206 



open sea, or upon our own coasts, and cured on our own shores. ^^ 

 This assertion is, like the rest» erroneous. 



The shore tishery is carried on in vessels of less than twenty tons 

 burthen, the proportion of which, as appears by Seybert's Statisti- 

 cal Annals, is about one seventh of the whole. With regard to 

 the comparative value of the Bank, and Labrador fisheries, I sub- 

 join hereto, information collected from several persons, acquainted 

 with them, as their statements themselves will show in their mi- 

 nutest details. 



At an early period of the negotiation, I had been satisfied, that 

 the British plenipotentiaries would not accept the renewal of the 

 oth article of the treaty of 1783, (the iVIississippi navigation) as an 

 equivalent for the renewal of the third, (the fisheries.) In the 

 correspondence which followed their notification at the first con- 

 ference, that their government did not intend to grant the former 

 fishing liberties without an equivalent, they had even dropped 

 their claim for an article renewing their right of navigating the 

 Mississippi, until we met their pretension that the fisheries had 

 been forfeited by the war, which we first did in our note of the 10th 

 of November, 1814. The principle upon which I had always re^ 

 lied, was, that the rights and liberties recognised in the 3d article 

 of the treaty of 1783, had not been abrogated by the war, and 

 would remain in full force after the peace, unless we should re- 

 nounce them expressly by an article in the treaty, or tacitly by 

 acquiescing in the principle asserted by the British plenipotentia- 

 ries. There was a period during the negotiations, when it was 

 probable, they might be suspended, until the American commis- 

 sioners could receive new instructions from their government. 

 After the peace was signed I was aware that the question relating 

 to the fisheries, must become a subject of discussion with the Bri- 

 tish government; and I iiad been previously informed by the Se- 

 cretary of State, that if the negotiation should result in the con- 

 clusion of peace, it was the President's intention to nominate me 

 for the subsequent mission to Great Britain. I felt it, therefore, 

 to be peculiarly my duty to seek the best information that I could 

 obtain, in relation both to the rights and liberties in the fisheries, 

 as recognised in the treaty of 1783, and to their value. The fol- 

 lowing are extracts of two letters written by me from Ghent, to one 

 of the negotiators of the treaty of 1783. By attending to the dates 

 it will be seen, that the first of them was written three days before 

 the first proposal by Mr. Gallatin, of the article relating to the 

 Mississippi and the fisheries, and the second, two da3^s after the 

 signature of the peace. 



Ghent, 27 th October, I8l4. 



" My dear sir : The situation in which I am placed, often brings 

 to my mind that in which you were situated in the year 1782, and 

 1 will not describe the feelings with which the comparison, or i 

 might rather say, the contrast aiTects me. { am (-ailed (o support 



