171 



Mr. Russell says, that I expressed at Ghent tnij great contempt of 

 the British right to reach and navigate the Mississippi: an- Mr. 

 Russell's motive for using this expression is as apparent as it is invi- 

 dious. I never, at Ghent or elsewhere, expressed contempt of this 

 right, otherwise than by maintaining, that in the nature of things it 

 must and would be, as it had been, a naked right without use ; oVno 

 value to them, and of no damage to us. For this opinion my rea- 

 sons are now before the public ; and if a sohd answer to them tan 

 be given, I shall be ready to acknowledge that I have been mistaken 

 in entertaining it. But I shall not take^or such answer, any thing 

 that was said at Ghent ; and much less any thing since alleged by 

 Mr. Russell. I shall not take for an answer, the immense import- 

 ance TO us of the Mississippi and its navigation. No man has a 

 deeper sense of it than I have ; but it has no bearing on the ques- 

 tion. The navigation of the Rhine is of immense importance to the 

 people of Germany and of France. There are treaties, by which 

 the right to this navigation, both ascending and descending,"is stiou- 

 lated for all mankind.* The people of the United States enjoy it 

 as much as the people of France or of Germany. Is it of any va- 

 lue to us ? Is it of any injury to them ? I shall not take for an 

 answer Mr Russell's perpetual mis-statements of the question ; 

 his perpetual confounding of the article first proposed by Mr. Gal- 

 latin, which was never proposed to the British, with the amend- 

 ment to the 8th article, which was proposed to them and rejected ; 

 his perp.prual oonfo-anding of both with the 3d article of the treaty 

 of 1794. Mr. Russell says he has good reason to believe, that not 

 another member of the mission agreed with me in this opinion. 

 The best possible proof that Mr. Russell himself entertained it, is 

 found in the straits to which he is reduced to muster arguments 

 against it. His ingenuity cannot devise a plausible objection to the 

 proposal as it was made : so he substitutes in its stead, at one time 

 the article first proposed by Mr. Gallatin, and never offered ; at 

 another, the third article of the treaty of 1794 ; at a third, his con- 

 jectural inferences of abu^^es which might be made of the privi- 

 lege, as if the United States would have had no power to control 

 them. His argument is never against the proposal as it was made. 

 It is always against the substitute of his own imagination. Blark 

 his words: 



" It would be absurd to suppose that any thing impossible was 

 '-' mtended, and that Great Britain was to be allowed to navigate 



*- " The navigation of the Rhine, from the point where it becomes navigable 

 « unto the sea, and vice versa, shall be free, so that it can be interdictecrto no 

 ^ one : and at the future Congress, attention shall be paid to the establishment 



of the principles, according to which the duties to be raised by the states bor- 



dering on the Rhine, may be regulated, in the mode the most impartial, and 

 *• the most favourable to the commerce of all natiom:^ [Definitive Trealy be- 

 tween France and Great Britain, of 30 May, 18l4.] 



The same stipulation is contained in the Vienna Congress Treaties, and ex- 

 tended to the JVecker, the Mayne, the Moselle, the Meuse, and the Scheldt. 



