is the sphere of the Law 

 of Nations; every vessel on the seas, is, by that law, under the pro- 

 tection of the laws of her own nation." " The practice of impressing 

 seamen from American vessels cannot hereafter be allowed to take 

 place." " In every regularly-documented American merchant vessel, 

 the crew who navigate it will find their protection in the flag which 

 is over them." 



Sir, the statesman thus impeached for being unreliable in defending 

 the interests of Massachusetts is he who, in the memorable debate 

 to which I have referred, achieved his triumph with the words : 



I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. She needs none. There 

 she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world 

 knows it by heart. The past is at least secure. There is Boston, and Concord, 

 and Lexington, and Bunker Hill and there they will remain forever. 



I shall enter into no encomium on the Secretary of State he needs 

 none. I should be incompetent to grasp so great a theme, if it were 

 needed. The Secretary of State ! There he is. Behold him and 

 judge for yourselves. There is his history; there are his ideas his 

 thoughts spread over every page of your annals for near half a 

 century. There are his ideas, his thoughts, impressed upon and 

 inseparable from the mind of his country and the spirit of the age. 

 The world knows them all by heart. They are there, and there they 

 Avill be forever. The past is at least secure. The past is enough, 

 of itself, to guaranty a future of fame unapproachable and inex- 

 tinguishable. 



Mr. President, a simple narrative shall now accomplish the two 

 purposes for which I address the Senate. It shall show that the 

 censures of honourable Senators are erroneous, and it will lead us 

 to an exact knowledge of the issue involved in the question which 

 occupies the Senate. 



I pass by the Treaty of 1783. All the world knows that, in common 

 with the people of England, we were subjects of the King of Great 

 Britain, and that in the war which terminated that connexion, we 

 secured not only independence, but also an equal right, in common 

 with those, who remained subjects, in the fisheries, which had before 

 been enjoyed in common. I pass by the Treaty of 1815. It was a 

 Treaty concluded at the end of our second war with Great Britain. 

 In that Treaty no allusion whatever was made to the subject; and so 

 Great Britain contended that our rights to the fisheries were gone 

 with the war because they had not been reestablished by the Treaty 

 of Peace. We maintained, on the contrary, that we retained all 

 those rights, because they had not been surrendered in the Treaty of 

 Peace. The Convention of 1818 was a Convention made for the pur- 

 pose of settling this great dispute, and did settle it in this way. 

 The United States took, under it, the equal right to fish in common 

 with His Britannic Majesty's subjects, in the waters that wash the 

 southern coast of Newfounland, from Cape Ray to the Rameau 



