237 



est sufferers by the war, and by the restrictive measures that pre 



ceded and they were among the most effective supporters of the 



war, and of the honour of the nntion in the conduct of it. To have 

 sacrificed their liberties in the fishery, would have been a stain upon 

 the gratitude, no less than upon the justice, of the American go- 

 vernment. The instruction to accept a peace upon the basis of the 

 state before the war, was equally well considered. There was no 

 time at Ghent when the British plenipotentiaries would have ac- 

 cepted it. The British government, at that time, had evidently 

 taken a bias, from which nothing could divert them, and which was 

 to appear to the world as if they had gained something by the war. 

 The state before the war, upon all the points of difference, was ac- 

 tually offered to them, and they rejected it. After commencing 

 the negotiation with the loftiest pretensions of conquest, they finally 

 settled down into the determination merely to keep Moose Island, 

 and the fisheries, to themselves. This was the object of their 

 deepest solicitude. Their efforts to obtain our acquiescence in 

 their pretension that the fishing hberties had been iorieited by the 

 war, were unwearied. They presented it to us in every iorm that 

 ino-enuity couid devise. It was the first stumbling block, and the 

 last obstacle to the conclusion of the treaty. Their pretension was 

 announced as a preliminary, at the beginning of the first conference 

 and their article proposing a future negotiation to treat for Revival 

 of the liberty, was the last point from which they receded. But 

 the wisdom and the importance of the instruction to the American 

 mission, to agree to a peace on the basis of the state before the 

 war was this : it enabled them to avoid a rupture of the negotia- 

 tion'upon points of mmor importance, and upon which the spirit ot 

 the country might not have been prepared to support the govern- 

 ment If upon any of the articles of the project in discussion, the 

 parties bad come to an absolute splitting point, as "PO" many arti- 

 cles they actually did, the American mission always had the general 

 Tate before the Lr, to ofi^er as an alternative, which would save 

 hem and the country from the danger of breaking ofl the negotia- 

 tion upon any particular article, or any po nt of less than uni.^rsal 

 ntere^t With an enemy whose policy might 6e really to continue 

 he war but to throw the blame of it upon us, there was a hazard 

 n adhering inflexibly to any o«e point of difference. By the pow 

 pr of offering the general state before the war, if the negotiation 

 f.Kp broken off it would not be in the power of the enemy 

 Tpu us in tfe w^ongfor the rupture ; and w^th that general prin- 

 ciple ahvays in reserve, we were enabled to insist more persever- 

 •'^Iriv'nnnn every particular article in discussion. 

 ^l^he^edlrTa arLle^^ Argus charges ''^/le Secr.^ary'' with 

 1 he eai^or d. d . ^ duplicate letters,) the discus- 



:rotS't ok pi e'tfo" "and efter^he reception of .he add. 

 sionswmcni p j^j^ „ it says, more discriminating 



l;:ad1 thTCn's'i'e editorof the Louievine Pnblic Advertiser.] 



h?)vpbeen deceived 



