54 



they acknowledged it to be their object, that each party should, 

 until a decision had taken place with respect to the title, retain 

 possession of all the territory claimed by both parties, which might 

 have been taken by such party during thewar. They proposed, 

 however, to limit the exception from mutual restitution, to the is- 

 lands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy. As it had been, on both sides, 

 admitted, that the title to these islands was disputed, and as the 

 method of settling amicably those disputes was provided for in the 

 treaty, we had not expected that the British government would ad-^ 

 here to the demand of retaining the temporary possession of those 

 islands. We insisted, therefore, on their being inchided in the 

 general restoration, until we had reason to believe that our further 

 perseverance would have hazarded the conclusion of the peace 

 itself; we finally consented, as an alternative preferable to the 

 continuance of the war, to this exception, upon condition that it 

 should not be understood as impairing, in any manner, the right of 

 the United States to these islands. We also urged for a stipulation, 

 requiring an ultimate decision upon the title within a limited time ; 

 but to this we also found opposed an insuperable objection, and we 

 were finally induced to accept, in its stead, a declaration of the 

 British plenipotentiaries that no unnecessary delay of the decision 

 should be interposed on the part of Great Britain. 



At the first conference on the 8th of August, the British pleni- 

 potentiaries had notified to us, that the British government did not 

 intend, henceforth, to allow to the people of the United States, 

 without an equivalent, the liberties to fish, and to dry and cure 

 fish, within the exclusive British jurisdiction, stipulated in their 

 favour, by the latter part of the third article of the treaty of peace 

 of 1783. And, in their note of the 19th of August, the British 

 plenipotentiaries had demanded a new stipulation to secure to 

 British subjects the right of navigating the Mississippi : a demand, 

 which, unless warranted by another article of that same treaty of 

 1783, we could not perceive that Great Britain had any colourable 

 pretence for making. Our instructions had forbidden us to suffer 

 our right to the fisheries to be brought into discussion, and had not 

 authorized us to make any distinction in the several provisions of 

 the third article of the treaty of 1783, or between that article and 

 any other of the same treaty. We had no equivalent to offer for a 

 new recognition of our right to any part of the fisneries, and we 

 had no power to grant any equivalent which might be asked for it 

 by the British government. We contended that the whole treaty 

 of 1783, must be considered as one entire and permanent compact, 

 not liable, like ordinary treaties; to be abrogated by a subsequent 

 war between the parties to it ; as an instrument recognising the 

 rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of the United States as 

 an independent nation, and containing the terms and conditions on 

 which the two parts of one empire had mutually agreed thence- 

 forth to constitute two distinct and separate nations. In consent- 

 ing, by that treaty, that a part of the North American continent 



