ARGUMENT OF CHARLES B. WARREN. 1063 



THE PRESIDENT : And the principal object, I believe, was the stop- 

 ping of vessels for impressment? 



MR. WARREN : No, Mr. President, if you will pardon me. The prin- 

 cipal object was to negotiate an entire treaty to replace the provisions 

 of the Jay Treaty, about to expire ; and the instructions to the Com- 

 missioners for the United States were to negotiate a treaty of amity, 

 commerce, and navigation between the United States and Great 

 Britain. The matter of impressment, Mr. President, was, of course, 

 an important matter, and led the Secretary of State, without submit- 

 ting the treaty to the Senate of the United States at all, to reject as 

 representing the President of the United States the proposed treaty, 

 upon the ground that no special provision had been incorporated in 

 the treaty regarding impressment. The subject of impressment was 

 not covered in the proposed treaty as signed by the Commissioners. 



The Secretary of State wrote the Commissioners, as appears on p. 

 100 of the Appendix to the Counter-Case of the United States 



" without a provision against impressments, substantially such as is 

 contemplated in your original instructions, no treaty is to be con- 

 cluded." 



Of course, Mr. President, the United States was looking for a 

 provision regarding impressments, because it saw the difficulty loom- 

 ing large; and the statesmen of the time were very wise, because the 

 war of 1812 did at length arise out of the failure to adjust that 

 question in 1806 that is, the question of the right of impressment. 



On the 31st December, 1806, a convention was concluded between 

 the Commissioners, and on the 3rd day of January, 1807, the Pleni- 

 potentiaries on behalf of the United States transmitted the 

 640 convention to the Secretary of "State, and in commenting on 

 the 12th article, they advised the Secretary of State to the 

 following effect as appears on p. 96 of the Appendix to the Counter- 

 Case of the United States : 



" The twelfth article establishes the maritime jurisdiction of the 

 United States to the distance of five marine miles from their coast, 

 in favor of their own vessels and the unarmed vessels of all other 

 Powers who may acknowledge the same limit." 



That shows that the negotiation was not confined to armed vessels. 



" This government [Great Britain] contended that three marine miles 

 was the greatest extent to which the pretension could be carried by 

 the law of nations, and resisted, at the instance of the Admiralty and 

 the law officers of the Crown, in Doctors' Commons, the concession, 

 which was supposed to be made by this arrangement, with great 

 earnestness. The ministry seemed to view our claim in the light of 

 an innovation of dangerous tendency, whose admission, especially 

 at the present time, might be deemed an act unworthy of the Govern- 

 ment. The outrages lately committed on our coast, which made some 

 provision of the kind necessary as a useful lesson to the commanders 



