4o6 APPENDIX 



during war; to all engagements by which the parties superadd the sanction of a formal 

 compact to principles dictated by the eternal laws of morality and humanity; and, 

 finally, to all engagements which, according to the expressions of Lord Bathurst's 

 note, are in Ihe nature of perpetual obligation. To the first and second of these classes 

 may be referred the tenth article of the treaty of 1794, and all treaties or articles of 

 treaties stipulating the abolition of the slave trade. The treaty of peace of 1783 

 belongs to the third. 



The reasoning of Lord Bathurst's note seems to confine this perpetuity of obliga- 

 tion to recognitions and acknowledgments of title, and to consider its perpetual nature 

 as resulting from the subject-matter of the contract, and not from the engagement 

 of the contractor. While Great Britain leaves the United States unmolested in the 

 enjoyment of all the advantages, rights, and hberties stipulated in their behalf in 

 the treaty of 1783, it is immaterial to them whether she founds her conduct upon the 

 mere fact that the United States are in possession of such rights, or whether she is 

 governed by good faith and respect for her own engagements. But if she contests 

 any one of them, it is to her engagements only that the United States can appeal as 

 the rule for settling the question of right. If this appeal be rejected, it ceases to be 

 a discussion of right; and this observation applies as strongly to the recognition of 

 independence, and to the boundary line in the treaty of 1783, as to the fisheries. It 

 is truly observed by Lord Bathurst, that in that treaty the independence of the United 

 States was not granted, but acknowledged. He adds, that it might have been acknowl- 

 edged without any treaty, and that the acknowledgment, in whatever mode made, 

 would have been irrevocable. But the independence of the United States was pre- 

 cisely the question upon which a previous war between them and Great Britain had 

 been waged. Other nations might acknowledge their independence without a treaty, 

 because they had no right, or claim of right, to contest it; but this acknowledgment, 

 to be binding upon Great Britain, could have been made only by treaty, because it 

 included the dissolution of one social compact between the parties, as well as the 

 formation of another. Peace could exist between the two nations only by the mutual 

 pledge of faith to the new social relations established between them; and hence it 

 was that the stipulations of that treaty were in the nature of perpetual obligation, 

 and not liable to be forfeited by a subsequent war, or by any declaration of the will 

 of either party without the assent of the other. 



In this view, it certainly was supposed by the undersigned that Great Britain 

 considered her obligation to hold and treat with the United States as a Sovereign 

 and independent Power as derived only from the preliminary articles of 1782, as 

 converted into the definitive treaty of 1783. The boundary line could obviously 

 rest upon no other foundation. The boundaries were neither recognitions nor acknowl- 

 edgments of title. They could have been fixed and settled only by treaty, and it is 

 to the treaty alone that both parties have always referred in all discussions concern- 

 ing them. Lord Bathurst's note denies that there is in any one of the articles of the 

 treaty of Ghent any express or implied reference to the treaty of 1783, as still in force. 

 It says that, by the stipulation for a mutual restoration of territory, each party neces- 

 sarily "reverted to their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the title 

 by which their possessions were acquired, or to the mode in which their boundaries 

 had been previously fixed." 



There are four several articles of the treaty of Ghent, in every one of which the 

 treaty of 1 783 is not only named, but its stipulations form the basis of the new engage- 

 ments between the parties for carrying its provisions into execution. These articles 



