DOCUMENTS BEARING ON THE TREATY OF GHENT, 1814. 261 



tion against the right which he had been instructed not to surrender, 

 and the only principle by which it could be defended. 



At this time, and after all the controversy through which the 

 American principle was destined to pass, and has passed, I, without 

 hesitation, reassert, in the face of my country, the principle, which, 

 in defence of the fishing liberties of this nation, was, at my sug- 

 gestion, asserted by the American plenipotentiaries at Ghent. 



I deem this reassertion of it the more important, because, by the 

 publication at this time of Mr. Russell's letter, that plenipotentiary 

 has not only disclaimed all his share in the first assertion of it, but 

 has brought to bear all the faculties of his mind against it, while the 

 American side of the argument, and the reasons by which it has been 

 supported against arguments coinciding much with those of his let- 

 ter, but advanced by British reasoners, are not before the public. 

 The principle is yet important to great interests, and to the future 

 welfare of this country. 



When first suggested it obtained the unanimous assent of the 

 American mission. In their note of 10th November, 1814, to the 

 British plenipotentiaries, which accompanied their first projet of a 

 treaty, they said, " in answer to the declaration made by the British 

 plenipotentiaries respecting the fisheries, the undersigned, referring 

 to what passed in the conference of the 9th August, can only state, 

 that they are not authorized te bring into discussion any of the rights 

 or liberties which the United States have heretofore enjoyed in rela- 

 tion thereto. From their nature, and from the peculiar character of 

 the treaty of 1783, by which they were recognized, no further stipula- 

 tion has been deemed necessary by the government of the United 

 States, to entitle them to the full enjoyment of all of them." This 

 paragraph was drawn up, and proposed to the mission by the member 

 with whom Mr. Russell concurred in objecting to the proposal of an 

 article confirmative of the fishing liberties and navigation of the 

 Mississippi, and as a substitute for it. The mission unanimously 

 accepted it: and the fishing liberties being thus secured from sur- 

 render, no article relating to them or to the Mississippi was inserted 

 in the projet sent to the British mission. 



But one of the objects of the negotiation was to settle the boundary 

 between the United States and the British dominions, from the north- 

 west corner of the Lake of the Woods westward. That boundary, 

 by the treaty of 1783, had been stipulated to be, " from the most 

 northwestern point of the Lake of the Woods on a due west course 

 to the river Mississippi ; and thence, down the middle of the Missis- 

 sippi, to the thirty-first degree of north latitude;" while, by the 

 eighth article of the same treaty, it had been stipulated, that "the 

 navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, 

 should forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain 

 and the citizens of the United States." 



The right of Great Britain and of the United States, at the time of 

 the treaty of 1783, to make this stipulation with regard to the navi- 

 gation of the Mississippi, might be, and afterwards was, questioned 

 by Spain, then a possessor also of territories upon the same river, and 

 indeed of both its banks, from its mouth to a higher latitude than 

 that thus stipulated as the boundary of the United States. But. as 

 between Great Britain and the United States, there could, at the 

 time of the conclusion of the treaty of 1783, be no possible question 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 01-3, vol 7 22 



