92 



3. That the principles assumed, and ilic argument maintainctl, 

 by the majority of the Ghent Mission, and to which he had 

 subscribed his name in all the joint communications of the 

 Mission, as well to the British plenipotentiaries as to his own 

 government, were a mass of errors, inconsistencies, and absur- 

 dities. 



1. That the offer to the British plenipotentiaries of a right to the 

 British to navigate the Mississippi, was, in the opinion of the 

 majority, and also in his own opinion, permitted by our in- 

 structions, and in no ways violated them. 



5. That the same offer was directly contrary to the construction 

 given by the majority to their instructions, and, as he had 

 always thought, and still thought, contrary to explicit and 

 implicit, express and unqualitied prohibitions, in those instruc- 

 tions. 



6. That the offer of the right to navigate the Mississippi, as an 

 equivalent for the fisheries, was the offer of an excessive price, 

 for a privilege worth little or nothing. 



7. That, extravagant as that offer (to which he signed a letter 

 declaring that he had no objection) was, it was rejected by 

 the adverse party ; because they thought it an offer of the 

 dead for the living ; or because, they hoped to get still more 

 for the worthless privilege ; or, because, they expected to 

 take and keep Louisiana, and thus get the navigation of the 

 Mississippi for nothing; or, because, they were blinded by the 

 unhappy passions incident to war ; but that he foresaw, that 

 they would hereafter grant all the valuable part of the same 

 worthless privilege for nothing. 



8. That there was no sort of relation whatsoever between a 

 privilege for the British to navigate in waters within our ju- 

 risdiction, and a privilege for us to fish in waters within Bri- 

 tish jurisdiction ; because one of these privileges had been 

 stipulated in the third, and the other in the eighth article, of 

 the treaty of 1783 ; and therefore, that it was absurd to offer 

 one as an equivalent for the other. 



9. Lastly, that the offer to the British of the right to navigate 

 the Mississippi, was pregnant with mischief to the western 

 country — to " the unoffending citizens of an immense tract of 

 " territory, not at all, or but faintly benefited by the fishing 

 '* privilege, merely to provide for the doubtful accommodation 

 *' of a few fishermen, annually decreasing in number, in a re- 

 ** mote quarter, and entirely exempt from the danger." 



Upon most of these points, so far as argument is concerned, it 

 might, upon the mere statement of Mr. Russell's positions, be left, 

 to his ingenuity to refute itself. His first and second points, with 

 regard to the character of the treaty of 1783, considered as doc- 

 trines, are evidently inconsistent with each other. The variation 

 between the original and duplicate of his letter upon the fourth and 

 fifth points, is something more than inconsistency ; something more 



