DOCUMENTS BEARING ON THE TREATY OF GHENT, 1814. 251 



It is from this view of the subject that I have been constrained to 

 believe that there was nothing in the treaty of 1783, which could, 

 essentially, distinguish it from ordinary treaties, or rescue it, on 

 account of any peculiarity of character, from the jura l>elli, or from 

 the operation of those events on which the continuation or termination 

 of such treaties depends. ' I was, in like manner, compelled to believe, 

 if any such peculiarity belonged to those provisions, in that treaty, 

 which had an immediate connexion with our independence, 

 152 that it did not necessarily affect the nature of the whole treaty, 

 or attach to a privilege which had no analogy to such pro- 

 visions, or any relation to that independence. 



I know not, indeed, any treaty, or any article of a treaty, whatever 

 may have been the subject to which it related, or the terms in which it 

 was expressed, that has survived a war between the parties, without 

 being specially renewed, by reference or recital, in the succeeding 

 treaty of peace. I cannot, indeed, conceive of the possibility of such 

 a treaty or such an article ; for, however clear and strong the stipula- 

 tions for perpetuity might be, these stipulations themselves would 

 follow the fate of ordinary unexecuted engagements, and require, 

 after a war, the declared assent of the parties for their revival. 



We appear, in fact, not to have had an unqualified confidence in our 

 construction of the treaty of 1783, or to have been willing to rest 

 exclusively on its peculiar character our title to any of the rights 

 mentioned in it, and much less our title to the fishing liberty in ques- 

 tion. If hostilities could not affect that treaty, or abrogate its pro- 

 visions, why did we permit the boundaries assigned by it to be 

 brought into discussion, or stipulate for a restitution of all places 

 taken from us 'during the present war? If such restitution was 

 secured by the mere operation of the treaty of 1783, why did we dis- 

 cover any solicitude for the status ante helium, and not resist the 

 principle of uti possidetis on that ground ? 



With regard to- the fishing privilege, we distinctly stated to you 

 in our letter of the 21st of December, that, " at the time of the treaty 

 of 1783, it was no new grant, we having always before that time en- 

 joyed it," and thus endeavoured to derive our title to it from pre- 

 scription. A title, derived from immemorial usage, antecedent to 

 1783, could not well owe its origin or its validity to a compact con- 

 cluded at that time, and we could, therefore, in this view of the sub- 

 ject, correctly say that this privilege was no new grant ; that is, that 

 our right to the exercise of it was totally independent of such com- 

 pact. If we were well-founded, however, in the assertion of our 

 prescriptive title, it was quite unnecessary to attempt to give a kind 

 of charmed existence to the treaty of 1783, and to extend its unde- 

 finable influence to every article of which it was composed, merely 

 to preserve that title which we declared to be in no way derived 

 from it, and which hnd exited, and, of course, could exist, without it. 



It was rather unfortunate, too, for our argument against a sever- 

 ance of the provisions of that treaty, that we should have discovered 

 ourselves, a radical difference between them, making the fishing privi- 

 lege depend on immemorial usage, and, of course, distinct in its na- 

 ture and origin from the rights resulting: from our independence. 



We, indeed, throw some obscurity over this subject when we de- 

 clare to you that this privilege was always enjoyed by us before the 

 treaty of 1783, thence inferring that it was not granted by that treaty, 



