234 APPENDIX TO BKITISH COUNTER CASE. 



No. 11. 1814, December 1: Extract from letter, Lord Gambler and 

 Messrs. Goulbum and Adams to Viscount Castlereagh. 



Their second objection was to that part of the Vlllth Article, 

 which claims for the subjects of His Britannic Majesty the free navi- 

 gation of the Mississippi, and their access to that river. It was 

 stated by the American Plenipotentiaries that they had always 

 considered the Treaty of 1783 as differing from ordinary Treaties 

 in so far as it did not confer but only recognized the advantages 

 enjoyed under it both by Great Britain and the United States, and 

 therefore they did not conceive any stipulation to be necessary either 

 to secure to the United States the full enjoyment of the fisheries, 

 or to Great Britain the free navigation of the Mississippi as stipu- 

 lated in that Treaty. If they were correct, they stated, in their con- 

 struction of the Treaty (which, however, they knew to be at variance 

 with that of Great Britain), the provision introduced into the Vlllth 

 Article was altogether unnecessary. If, on the contrary, their judg- 

 ment was incorrect, and the right of the United States to the fish- 

 eries, and that of Great Britain to the navigation of the Mississippi, 

 had ceased in consequence of the war, they could not consent to give 

 to Great Britain without an equivalent the advantage of that navi- 

 gation. On this ground, therefore, they objected altogether to the 

 part of the Article in question, but they stated that if Great Britain 

 was disposed to give to the United States the enjoyment of the 

 fisheries as possessed by them under the former Treaty, that they 

 were willing to accept it as an equivalent, or to discuss any other 

 which Great Britain might be disposed to offer. Upon pur stating 

 that the true equivalent for the navigation of the Mississippi was 

 to be found in the preceding part of the Article, which not only 

 defined a boundary to the dominions of both nations in that quarter, 

 but provided for a considerable accession of territory to the United 

 States in a northwesterly direction, they at the same time that they 

 declined to consider the definition of boundary to be an advantage, 

 denied any accession of their territory to be the result of that Ar- 

 ticle. They, however, professed their readiness to omit that Ar- 

 ticle altogether. At the close of the discussion they delivered to 

 us, as a Memorandum, the inclosed amendment to the Vlllth Ar- 

 ticle, founded upon the principle of their acceptance of the fisheries 

 as an equivalent for yielding the navigation of the Mississippi, to 

 which Memorandum, or to the substance of it they expressed them- 

 selves ready to subscribe. As the American Plenipotentiaries have 

 through the whole course of the negotiation taken great pains to 

 describe the Treaty of 1783 as in their view of the subject only 

 recognising and not conferring the privileges of using any territory 

 within the British jurisdiction for purposes connected with the fish- 

 eries, we thought we saw an advantage in obtaining from them the 

 offer to Great Britain of any equivalent for their enjoyment of this 

 privilege, inasmuch as it afforded a proof that they considered it as 

 purely of a conventional nature. 



