DOCUMENTS BEARING ON THE TREATY OF GHENT, 1814. 231 



No. 8. 1814, November %6: Extract from an addition to Article 8 

 proposed by the British. 



.... (and it is further agreed the subjects of His Britannic 

 Majesty shall at all times have access) from His Britannic Majesty's 

 territories, by land or inland navigation, into the aforesaid territories 

 of the United States to the River Mississippi, with their goods, effects, 

 and merchandise, and that His Britannic Majesty's subjects shall 

 have and enjoy the free navigation of the said river. 



No. 9. 1814, November 28, 29: Extract from Mr. J. Q. Adams' 

 Memoirs as to Statement made by him at a Conference of American 

 Plenip oten tiaries . 



I observed .... that as to the British right of navigating the 



Mississippi, I considered it as nothing, considered as a grant 



140 from us. It was secured to them by the Peace of 1783, they had 



enjoyed it at the commencement of the war, it had never been 



injurious in the slightest degree to our own people, and it appeared 



to me that the British claim to it was just and equitable. 



******* 



Mr. Gallatin declared himself of the same opinion with me, as to 

 the grant of the mere right of the navigation or the Mississippi ; but 

 he asked me why I had then hesitated so much about offering it as an 

 equivalent for the fisheries. 



Mr. Clay, on the other hand, thought there would be a gross incon- 

 sistency in asking a specific stipulation for the fisheries, after the 

 ground we had taken, that no article was necessary to secure us in 

 the enjoyment of them. 



I said that my reluctance at granting the navigation of the Missis- 

 sippi arose merely from the extreme interest that Mr. Clay and the 

 Western people attached to it; that as to the ground we had taken 

 upon the fisheries, I believed it firm and solid. I had put my name 

 to it, and considered myself as responsible for it. But when some 

 of my colleagues, who had also put their names to it, told me, in this 

 chamber, among ourselves, that they thought the ground untenable, 

 and that there was nothing in our principle, I found it necessary to 

 mistrust my own judgment, particularly after the enemy had given 

 us notice that they meant to deprive us of the fisheries in part, unless 

 a new stipulation should secure them. If our principle was good for 

 the fisheries on our part, it was good to the British for the navigation 

 of the Mississippi. The Plenipotentiaries had made no reply to our 

 remarks concerning the fisheries. That silence might be taken for 

 acquiescence, and if there was nothing more I would rest it upon that. 

 But they asked for a new stipulation of their right to navigate the 

 Mississippi. This implied their opinion that they had lost the right 

 as agreed to in the Treaty of 1783. It became necessary, therefore, 

 for us to ask a similar stipulation for the fisheries within their juris- 



