480 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



Gulf of St. Lawrence, and particularly along the shores of 

 Nova Scotia ; as to which latter, we are desirous that even 

 the shores may be occasionally used for the purpose of carry- 

 ing on the fisheries by the inhabitants of those states." 



Before actual negotiations for a treaty of peace \vith Eng- 

 land were entered upon, innumerable difficulties had arisen 

 to dishearten American legislators, and these difficulties 

 tended to weaken the obligatory force of previous congres- 

 sional resolutions on the subject. The war dragged on 

 remorselessly, exhausting the slender resources of the country 

 and discouraging the brave men who were sacrificing their 

 all in the cause of freedom. To-day peace was in sight, to- 

 morrow it seemed farther away than ever ; and the disheart- 

 ened patriots realized too well that the English ministry was 

 firm in its determination to withhold any fishery concessions. 

 Other important concessions besides the fisheries had to be 

 secured from England, and form a part of any treaty of 

 peace such as the navigation of the Mississippi River, 

 the delimitations of boundaries, indemnities, etc. ; but first, 

 and above all, independence, the primary object of the war, 

 was to be obtained at any and all cost. The yielding of this 

 concession alone, in the judgment of Congress, would be so 

 distasteful to the mother country that it might not be well 

 to jeopardize the treaty by making other demands scarcely 

 less distasteful to England. Might it not prove unreasonable, 

 or at least impolitic, to prolong a war begun for freedom, 

 simply to keep inviolate a single commercial privilege which 

 might be as well secured by subsequent treaty ? In a gloomy 

 mood Congress therefore declared that, "although it is of 

 the utmost importance to the peace and commerce of the 

 United States that Canada and Nova Scotia should be ceded, 

 and more particularly that their equal common right to the 

 fisheries should be guaranteed to them, yet a desire of termi- 

 nating the war has induced us not to make the acquisition 

 of these objects an ultimatum on the present occasion." It 

 was thus that in July, 1781, the instructions to Mr. Adams of 

 1779 were overruled, much to the chagrin of that zealous 

 patriot. 



