CORRESPONDENCE 397 



objects of some importance to the relations between the two countries, my first object 

 in asking to see him had been to inquire whether he had received from Mr. Baker a 

 communication of the correspondence between you and him relative to the surrender 

 of Michihmackinac; to the proceedings of Colonel Nichols in the southern part of 

 the United States; and to the warning given by the captain of the British armed 

 vessel Jaseur to certain American fishing vessels to withdraw from the fishing grounds 

 to the distance of sixty miles from the coast. He answered, that he had received 

 all these papers from Mr. Baker about four days ago; that an answer with regard 

 to the warning of the fishing vessels had immediately been sent; but, on the other 

 subjects, there had not been time to examine the papers and prepare the answers. 

 I asked him if he could, without inconvenience, state the substance of the answer 

 that had been sent. He said, certainly: it had been that as, on the one hand. Great 

 Britain could not permit the vessels of the United States to fish within the creeks and 

 close upon the shores of the British territories, so, on the other hand, it was by no 

 means her intention to interrupt them in fishing anywhere in the open sea, or 

 without the territorial jurisdiction, a marine league from the shore; and, therefore, 

 that the warning given at the place stated, in the case referred to, was altogether 

 imauthorized. I replied that the particular act of the British commander in this 

 instance being disavowed, I trusted that the British Government, before adopting 

 any final determination upon the subject, would estimate, incandor, and in that 

 spirit of amity which my own Government was anxiously desirous of maintaining in 

 our relations with this country, the considerations which I was instructed to present 

 in support of the right of the people of the United States to fish on the whole coast 

 of North America, which they have uniformly enjoyed from the first settlement of 

 the country; that it was my intention to address, in the course of a few days, a letter 

 to him on the subject. He said that they would give due attention to the letter that 

 I should send him, but that Great Britain had exphcitly manifested her intention 

 concerning it; that this subject, as I doubtless knew, had excited a great deal of feel- 

 ing in this country, perhaps much more than its importance deserved; but their own 

 fishermen considered it as an excessive hardship to be supplanted by American fisher- 

 men, even upon the very shores of the British dominions. I said that those whose 

 sensibilities had been thus excited had probably not considered the question of right 

 in the point of view in which it had been regarded by us; that they were the sensi- 

 bilities of a partial and individual interest, stimulated by the passions of competition, 

 and considering the right of the Americans as if it had been a privilege granted to 

 them by the British Government. If this interest was to have weight in determining 

 the pohcy of the Cabinet, there was another interest liable to be affected in the opposite 

 manner, which would be entitled equally to consideration — the manufacturing 

 interest. The question of right had not been discussed at the negotiation of Ghent. 

 The British plenipotentiaries had given a notice that the British Government did 

 not intend hereafter to grant to the people of the United States the right to fish, and 

 to cure and dry fish within the exclusive British jurisdiction in America, without an 

 equivalent, as it had been granted by the treaty of peace in 1783. The American 

 plenipotentiaries had given notice, in return, that the American Government con- 

 sidered all the rights and liberties in and to the fisheries on the whole coast of North 

 America as sufficiently secured by the possession of them, which had always been 

 enjoyed previous to the revolution, and by the recognition of them in the treaty of 

 peace in 1783; that they did not think any new stipulation necessary for a further 

 confirmation of the right, no part of which did they consider as having been forfeited 



