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British jurisdiction Xi;ithout an equivalent. There is, as you mu'&fc 

 remember, in the third article of the treaty of 1783, a diversity of 

 expression by which the general fisheries on the Banks are ac- 

 knowledi^ed as our right, but these tishing privileges within the 

 British jurisdiction, are termed liberties. The British govern- 

 ment consider the latter as franchises forfeited ipso facto by the 

 war, and declared they would not grant them anew without an equi- 

 valent. Aware that by this principle they, too, had forfeited their 

 right to navigate the Mississippi, recognised in the same treaty of 

 1783, they now demanded a new provision to secure it to them again-o 



" We were instructed not to suffer our right to the fisheries to be 

 brought into discussion ; we hail no authority to admit any discri- 

 mination between the first and the last parts of the third article of 

 the treaty of 1783. No power to offer or agree to an equivalent 

 either for the rights or the liberties. I considered both as stand- 

 ing on the same footing : both as the continuance of franchises al- 

 ways enjoyed, and the difference in the expressions only as arising 

 from the operation of our change from the condition of British 

 subjects to that of a sovereign people, upon an object in one part of 

 general, and in the other of special, jurisdiction. The special ju- 

 risdiction had been that of our own sovereign : by the revolution 

 and the treaty of peace, it became a foreign, but still remained a 

 special, jurisdiction. By the very same instrument in which we 

 thus acknowledged it as a foreign jurisdiction, we reserved to our- 

 selves with the full assent of its sovereign, and without any limitation 

 of time or af events, the franchise which we had always enjoyed 

 while the jurisdiction had been our own. 



" It was termed a liberty because it was a freedom to be enjoyed 

 within a special jarisdictJon ; the fisheries on the Banks were 

 termed rights becau&e they were to be enjoyed on the ocean, the 

 common jurisdiction of all nations ; but there was nothing in the 

 terms themselves and nothing in the article or in the treaty imply- 

 ing an intention or expectation of either of the contracting parties, 

 that one, more than the other, should be liable to forfeiture by a 

 subsequent war. Or^ the maturest dehberation I still hold this ar- 

 gument to be sound, and it is to my mind the only one by which 

 our claim to the fisheries within British jurisdiction can be main- 

 tained. But after the declaration made by the British government, 

 it was not to be expected that they would be converted to this 

 opinion without much discussion, which was forbidden to us, and 

 the result of this mui^t have been very doubtful upon minds at all 

 times inclined, ami at this time most peculiarly prone, rather to 

 lean upon power than to listen to reason. We stated the general 

 principle in one of our notes to the British plenipotentiaries, as 

 the ground upon which our government deemed no new stipulation 

 necessary to secure the enjoyment of all our rights and liberties 

 in the fisheries. They did not answer that part of our note; but 

 %vhen they came to ask a stipulation for the right of British subjects^ 



