127 



die discussions of the mission previous to the 10th of^Tovember, as^ 

 a letter of the 19th of October which was not received until more 

 than fourteen days after those discussions had taken place- 

 It may not be improper to remark here that an instruction re- 

 ceived on the 24th of November, authorizing the status antebellum, 

 although highly satisfactory as it regarded the past, could not well, 

 considering what had already been done, have had much practical 

 effect on the future negotiations. On the lOlh of that month we 

 had, in substance if not in name, already proposed that basis in op- 

 position to that of the uti possidetis, urged by our adversaries. In 

 our note to them of that date, we offered with a sufficient precision 

 the status ante helium, when we said that the undersigned *' cannot 

 agree to any other principle than that of a mutual restoration of 

 territory, and have accordingly prepared an article founded on that 

 basis. They are willing even to extend the same principle to the 

 other objects in dispute between the two nations ; and in proposing 

 all the other articles included in this project, they wish to be dis- 

 tinctly understood that they are ready to sign a treaty placing the 

 two countries, in respect to all the subjects of difference between 

 them in the same state they tsoere in at the commencement of the pre- 

 sent war, reserving to each party all its rights, and leaving what- 

 ever may remain of controversy between them, for future and pa- 

 cific negotiation." 



Besides, the proposition to which I objected before the 10th of 

 November, and which was substantially that/irst offered on the 1st 

 of December, was not, in my opinion, authorized by the status ante 

 helium. I distinctly stated, in my letter, that the revival of the 

 British right to navigate the Mississippi would be under existing 

 circumstanceg, a new and complete grant to her, &:c. And in ano- 

 ther place, " in thus offering the navigation of the Mississippi and 

 the access to it through our territories, as an equivalent for the 

 fishing liberty, we not only placed both on ground entirely different 

 from that on which they respectively stood in the treaty of 1783," 

 kc. 



The meetings of the American mission on the 28th and 29th of 

 November, were not in consequence of the despatch received on 

 the 24th of that month. They were convened for the purpose of 

 discussing "the alterations and suggestions" of the British minis- 

 ters on our project which they had returned to us on the 27th, 

 with an explanatory note of the 26th. Whatever might have been 

 said at these meetings in relation to the Mississippi, on account of 

 the alteration, respecting it, made in the 8th article of our project, 

 by the British plenipotentiaries, no new resolution was there taken 

 by the Americati mission to offer the navigation of that river for the 

 fishing privilege. This oflfer was made on the 1st of December^ 

 in virtue of the vote taken before the 10th of November, and 

 which, although suspended, had not been reconsidered or cancelled. 

 I am the more confident in this statement, as I distinctly remember 

 ihat when that offer was actually made, it was unexpected by a jjia- 



