APPENDICES TO ORAL ARGUMENTS. 2249 



Lord Bathurst to the Commissioners at Ghent. 



FOREIGN OFTICB, December , 1814. 



MY LORD AND GENTLEMEN : It is with great satisfaction that His 

 Royal Highness observes so great a progress has been made towards 

 bringing the negotiation to a favorable conclusion. There appear 

 but two points on which there exists any material difference, and upon 

 which it is necessary, therefore, to furnish you with instructions: 

 First, with respect to the alteration made in the first article ; secondly, 

 the discussions which have grown out of the amended projet of the 

 8th article. 



With respect to the alteration in the 1st article, you will insist on 

 the retention of the words in question. You will not fail to impress 

 upon the American Commissioners that the alteration is in no way 

 inconsistent with the principle of status quo ante bettum, upon which 

 we have agreed to treat, as there is a manifest difference between the 

 restitution of territory which unquestionably belonged to either 

 party, previous to the war, and the restitution of that ol which either 

 party may have had temporary possession, with a disputed right, 

 immediately preceding the war. 



As, however, inconvenience might arise from the act of restoring 

 territory situated in many different places becoming dependent on the 

 opinion which the party in possession might hold of his right to retain 

 it, you will readily consent to the limit, as the Commissioners have 

 proposed the application of the article to such possessions only as are, 

 by the tenour of the treaty itself, liable to dispute ; or, as a more spe- 

 cific limitation, to such possession as are by the treaty to be referred 

 to the Commissioners by whom the questions of boundaries are to be 

 finally decided. Provided the object for which the alteration was 

 proposed be obtained, viz., the retention of the islands in Passama- 

 quoddy Bay, during the time of reference to the Commissioners above 

 mentioned, you will show every facility in wording the limitations. 



The discussions which have grown out of the amended projet of the 

 8th article are of a more extensive nature. They relate to a question 

 of boundary ; to the privilege which we enjoyed, under the treaty of 

 1783, to have free access to the Mississippi, as well as the free naviga- 

 tion thereof; and to the liberty which the United States enjoyed, 

 under the same treaty, of taking, drying, and curing fish within the 

 exclusive jurisdiction of the possessions belonging to His Majesty in 

 North America. 



You did perfectly right in at once admitting that the free access 

 to and navigation of the Mississippi, provided in the amended projet 

 of the 8th article, was that to which we were no longer entitled, under 

 the treaty of 1783, and that it was to be considered, therefore, as a 

 stipulation in our favour, given by the American Government in 

 return for the favourable arrangement of this boundary consented 

 to by us in the preceding part of the same article. This must indeed 

 be manifest, by our having proposed the two stipulations reciprocally 

 beneficial, to form but one article. 



With respect to the proposition of considering the free access to and 

 the free navigation of the Mississippi, as an equivalent to their liberty 

 of taking, curing, and drying fish, on our coasts, and the memorandum 



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