183 



Great Britain in the treaty of 1783, as belonging to the people ol 

 the United States, none of them had been forfeited or abrogated by 

 the war ; that we needed no new stipulation for their security, and 

 that we should consider ourselves as much entitled to them after 

 the peace, without an article concerning them as with one ; and 

 when my colleagues unanimously, so far as their signatures could 

 pledge their sentiments, united with me in asserting that principle ; 

 it certainly did not enter into my dreams, that seven years after- 

 wards one of those same colleagues would traduce that doctrine 

 before the legislative assembly of my country, as equivalent to a 

 crime of state, and denounce me in the face of the nation, as a 

 visionary dreamer for believing it. 



I first suggested it as an alternative, for an article proposed by 

 another member of the mission, to be offered for a new stipulation, 

 recognising again those liberties, fo; an equivalent recognition, of 

 a similar liberty claimed by the other party, and deducible from 

 the same principle — I had no objection to that article, because it 

 offered nothing but what 1 considered as necessarily flowing from 

 the principle itself, and because, if accepted, it would not only have 

 secured the interest, and the liberties in question, but have pre- 

 cluded all future controversy with the adverse party concerning 

 them. But as one member of the mission had raised very earnest 

 objections against the article, and as I was anxiously desirous of 

 conciliating the feelings as well as of protecting the interests of 

 every part of the Union, I was willing to accept the assertion of 

 the principle, as a substitute for the stipulation of the article, and 

 to rest the defence of the interest upon the future firmness and in- 

 telligence of my country. 



In the soundness of the principle itself I firmly believed and 

 still believe : — 1 had proposed the assertion of it before the vote 

 upon the question whether Mr. Gallatin's projected article should 

 be offered to the British plenipotentiaries had been taken. — It was 

 not then accepted, but after the vote had been taken, and a majo- 

 rity of the mission had resolved to propose the article, my princi- 

 ple was reproduced by Mr. Clay, and by unanimous consent 

 was substituted for the article which it had been determined to 

 offer. 



The paragraph as it appears in the note of 10th November, 

 1814, from the American to the British plenipotentiaries, signed 

 by all the members of the American mission, is as follows : 



<' In answer to the declaration made by the British plenipoten- 

 *' tiaries respecting the fisheries, the undersigned, referring to what 

 *' passed in the conference of the 9th of August, can only state 

 " that they are not authorized to bring into discussion any of the 

 *^ rights or liberties which the United States have heretofore en- 

 *' joyed in relation thereto. From their nature, and from the pe- 

 " culiar character of the treaty of 1783, by which they were re- 

 '* cognised, no further stipulation has been deemed necessary by 



