in 



been abrogated by the war, and that none of the rights stipulated 

 and recognised in it, as belonging to the people of the United 

 States, could be abrogated, but by their own renunciation, was at 

 first assumed in defence of the fisheries only, and without saying 

 any thing of the Mississippi. When, therefore, the demand for 

 the navigation of the Mississippi came from tlie British plenipo- 

 tentiaries, Mr. Russell's special objections to the application of our 

 principle, in favour of our demand, might have been urged. But 

 what were these special objections ? I have shown, that they were 

 our own wrong — fraud and extortion upon Spam, to justify perfidy 

 to Great Britain. Mr. Russell never did allege these objections 

 at Ghent, and, if he had, a majority of the American mission would^ 

 assuredly, have been ashamed to allege them to the British govern- 

 ment. 



The second way of proceeding, to which Mr. Russell says he 

 would have assented was to consider the treaty of 1783 at an end, 

 and offer for the fishing privilege, a reasonable equivalent, -wherever 

 it might be found — and where would he have found it ? He will 

 not affirm that we had authority to offer any equivalent whatever — 

 we had been specially instructed not to surrender them. He says 

 he would have surrendered, and purchased them at a reasonable 

 price again. 



The third substitute, to which he says he would have assented, 

 is the strangest of all. He says he would have made it a sine qua 

 non of peace, as embraced by the principle of status ante beilum. 



A sine qua non for the status ante helium ! And yet he could not 

 €07isent to grant or revive the British right to the navigation of the 

 of the Mississippi in order to procure or preserve the fishing Hb^ 

 erty ; when the status ante beilum would have given them not only 

 the whole treaty of 1783, but the permanent articles of the treaty 

 of 1794 ; not only the navigation of the Mississippi, but unre- 

 strained access to our territories and intercourse with our Indians. 

 I have shown that the most aggravated portion of Mr. Russell's 

 charge against his colleagues of the majority, that of wilful viola- 

 tion of positive and unequivocal instructions, by a senseless offer 

 to the British plenipotentiaries, sacrificing an important Western 

 to a trifling Eastern interest, is not only utterly destitute of founda- 

 tion, but that it was not even made, nay, more, that it was distinctly 

 contradicted by the letter really written by Mr. Russell at Paris, 

 on the llih of February, 1815. Into Mr. Russell's motives for in- 

 troducing it into the duplicate of that letter, delivered by himself 

 at the Department of State, to be communicated to the House as 

 the letter called for by their resolution, I shall not attempt to 

 penetrate ; having, as 1 trust, equally shown that the charges im- 

 plied in the real letter are as groundless as their aggravations in 

 the duplicate. The professions of unfeigned respect for the integ- 

 rity, talents, and judgment, of those colleagues whose conduct is, 

 in the same letter, represented as so weak, absurd, and treacherous, 

 I can, for my own part, neither accept nor reciprocate. To have 



