242 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



In reply we stated that should they no longer press Great Britain 

 to yield possession of the Passamaquoddy Islands we should be will- 

 ing to consider any determination of theirs to that effect, in con- 

 junction with such an article as they might frame in relation to the 

 fisheries and Mississippi navigation, provided such an article was 

 really worded so as in our judgment simply to refer those subjects 

 to future negotiation, without tending to preclude either party from 

 acting hereafter on his own view of those subjects. That in making 

 this proposition we went to the very limit of our instructions, if not 

 somewhat beyond them. In justification of the manner in which our 

 propositions had been brought forward we remarked that it was 

 neither unusual nor improper to refer certain subjects to future nego- 

 tiation, the necessary details of which might tend to postpone the 

 termination of hostilities, and that we considered all subjects involv- 

 ing equivalents as peculiarly liable to this inconvenience. 



The most explicit declaration as to the failure of the present war 

 to put an end to the operation of the Treaty of 1783 was made by 

 Mr. Gallatin, but without any grounds of argument in support of it. 

 He merely stated that the United States considered that Treaty to be 

 of such a nature that all its provisions were permanent, and not liable 

 to be, nor capable of being, annulled by a subsequent war, and conse- 

 quently that no fresh stipulations were required on either side to put 

 the parties in possession of the advantages derivable from its pro- 

 visions. This declaration has been noticed because it appears some- 

 what at variance with the note of the American Plenipotentiaries of 

 the 10th ultimo, which derives the right of the United States to the 

 advantages of the Treaty, as well from the nature of the advantages 

 themselves as from the peculiar character of the Treaty by which 

 they were recognised a term certainly intended to imply that the 

 right to possess them existed before. So little consistency appears in 

 the grounds upon which doctrines of this nature are likely at any time 

 to be rested, that one of the American Plenipotentiaries admitted 

 that the right of the United States to the fisheries, so far as it depended 

 on the treaty of 1783, was put an end to by the war. Though this 

 admission was evidently intended to convey the notion of a pre- 

 existing right to these advantages, yet it is altogether at variance 

 with the declaration that rests them on the peculiar character of that 

 Treaty alone. 



We made no scruple on this and on other occasions of stating 

 explicitly that in our view of the subject, all the right which the 

 United States had or could have to the fisheries was derived from 

 the Treaty of 1783 alone; that we could conceive no other source 

 whence they could derive it, nor on what possible grounds it could 

 be contended that the provisions of that Treaty were not put an end 

 to by the present war. 



147 No. 21. 1814, December 14: Extract from Mr. J. Q. Adams' 

 Memoirs referring to a Conference with his Colleagues with 

 reference to the form of a Reply to the British propositions. 

 ******* 



The passage which I wished to be stricken out was also retained, 

 and others inserted, expressly and explicitly with the view ultimately 



