232 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 
us masters of the situation, and enabled us to dictate 
terms to Great Britain. 
Remember that the Treaty of Ghent was signed on 
the 24th of December, 1814, and that the disastrous 
defeat of the British forces attacking New Orleans oc- 
curred a fortnight afterward, on the 8th of January, 
1815. This event, if the negotiation at Ghent had 
remained open, could not but have strengthened the 
American Government; and, two months later, all 
the difficulties in its path would have been removed 
by the landing of Napoleon at Golf Jouar [March 1, 
1815] and the renewal of the war in Europe. 
But the pretension of Great Britain, that the war 
had abrogated any part of the Treaty of Indepen- 
dence, was evidently untenable; and the justice of 
the cause of the United States was so manifest that, 
after three or four years of discussion, the British 
Government agreed to the express recognition of our 
fishery rights as follows [Treaty of October 20,1818]: 
“Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty 
claimed by ,the United States, for the inhabitants thereof, to. 
take, dry, and cure fish on certain coasts, bays, harbors, and 
crecks of His Britannic Majesty’s dominions in America, it is 
agreed between the high contracting parties that the inhabit- 
ants of the said United States shall have, forever, in common 
with the subjects of His Britannic Majesty, the liberty to take 
fish of every kind on that part of the southern coast of New- 
foundland which extends from Cape Ray to the Rameau Isl- 
ands, on the western and-northern coast of Newfoundland 
from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon Islands, on the shores 
of the Magdalen Islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, 
and creeks from Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labra- 
dor, to and through the Straits of Belleisle, and thence north- 
