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die of the Mississippi, to the thirty-first degree of north latitude ;" 

 while, by the eighth article of the same treaty, it had been stipulat- 

 ed, that " the navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to 

 " the ocean, should forever remain free and open to the subjects of 

 " Great Britain and the citizens of the United States." 



The right of Great Britain and of the United States, at the time 

 of the treaty of 1783, to make this stipulation with regard to the 

 navigation of the Mississippi, might be, and afterwards was, ques- 

 tioned by Spain, then a possessor also of territories upon the same 

 river, and indeed of both its banks, Irom its mouth to a higher la- 

 titude than that thus stipulated as the boundary of the United 

 States. But, as, between Great Britain and the United States, 

 there could, at the time of the conclusion of the treaty of 1783, be 

 no possible question of the right of both to make the stipulation, / 

 the boundary line itself being in substance a concession of territorw 

 to the river, and down its middle to latitude 31, which Great BritaiA 

 was undoubtedly competent to make, and the United States to re- 

 ceive. Now, the United States having received the cession and the 

 boundary, with the right to navigate the river, with the expfess 

 condition that the navigation of the river should forever remain 

 frea and open to British subjects, and having expressly assented 

 to that condition, without considering it as infringing upon any right 

 of Spain ; they could not, consistently witii good faith by acquinng 

 afterwards the right of Spain, allege that this acquisition absolved 

 them from the obligation of the prior engagement with Great Bri- 

 tain. There is, indeed, in Pflr Russell's letter, a hesitating argu- 

 ment to that effect ; the odious character of which is but liimsiiy 

 veiled by its subtlety. The United States had always insisted upon 

 their right of navigating the Mississippi, by force of the article of 

 the treaty of 1783, and had obtained the acknowledgment of that 

 right from Spain herself, many years before they acquired her ter- 

 ritorial right by the purchase of Louisiana. With what front, then, 

 could an American negotiator have said, after the latter period, to 

 a British minister : — You have no right to the navigation of the 

 Mississippi ; for although, on receiving from you a part of the river, 

 we expressly stipulated that you should forever enjoy a right to its 

 navigation, yet that engagement was a fraud upon the rights of 

 Spain ; and although, long before we had acquired these rights of 

 Spain, she had acknowledged our right to navigate the river, found- 

 ed upon this very stipulation of which you now claim the benefit, 

 yet I will now not acknowledge your right founded on the same 

 stipulation. Spain, no party to the compact between you and me, 

 after controverting it as infringing upon her rights, finally acceded 

 to its beneficial application to us, as compatible with those rights. 

 But we. who made the compact with you, having now acquired the 

 adverse rights of Spain, will not allow you the beneficial use of our 

 own compact. We first swindled and then bullied Spain out of her 

 rights, by this eighth article of the treaty of 1783 ; and new, hav- 

 ing acquired ourselves those rights, we plead them for holding our 

 engagement with you for a dead letter. 



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