618 MISCELLANEOUS 



Now, Sir, they say that the late war has annihilated our treaty of 



1782, and its definitive in 1783. Let me ask, has it annihilated our 

 independence and our sovereignty? It has annihilated our sover- 

 eignty as effectually as it has any one particle of our rights and lib- 

 erties in the fisheries. We asked not our independence as a grant, a 

 gift, a concession from Great Britain. We demanded, insisted upon 

 it as our right, derived from God, nature, and our own swords. The 

 article in the treaty ought to have been, " The United States have 

 been for seven years, now are, and of right ought to be free, sov- 

 ereign, and independent States." But it was not thought necessary 

 to hurt the delicacy of royal or popular feelings by language so em- 

 phatical, though so literally true. 



Now, Sir, does not the article relative to the fisheries stand upon 

 the same foundation with that of our independence? We claim and 

 demand the fisheries in their utmost extent, from God and nature and 

 our own swords, as we did our independence. And we will have 

 them, God willing. 



Neither nature nor art has partitioned the sea into empires, king- 

 doms, republics, or states. There are no dukedoms, earldoms, baronies, 

 or knight's fees, no freeholds, pleasure grounds, ornamented or un- 

 ornamented farms, gardens, parks, groves, or forests there, appro- 

 priated to nations or individuals, as there are upon land. Let Ma- 

 homet, and the Pope, and Great Britain say what they will, man- 

 kind will act the part of slaves and cowards, if they suffer any nation 

 to usurp dominion over the ocean or any part of it. Neither the 

 Mediterranean, the Baltic, the four seas, or the North Sea, are the 

 peculium of any nation. The ocean and its treasures are the common 

 property of all men, and we have a natural right to navigate the 

 ocean and to fish in it, whenever and wherever we please. Upon this 

 broad and deep and strong foundation do I build, and with this 

 cogent and irresistible argument do I fortify our rights and liberties 

 in the fisheries on the coasts as well as on the banks, namely, the 

 gift and grant of God Almighty in his creation of man, and. his land 

 and water; and, with resignation only to the eternal counsels of his 

 Providence, they never will and never shall be surrendered to any 

 human authority or any thing but divine power. 



You will accuse me of the bathos, if I descend from this height to 

 any inferior ground ; but the same rights from the same source may 

 be deduced and illustrated through another channel. 



2. We have a right (I know not very well how to express it) 

 but we have the rights of British subjects. Not that we are now 

 British subjects; not that we were British subjects at the treaty of 



1783, but as having been British subjects, and entitled to all the 

 rights, liberties, privileges, and immunities of British subjects, which 

 we had possessed before the revolution, which we never had sur- 

 rendered, forfeited, or relinquished, and which we never would re- 

 linquish any farther than in that treaty is expressed. Our right was 

 clear and indubitable to fish in all places in the sea where British 

 subjects had fished or ever had a right to fish. 



3. We have a stronger and clearer right to all these fisheries in 

 their largest extent than any Britons or Europeans ever had or could 

 have, for they were all indebted to us and our ancestors for all these 

 fisheries. We discovered them; we explored them; we settle the 

 country, at our own expense, industry, and labor, without assistance 



