THE FISHERIES. 231 



of the Commissioners to secure in that treaty recog- 

 nition of the fishery rights of the United States. But 

 it is due to the memory of the American Commission- 

 ers, and especially to Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Adams, and 

 Mr. Bayard, to say that, in all the negotiation at Ghent, 

 they and their associates were hampered by the dis- 

 couraged state of mind of the American Government, 

 embarrassed, as it was, by political difficulties at 

 home, and alarmed, if not terrified, by the triumph of 

 Great Britain in Spain and France, and the total over- 

 throw of Napoleon, which seemed to leave the Brit- 

 ish Government free to dispatch overwhelming forces 

 of sea and land asfainst the United States. 



The autumn subsequent to those events was the 

 darkest period in the history of the country. Noth- 

 ing but the shock produced by the great change in 

 the whole face of affairs in Europe could have extort- 

 ed from the American Government those final instruc- 

 tions to our Commissioners, which authorized them 

 to agree to the status quo ante helium as the basis of 

 negotiation, — which spoke of our right to the fisheries, 

 and of our foreign commerce, in equivocal terms, — 

 'and which, indeed, left the Commissioners free to con- 

 clude such a treaty as their own judgment should 

 approve under existing circumstances, provided only 

 they saved the rights of the United States as an inde- 

 pendent nation. 



How different mio;ht and would have been those 

 instructions, had the Government but struggled on a 

 little longer against the adverse circumstances of the 

 hour ! Courage and procrastination would have made 



