50 THE TREATY OF \YASIIINGTOX. 



cupatiou of tlie Nortliwestern Territory for so many 

 years after we liad made peace. I tliink she was 

 wroDs; in issiiino; tlie notorious Orders in Council, and 

 in the visitation of our ships and impressment of our 

 seamen, which morally constrained us, after exhaust- 

 ing all other means of redress, to have recourse to 

 war. I think she was wroucj in contendino: that that 

 war extinguished the rights of coast fishery assured 

 to us by the Treaty of Independence. I think she 

 was wrong in the controversy on the subject of colo- 

 nial trade, which attained so much prominence during 

 the Presidency of John Quincy Adams. I think she 

 was wrong in attempting to set up the fictitious Mos- 

 quito Kingdom in Central America. I think she was 

 wrong in the so-called San Juan Question. And so 

 of other subjects of difference between the two Gov- 

 ernments. 



Now, it has happened to me, in the course of a long 

 public life, to be called on to deal officially, either in 

 Congress, in the Cabinet, or at the Bar, with many of 

 these points of controversy between the two Govern- 

 ments, of which it suffices to mention for example 

 three, namely : 1, the Question of British Enlistments ; 

 2, the Hudson's Bay Company ; and 3, the Alabama 

 Claims. 



In regard to the first of these questions, the United 

 States, and the persons who administered the Govern- 

 ment, were so clearly right that, although the British 

 Government, in its Case, improvidently brought into 

 controversy at Geneva, by way of counter-accusation, 

 the general conduct of the United States during the 



