282 APPENDIX TO BBITISH COUNTER CASE. 



diction; but I would not accept it even for the rights of fishing on 

 the banks. I would not sign a treaty containing such a stipulation; 

 for it would be a sort of admission that the right would be liable to 

 forfeiture by every war we might have with Great Britain. I would 

 not take, therefore, a stipulation for anything recognised in the Treaty 

 of Peace as a right. 



No more (said Mr. Gallatin) than an article acknowledging again 

 our independence. 



I said, Certainly. 



Mr. Bayard thought there was a material difference between the 

 rights secured by the Peace of 1783 to us and the British right of 

 navigating the Mississippi, in the same treaty. The rights recognized 

 as belonging to us were certainly permanent, and not to be forfeited 

 by a subsequent war. But we had nothing to grant. We recognized 

 no new rights to the British. The Mississippi was not then ours to 

 grant ; it was held by Spain, and the aspect of the subject was entirely 

 changed by our subsequent acquisition of Louisiana. Our argument 

 for the fisheries might therefore be sound, and yet not apply to the 

 British for the navigation of the Mississippi. 



It became necessary to determine by a vote whether Mr. Gallatin's 

 proposal to offer an article making the navigation an equivalent for 

 the fisheries should be adopted, and it was determined that it should. 

 At the meeting to-morrow he is to produce it, and the draft of a note 

 to the British Plenipotentiaries. 



29th. I had barely time to finish my letter to my wife, to go by 

 this day's post, when the meeting of the mission began. Mr. Gallatin 

 had prepared his draft of a note to the British Plenipotentiaries, 

 closing with a request for a conference, and his proposed article 

 offering the navigation of the Mississippi as an equivalent for the 

 fisheries within the British jurisdiction. This renewed our discus- 

 sion of the whole subject, but it was now on all sides good-humored. 

 I had some doubt whether it would be perfectly safe to ask a confer- 

 ence, while we were so far from being agreed among ourselves. Mr. 

 Clay said he could put the subject of the Mississippi navigation upon 

 principles to which it was impossible we should not all agree. I said 

 that nothing like that had been apparent from our discussion hith- 

 erto; that he certainly would not be willing that I should be the 

 spokesman of his sentiments, and I did not think it likely that he 

 would very accurately express mine. 



He said he did not think there was so irreconcilable a difference in 

 the structure of our minds; and that it was remarkable there was so 

 exact a coincidence of views on this point between persons at a great 

 distance from each other as there was between Mr. Crawford arcl 

 him. Mr. Russell had received a letter from Mr. Crawford, in which 

 he had urged in very strong terms objections against granting the 

 navigation of the Mississippi as an equivalent for the fisheries, and 

 had used the same arguments against it as those he had adduced. 



Mr. Gallatin brought us all to unison again by a joke. He said he 

 perceived that Mr. Adams cared nothing at all about the navigation 

 of the Mississippi, and thought of nothing but the fisheries. Mr. 

 Clay cared nothing at all about the fisheries, and thought of nothing 

 but the Mississippi. ^ The East was perfectly willing to sacrifice the 

 West, and the West was equally ready to sacrifice the East. Now, he 



