170 



posed that both interests should be placed on the same footing on 

 which they had stood before the war. The first and p^jramount 

 duty of the government was to bring the nation out of the war, 

 with all its great interests preserved. It was not to gain an advan- 

 tage for one section, by the loss of an advantage to another. The 

 principle of Mr. Gallatin's article was, that neither section should 

 gain or lose by the issue of the war. The principle of the objec- 

 tion to it was, that the West should gain^ by the sacrifice of the in- 

 terest of the East : and the main motive assigned for it was, that 

 the East was a disaffected part of the country. 



Much, too, was said of the comparative value of the two liber- 

 ties ; not by Mr. Russell, who had not then made, or at least did 

 not disclose, his notable discovery of incessant fogs, and their dele- 

 terious effects upon the fisheries. But doubts were expressed, on 

 one side, whether the fisheries were of much value : and opinions 

 were very confidently expressed, on the other, that the navigation 

 of the Mississippi would be to the British of no value. Neither 

 evidence nor argument was adduced to show the small value of the 

 fisheries. But that the navigation of the Mississippi would be to 

 the British of no value, and of no injury to us, was proved, first, 

 by the experience of thirty years, from the peace of 1783 to the 

 war of 1812, during which they had possessed it without inconve- 

 nience to u^ or benefit to themselves ; secondly, by the apparent 

 fact, that after abandoning their claim to a boundary line to the 

 Mississippi, and consequentl}' the power of qver forming any settle- 

 ment upon its banks, there was neither present nor prospective 

 interest, which could make the mere right of navigating it down- 

 wards to the ocean, of any value to them. It was absolutely noth- 

 ing more than a right of travelling upon a highway ; and all rational 

 foresight, as well as all past experience, led to the conclusion, that 

 the privilege would remain as it had been, merely nominal. The 

 objections against this reasoning were all speculation against fact ; 

 all surmises of what might be in future, wgainst the uniform tenour 

 of what had been before. When, atlerwards, the proposition of the 

 first of December was actually made to the British plenipotentia- 

 ries, the immediate rejection of it by their government, and the 

 reasons which they assigned for rejecting it, demonstrated that they 

 considered it at least no equivalent for the part of the fisheries, of 

 which they intended to deprive us : and their final abandonment, 

 without any equivalent, of all claim to it, in negotiating the conven- 

 tion of 1818, completed the proof that the_y had always considered 

 it as a mere name, the only use they ever could make of which was 

 to obtain, if they could, something for renouncing it.* 



* I take this opportunity to rectify an inaccuracy in the statement of my re- 

 marks upon Mr. Russell's letter, that at the negotiation of that Convention, the 

 navigation of the Mississippi was not even asked by the British. On recurring 

 to the documents of that negotiation, I find that it was asked, but easily aban- 

 doned. Our Negotiators were instructed not to accede to it. 



