90 



1 9tli October, 18J4, fresh from Washington : nor at all possible 

 that he should have considered us as then bound by the instructioa 

 of loth April, 1813, to which, in his duplicate, he now so emphati- 

 cally refers. The 11th of February, 1815, was yet so recent to 

 the date of the conclusion of the treaty, that, in writing the original 

 of his letter, the recollection of the new instructions of October, 

 1814, had doubtless not escaped him. But when the duplicate was 

 written, other views had arisen ; and their aspects are discovered 

 in the aggravation of charges against the memory of a dead, and the 

 character of living colleagues. 



But whether the real sentiments of !VIr. Russell, at Paris, on the 

 11th of February, 1815, with regard to the transactions to which 

 this passage relates, are to be taken as indicated in the original, or 

 in the duplicate, certain it is that the vehement objections to the 

 proposed article, which, in the duplicate, appear to have made so 

 deep an impression on his mind, had as little been made known to 

 his colleagues at the time of the discussions at Ghent, as they ap- 

 pear to have been to himself, when writing the original of the same 

 letter. 



The proposal, to which the whole of Mr. Russell's letter, in both 

 its various readings, relates, was made to the British plenipotentia- 

 ries, not by a majority, but by the whole of the American mission, 

 including Mr. Russell, as may be seen by the protocol of the confer- 

 ence of the 1st December, 1814, and by the letter from the Ameri- 

 can to the British plenipotentiaries, of 14th December, 1814. In 

 (hat letter, already communicated to the House, the American ple- 

 nipotentiaries, referring to the article in question, expressly say : 

 •* To such an article, which they viewed as merely declaratory, the 

 undersigned had no objection, and have offered to accede :" and to 

 that letter the name of Mr. Russell is subscribed. 



At the time when the letter from Paris was written, or within a 

 few days thereafter, all the colleagues, whose conduct it so severe- 

 ly censures, in relation to measures, to which Mr. Russell's sanction 

 and sio-nature stood equally pledged with their own, were at Paris, 

 and in habits of almost daily intercourse with him. They little sus- 

 pected the colouring which he was privately giving, without com- 

 munication of it to them, of their conduct and opinions, to the heads 

 of the government, by whom he and they had been jointly employ- 

 ed in a public trust of transcendent importance ; or the uses to 

 which this denunciation of them was afterwards to be turned. 



Had the existence of this letter from Paris been, at the time when 

 it was written, known to the majority of the mission, at whose pro- 

 posal this oCfer had been made ; to that majority, who believed that 

 the article was perfectly compatible with their instructions, con- 

 sistent with the argument maintained by the mission, important for 

 securing a very essential portion of the right to the fisheries, and in 

 nowise affecting unfavourably the interest of any section of the 

 Union, they would doubtless have felt that its contents called much 

 more forcibly upon them, to justify to their own government them- 



