402 APPENDIX 



reason, that Great Britain, when she declared war on her part against the United States, 

 gave them, by that very act, a new recognition of their independence. 



The nature of the liberty to fish within British limits, or to use British territory, 

 is essentially different from the right to independence, in all that may reasonably 

 be supposed to regard its intended duration. The grant of this liberty has all the 

 aspect of a policy temporary and experimental, depending on the use that might be 

 made of it, on the condition of the islands and places where it was to be exercised, 

 and the more general conveniences or inconveniences, in a military, naval, or com- 

 mercial point of view, resulting from the access of an independent nation to such 

 islands and places. 



When, therefore, Great Britain, admitting the independence of the United States, 

 denies their right to the liberties for which they now contend, it is not that she selects 

 from the treaty, articles, or parts of articles, and says, at her own will, this stipulation 

 is Uable to forfeitinre by war, and that it is irrevocable; but the principle of her reason- 

 ing, is that such distinctions arise out of the provisions themselves, and are founded 

 on the very nature of the grants. But the rights acknowledged by the treaty of 1783 

 are not only distinguishable from the liberties conceded by the same treaty, in the 

 foundation upon which they stand, but they are carefully distinguished in the treaty 

 of 1783 itself. The undersigned begs to call the attention of the American Minister 

 to the wording of the first and third articles, to which he has often referred, for the 

 foundation of his arguments.. In the first article. Great Britain acknowledges an 

 independence already expressly recognised by the Powers of Europe and by herself, 

 in her consent to enter into provisional articles of November 1782. In the third 

 article. Great Britain acknowledges the right of the United States to take fish on the 

 banks of Newfoundland and other places, from which Great Britain has no right to 

 exclude an independent nation. But they are to have the liberty to cure and dry 

 them in certain unsettled places within His Majesty's territory. If these liberties, 

 thus granted, were to be as perpetual and indefeasible as the rights previously recog- 

 nised, it is difficult to conceive that the plenipotentiaries of the United States would 

 have admitted a variation of language so adapted to produce a different impression; 

 and, above all, that they should have admitted so strange a restriction of a perpetual 

 and indefeasible right as that with which the article concludes, which leaves a right 

 so practical and so beneficial as this is admitted to be, dependent on the will of British 

 subjects, in their character of inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors of the soil, to 

 prohibit its exercise altogether. 



It is surely obvious that the word right is, throughout the treaty, used as applicable 

 to what the United States were to enjoy, in virtue of a recognised independence; and 

 the word liberty to what they were to enjoy, as concessions strictly dependent on the 

 treaty itself. 



The right of the United States has been asserted upon other arguments, which 

 appear to the undersigned not altogether consistent with those that had been previously 

 advanced. It has been argued by the Minister of the United States that the treaty 

 of 1783 did not confer upon the United States the liberty of fishing within British 

 jurisdiction, and using British territory, but merely recognised a right which they 

 previously had; and it has been thence inferred that the recognition of this right 

 renders it as perpetual as that of their independence. 



If the treaty of 1783 did not confer the liberties in question, the undersigned cannot 

 understand why, in their support, the point should have been so much pressed, that 

 the treaty is in force notwithstanding the subsequent war. If, as stated by the Amen- 



