256 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



I believed it would give to Great Britain the free navigation of the 

 Mississippi, under circumstances, and evidently for an object, which 

 would place it on very distinct grounds from those on which it was 

 placed by the treaty of 1783. 



The whole of the Mississippi being now exclusively within the 

 acknowledged jurisdiction of the United States, a simple renewal of 

 the British right to navigate it would place that right beyond the 

 reach of the war ? and of every other previous circumstance which 

 might have impaired or terminated it; and the power to grant, on 

 our part, being now complete, the right to enjoy, on hers, under our 

 grant, must be complete also. 



It would be absurd to suppose that any thing impossible was 

 intended, and that Great Britain was to be allowed to navigate the 

 Mississippi precisely as she could have navigated it immediately after 

 the treaty of 1783 ; as if her territories extended to it, and as if Spain 

 was in entire possession of one of its banks and of a considerable por- 

 tion of the other. The revival of the British right to navigate the 

 Mississippi would be, under existing circumstances, a new and com- 

 plete grant to her, measured by these circumstances, and thence em- 

 bracing not only the entire freedom of the whole extent of that river. 

 but the unrestrained access to it across our territories. If we did not 

 intend this, we intended nothing which Great Britain could accept ; 

 and, whatever else might have been intended, if not at once rejected 

 by her, would hereafter have been the subject of new and endless con- 

 troversy. When, however, we connected the revival of the navigation 

 of the Mississippi with the revival of the liberty of taking and curing 

 fish within the British jurisdiction, two things, which never before 

 had any relation to each other, we evidently meant, if we acted in 

 good faith, not only to concede, as well as to obtain something, but 

 also to be understood as conceding an equivalent for what we obtained. 



In thus offering the navigation of the Mississippi, and the access to 

 it through our territories, as an equivalent for the fishing liberty, we 

 not only placed both on ground entirely different from that in which 

 they respectively stood in the treaty of 1783, and acted somewhat 

 inconsistently with our own reasoning relative to the origin and 

 immortality of the latter, but we offered to concede much more than 

 we could hope to gain by the arrangement, with whatever view its 

 comparative effects might be estimated. 



From the year 1^83, to the commencement of the present war, the 

 actual advantages derived from the fishing privilege by the people of 

 the United States, were, according to the best information that I can 

 obtain on the subject, very inconsiderable, and annually experiencing 



a voluntary diminution. 



155 It was discovered that the obscurity and humidity of the 



atmosphere, owing to almost incessant fogs, in the high north- 

 ern latitudes, where this privilege was chiefly located, prevented the 

 effectual curing of fish in those regions, and, consequently, lessened 

 very much the value of the liberty of taking them there. By far the 

 greatest part of the fish taken by our fishermen before the present war, 

 was caught in the open sea or upon our own coasts, and cured on our 

 own shores. This branch of the fisheries has been found to be inex- 

 haustible, and has been pursued with so much more certainty and 

 despatch than the privileged portion within the British jurisdiction, 

 that it has not only been generally preferred by our fishermen, but 



