NEGOTIATIONS FOR A NEW TREATY. 31 



Supplementing Mr. Adams' reply to the portion of Lord Bathurst's 



argument, in Avhich the use of the word " liberty " instead of the word 



"right" with respect to these fisheries is claimed to have a special 



significance, attention is called to the letter written in 1822 bv John 



Adams, in Avhich, speaking for himself and the other commissioners 



who negotiated the treaty of 1783, he says with reference to the use 



of the words " right "' and " liberty : " 



We demanded it [this article of the treaty] as a right and we de- 

 manded an explicit acknowledgment of that as an indispensable con- 

 dition of peace; and the word right was in the article as agreed to by 

 the British ^Ministers, but they afterwards requested that the word 

 liberty might be substituted instead of jioht. They said it amounted 

 to the same thing, for liberty was right and privilege was right ; but 

 the word right might be more unpleasing to the people of England 

 than liherty^ and we did not think it necessary to contend for a word.* 



NEGOTIATIONS FOR A NEW TBEATY. 



In the controversy above reviewed Mr. Adams not only argued 

 that the United States was entitled as a matter of right to the 

 continued enjoyment of the inshore fisheries reserved to the United 

 States under the treaty of 1783, but he also urged considerations 

 of policy and expediency as an inducement for Great Britain to 

 recognize such right. In his despatch of September 19, 1815, to the 

 Secretary of State reporting his interview of September 11. 1815, with 

 Lord Bathurst he says: 



There were, also, considerations of policy and expediency, to 

 which I hoped they would give suitable attention, before they should 

 come to a final decision upon this point. * * * These fisheries 

 afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of people who were 

 destitute of any other; the}" also afforded the means of remittance 

 to Great Britain in payment for articles of her manufactures ex- 

 ported to America. It was well understood to be the policy of Great 

 Britain that no unnecessary stimulus should be given to the manu- 

 factures in the United States, which would diminish the importation 

 of those from Great Britain. But, by depriving the fishermen of 

 the United States of this source of subsistence, the result must be 

 to throw them back upon the country, and drive them to the resort 

 of manufacturing for themselves; while, on the other hand, it would 

 cut off the means of making remittances in payment for the manu- 

 factures of Great Britain.'' 



These considerations were further urged by Mr. Adams in his 

 despatch of September 25, 1815, to Lord Bathurst, as follows : 



In the interview with which your lordship recently favored me, 

 I suggested several other considerations, with the hope of con- 



<» Appendix, p. 318. ''Appendix, p. 267. 



