88 



REMARKS 



On a Paper delivered by Mr. Jonathan Russell, at the Department of State, on 

 the 22d of April, 1822, to be communicated to the House of Representatives^ 

 as the duplicate of a Letter written by him at Paris, the llth of February ^ 

 I8l5, to the then Secretary of State, and as the Letter called for by the Resolu" 

 Hon of the House, of\9th April, 1822. 



The first remark that presents itself upon this duplicate, is, that 

 it is not a copy of the letter really written by Mr. Russell, at Paris, 

 on the 11th of February, 1815, to the Secretary of State, and re- 

 ceived by him. The latter was marked '* private,'''' and, as such, 

 was not upon the files of the Department of State ; and, although 

 of the same general purport and tenor with the so-called duplicate, 

 differed from it in several highly significant passages, of which the 

 following parallel, extracted from the two papers, presents one 

 example : 



ORIGINAL. 



" How far we conformed to 

 this instruction, with regard to 

 the general right to Louisiana, it 

 is not necessary for me here to 

 inquire ; but certainly the majo- 

 rity believed (103) themselves per- 

 mitted to offer a very explicit pro- 

 position with regard to the navi- 

 gation of its principal (104) river. 

 / believed, with them, that we were so 

 permitted, and that we were, likewise, . 

 permitted to offer a proposition relative 

 to the fishing liberty, and, had the oc- 

 casion required it, to make proposals 

 concerning the trade to the British 

 East Indies. I was persuaded, that 

 treating relative to these privileges, or 

 discussing the obligation or expediency 

 of granting or withholding them, re- 

 spectively, violated, in no way, our 

 instructions, or affected the general 

 rights which we were forbidden to 

 bring into discussion.'' 



DUPLICATE. 



*' How far we conformed to 

 this instruction, with regard to 

 the general right to Louisiana, it 

 is not necessary for me here to 

 inquire ; but certainly the majo- 

 rity believed (l03) themselves to be 

 permitted, their own construction to the 

 contrary notwithstanding, to offer a 



very explicit proposition with 

 regard to the navigation of its 

 principal (lO*) river; now, this of- 

 fer, I considered, for the reasons just 

 suggested, not to be a violation of the 

 instructions in question, but I consi- 

 dered it to be against both the letter 

 and the spirit of our other instructions 

 of the 15th of April, 1813. By these 

 instructions, we were explicitly and 

 implicitly directed* to avoid any sti- 

 pulation which might restrain the Unit- 

 ed States from excluding the British 

 traders from the navigation of the lakes 

 and rivers exclusively ivithin our own 

 jurisdiction.'^ This instruction applied 

 with the greater force to the Missis- 

 sippi, because, as it is believed, it was 

 the only river to which it could apply. 

 " While I believed, therefore, that 

 we were permitted to offer a proposi- 

 tion relative to the fishing liberty, and 

 that in treating concerning this liberty, 

 or in discussing our claim to it, we in 

 no way violated our instructions, nor 

 affected the general rights which we 

 were forbidden to bring into discussion, 

 I did believe, and do still believe, that 



