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jority of the mission. Mr. Bayard, in returning home from the 

 house of the British ministers, where the conference of the 1st of 

 December had been holden, very exphcitly declared to Mr. Clay 

 and to me, his dissatisfaction that this offer had been made without 

 his having been recently consulted in relation to it. I dare, in regard 

 to these facts, to appeal to the recollection of Mr. Clay in confirm- 

 ation of my own. 



The explanation which I have given, will, I trust, be sufficient to 

 show that there could have been no impropriety in stating, at any 

 time, the instructions of the 15th of April, 1813, as furnishing an 

 objection, at least during the first days of Nov. to a proposition 

 to revive or continue to Great Britain a right to the free navigation 

 of the Mississippi — a river within our exclusive jurisdiction. As 

 this was the only topic, in the paper left at the Department of 

 State, which was not in the letter received from Paris, which could 

 by the most sickly imagination, be strained into anattack upon others, 

 I shall take but little notice of the remarks of Mr. Adams in relation 

 to the remainder of that paper. 



The opinion which I there suggested, concerning the cause of 

 the rejection of our proposition by the British ministers, was an 

 opinion formed soon after that event, and I mentioned it to several 

 persons, particularly to the American minister at Paris, at or about 

 the time my letter was written at that place. A " trust in God and 

 the valour of the West," for the disappointment of our enemies, 

 was naturally suggested, at the time, by a pious and patriotic con- 

 fidence in those who were able and might be willing to defend us, 

 and certainly had nothing in it of prophecy. It was evidently more 

 wise to place a trust there than instinctively/ in the fish of the East, 

 which were swimming in British waters. Nor was there any sem- 

 blance of prediction of the treaty of 1818, in a belief that the fishing 

 privilege might thereafter be obtained, by negotiation, "without 

 any extravagant equivalent, whatever," as that belief was not only 

 suggested by the nature of the case, but authorized by the explicit 

 offer made by the British ministers, on the 10th of December, 

 1814, thus to negotiate and to grant that privilege in consideration 

 of a fair equivalent. By the measure of Mr. Adams, no extrava- 

 gant equivalent is precisely equal to no equivalent at all. 



As to the sentiment which 1 expressed in favour of the fishermen 

 immediately interested in that privilege, it is a sentiment always 

 and every where felt by me, and could not be expressed out of 

 time or place. 



Thus much for the important differences, between the private 

 letter received from Paris and the paper left at the Department of 

 State, which have afforded such an ample field to Mr. Adams for 

 the display of the enviable attributes of his head and heart. 



I shall now make a few brief observations on the principal charges 

 which he exhibits against me, of inconsistency and misrepresent- 

 ation. 



The principle, that the treaty of 1783 was not, on account of its 



