in Die first article of the treaty of 1788, wns abroivviiod by tlVe war 

 of 18] 2, from the first lioiir of its ileclaralion hv Congress, Great 

 Britain might have treated us as rebels^ a« she had done through the 

 whole War of the Revolution. 



Was the boundary line of the treaty of 1783 abrogated by the 

 war of 1812? The American plenipotentiaries certainly did not 

 so consider it, when they spoke of it in one of their notes, as the 

 line '■ as it now is." Nor did the British plcnipotenliaries so consi- 

 der it, when they demanded the express stipulation o( another line, 

 by the treaty then to be concluded. They claimed it, not because 

 the boundary of the treaty of 1783 was abrogated, but by the right 

 of conquest, as a cession of our territory ; and the demand was 

 resisted on that ground. The articles in the treaty of Ghent, 

 which refer to the boundary line, do not reucu: or confirm the arti» 

 cles of the treaty of 1783, lyhich they recite. They refer to 

 them, as reference is always made to treaties in llill lorce, and 

 merely add new stipulations for ascertaining the line described by 

 them, according to the true intent and meaning of that treaty. 



If, then, none of the rights, liberties, or possessions, recognised 

 by the first and second articles of the treaty of 1783, as belonging 

 to the United States, were abrogated by the war of 1812, by what 

 right, and upon what principle, could Mr. Russell consider the 

 fishing liberty, recognised as belonging to them by the third article, 

 to be entirely at an end, without a new stipulation for its revival. 

 The whole of the third article, concerning the fisheries, was as 

 much a recognition, of pre-existing rights, liberties, and posses-' 

 sions, as the first and second articles. With regard to that identi- 

 cal portion of the article, which Mr. Russell considers entirely at 

 an end, the words of lord Loughborough, which 1 have cited, prove 

 that it was universally considered, at the time when the treaty of 

 1783 was made, as a recognition of existing rights, as much as all 

 the rest. Mr. Russell says that the fishing liberty, within exclusive 

 British jurisdiction, was not necessary to perfect the jurisdiction of 

 the United States. What then ? It was not a perfection of juris- 

 dictions, but a division of common property. The whole fishery 

 had been the joint property of both parties. When the separation 

 was to be consummated, it was agreed that that property should 

 still be held in common ; that the people of the United States 

 should continue to enjoy the right of exercising the faculty upon 

 the banks and open seas, and should have the lihertij of exercising 

 it in the unsettled bays, creeks, and harbours, where they had be- 

 iore exercised it as British subjects, but which were thenceiorth to 

 be within a foreign jurisdiction. There is nothing in the import of 

 the term liberty, nothing in the limitations expressed in the article, 

 nothing in the principles of English law, or of the laws of nations 

 applicable to fisheries, which can v/arrant the pretension that this, 

 more than the rest of the article, or than any other article in the 

 treaty, was a grant of privilege, revocable at the pleasure of Great 

 Britain; or forfeitable by war. Mr. Russell, in his letter, frequent- 



