NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE TREATY OF GHENT. 21 



Without adverting to the ground of prior and immemorial usage, 

 if the principle were just that the treat}- of 1783, from its peculiar 

 character, remained in force in all its parts, notwithstanding the war, 

 no new stipulation was necessary to secure to the subjects of Great 

 Britain the right of navigating the Mississippi, so far as that right 

 was secured by the treaty of 1783, as, on the othei^ hand, no stipulation 

 was necessary to secure to the people of the United States the liberty 

 to fish, and to dry and cure fish, within the exclusive jurisdiction 

 of Great Britain. If they asked the navigation of the Mississippi 

 as a new claim, the}^ could not expect we should grant it without an 

 equivalent; if they asked it because it had been granted in 1783, they 

 must recognize the claim of the people of the United States to the 

 liberty to fish and to dr}' and cure fish, in question. To place both 

 points beyond all future controversy, a majority of us determined 

 to offer to admit an article confirming both the rights, or we offered 

 at the same time to be silent in the treaty upon both, and to leave out 

 altogether the article defining the boundary from the Lake of the 

 AYoods westward. Thej' finally agreed to this last proposal, but not 

 until they had j^roposed an article stipulating for a future negotia- 

 tion for an equivalent to be given by Great Britain for the navigation 

 of the Mississippi, and by the United States for the libert}^ as to the 

 fisheries within British jurisdiction. This article was unnecessary 

 with regard to its professed object, since both Governments had it in 

 their power, without it, to negotiate upon these subjects if they 

 pleased. "We rejected it, although its adoption would have secured 

 the boundary of the forty-ninth degi'ee of latitude west of the Lake 

 of the Woods, because it would have been a formal abandonment, on 

 our part, of our claim to the liberty as to the fisheries, recognised by 

 the treaty of 1783." 



Although no reference is made in this treaty to the fisheries, it is 

 evident from the foregoing examination of the negotiations that noth- 

 ing was settled by it with respect to the effect of the War of 1812 

 upon the inshore fisheries provisions of the treaty of 1783. The United 

 States had explicith^ refused to renounce them or to bring them into 

 question by discussing any change in them, and in signing the treaty 

 without any provision referring to them maintained that they had 

 survived the War of 1812 and were still in force and required no 

 declaration or provision in the treaty for their continuance. 



Great Britain, on the other hand, had expressly refused in the 

 negotiations to agree to any stipulation renewing the inshore fisheries 

 provisions under the former treaty without some equivalent, and 

 in omitting any reference thereto in the treaty maintained that such 

 provisions had been abrogated by the War of 1812, and that, in the 

 absence of an express provision renewing or continuing them, they 

 must be regarded as no longer in force. 



"Appendix, p. 258. 



