1268 MISCELLANEOUS. 



the exclusive jurisdiction of British provinces, and within three marine 

 miles of the shores. The first article of this convention affords a signal 

 testimonial of the correctness of the principle assumed by the Ameri- 

 can plenipotentiaries at Ghent ; for as by accepting the express renun- 

 ciation by the United States of a small portion of the privilege in ques- 

 tion, and by confirming and enlarging all the remainder of the privilege 

 forever, the British government have implicitly acknowledged that the 

 liberties of the third article of the treaty of 1783 have not been abro- 

 gated by the war." 



It is true, as a general rule, that the obligations of treaties are dis- 

 solved by hostilities. But, says Chancellor Kent, "where treaties con- 

 template a permanent arrangement of national rights , or which, by their 

 terms, are meant to provide for the event of an intervening war, it 

 would be against every principle of just interpretation to hold them 

 extinguished by the event of war. They revive at peace, unless waived, 

 or new and repugnant stipulations be made." The treaty of 1783 is pre- 

 cisely within this rule. It "contemplated a permanent arrangement 

 of national rights." It ' ' revived at the peace ; " for our commissioners 

 at Ghent, instead of "waiving" the former stipulations, or admitting 

 "new and repugnant" ones, declined any discussions whatever on the 

 subject. In their communication to the Secretary of State, of Decem- 

 ber 25, 1814, they say: 



"Our instructions had forbidden us to suffer pur right to the fisheries 

 to be brought in discussion, and had not authorized us to make any dis- 

 tinction in the several provisions of the third article of the treaty of 

 1783, or between that article and any other of the same treaty. 



"We had no equivalent to offer for a new recognition of our right to 

 any part of the fisheries, and we had no power to grant any equivalent 

 wmcn might be asked for it by the British government. We contended 

 that the whole treaty of 1783 must be considered as one entire perma- 

 nent compact, not liable, like ordinary treaties, to be abrogated by a 

 subsequent war between the parties to it; as an instrument recognising 

 the rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of the United States as 

 an independent nation, and containing the terms and conditions on 

 which tne two parties of one empire had mutually agreed henceforth 

 to constitute two distinct and separate nations. In consenting, by 

 that treaty, that a part of the North American continent should remain 

 subject to the British jurisdiction, the people of the United States had 

 reserved to themselves the liberty, which they had ever before 

 enjoyed, of fishing upon that part of the coast, and of drying and cur- 

 ing fish upon the shores; and this reservation had been agreed to by 

 the other contracting party. 



' 'We saw not why this liberty then no new grant, but a mere recog- 

 nition of a prior right always enjoyed should be forfeited by a war 

 more than any other of the rights of our national independence; or 

 why we should need a new stipulation for its enjoyment more than we 

 needed a new article to declare that the King of Great Britain treated 

 with us as free, sovereign, and independent States. We stated this 

 principle in general terms to the British plenipotentiaries in the note 

 which we sent to them with our projet of the treaty, and we alleged it 

 as the ground upon which no new stipulation was deemed by our gov- 

 ernment necessary to secure to the people of the United States all the 

 rights and liberties stipulated in their favor by the treaty of 1783. No 



