1096 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



not a candidate, was in a receptive mood for the Presidency of the 

 United States. He was in fact made President within two years 

 thereafter. He was replying to this report of Mr. Kussell's, which, 

 although written in 1815, shortly following the signing of the Treaty 

 of Ghent, was not in fact made public, for the apparent embarrass- 

 ment of Mr. Adams, until 1822, which fact the delay in publica- 

 tion appears in the British Counter-Case, Appendix, on page 150. 



The publication of this report of Mr. Russell's, in 1822, gave rise 

 to this controversy with Mr. Adams, and resulted, as I say, in the 

 publication of this book, from which these extracts in the British 

 Counter-Case Appendix have been taken. 



In this controversy Mr. Adams was apparently seeking to justify 

 the position of the majority of the Commissioners at Ghent, as 

 against the position of Mr. Russell, in demanding the inshore fish- 

 eries as a matter of principle, and was undertaking to justify the 

 contention put forward by the majority of the Commissioners in 

 1814 that none of the rights under the treaty of 1783 had been 

 abrogated by the war of 1812. 



Reading from this correspondence, on p. 161 of the British Coun- 

 ter-Case Appendix, the counsel for Great Britain made an observa- 

 tion regarding the effect of a statement there found. 



No particular importance should be attached to this controversy, 

 in any event, but it plainly appears from this correspondence that 

 what Mr. Adams was arguing with Mr. Russell was that, if Mr. 

 Russell had been able to persuade the majority of the Commissioners 

 for the United States at Ghent to admit the worthlessness of the 

 fisheries and the word " worthlessness " was used at the time by Mr. 

 Russell the British Commissioners might have undertaken, in 1814, 

 to obtain by a treaty stipulation the whole of the fisheries, and 

 might have sought to insert in the treaty an exclusive right to the 

 enjoyment of the entire fisheries, as such provisions had been in- 

 corporated in the French and Spanish treaties many years before. 



There are one or two extracts from this report and correspondence 

 thai I desire to bring to the attention of the Tribunal. If the Tri- 

 bunal will now kindly follow me to the separate report of Mr. Russell 

 to the Secretary of State of the United States, datecl the llth Feb- 

 ruary, 1815, made after the treaty had been signed, printed on p. 150 

 of the Appendix to the Counter-Case of Great Britain, there will be 

 found the following statement, beginning at the bottom of that 

 page: 



" I now have the honor to state to you the reasons which induced 

 me to differ from a majority of my colleagues on the expediency of 

 offering an article confirming the British right to the navigation of 

 the Mississippi, and the right of the American people to take and 

 cure fish in certain places within the British jurisdiction." 



