412 APPENDIX 



instructions already in possession of Mr. Rush; or, if the difficulty of agreeing upon 

 the principles should continue as great as it has been hitherto, you may omit them 

 altogether. 



EXTRACT FROM INSTRUCTION, VISCOUNT CASTLEREAGH TO MESSRS. ROB- 

 INSON AND GOULBURN, BRITISH COMMISSIONERS, AUGUST 24, 1818' 



Foreign Office, August 24, 1818 

 The accompanying papers will bring the present state of the fishery question 

 under your view. I refer you to the proceedings at Ghent for those arguments upon 

 which the British plenipotentiaries maintained, as I conceive unanswerably, that 

 the second branch of the Ilird Article of the treaty of 1783 had expired with the war. 

 The negative of this proposition was certainly contended, but very feebly, by the 

 American plenipotentiaries, which is proved almost to the extent of an admission of 

 the principles contended for on the part of this Government by their tendering an 

 article in which the same privileges were, by a fresh stipulation, to be again secured 

 to the subjects of the United States upon an equivalent offered on their part. 



The subsequent correspondence will show the nature of the claim put forward 

 by the American Government soon after the peace. The orders issued to the British 

 officers on the Halifax station to resist any encroachment on the rights of this country, 

 and, finally, the friendly offer of a specified accommodation for the convenience of the 

 American fishery, which Mr. Bagot was authorized to tender to the Government 

 of the United States. You will see by that Minister's correspondence that he suc- 

 cessively tendered the two propositions with which he was charged, to which pro- 

 posals the American Government, desiring to offer a counter-proposition, Mr. Bagot 

 did not conceive himself authorized to negotiate, but only to make a specific offer of 

 accommodation. He therefore declined to receive the American counter-projet, 

 notifying to the admiral on the Halifax station that nothing had occurred in negotia- 

 tion at Washington which should interfere with the execution of the instructions of 

 which he was in possession. 



EXTRACTS FROM REPORT OF MESSRS. GALLATIN AND RUSH TO SECRE- 

 TARY OF STATE ADAMS, OCTOBER 20, 1818 ^ 



We have the honor to transmit a convention which we concluded this day with 

 the British plenipotentiaries. 



Lord Castlereagh having expressed a wish that the negotiations might be opened 

 before his departure for Aix-la-Chapelle, Mr. Gallatin left Paris as soon as he 

 had received our full powers, and arrived here on the i6th of August. Our joint 

 instructions contained in your dispatch of the 28th of July did not, however, reach 

 us till the 3d of September. We had long conversations with Lord Castlereagh at 

 his country seat, on the 22nd and 23d of August, but could not, owing to our instruc- 

 tions not having arrived, discuss with him the question of the fisheries and of 

 the West India intercourse. He left London on the ist of September. The 

 official conferences had begun on the 27th of August, and, for the progress of the nego- 

 tiation, we beg leave to refer to the enclosed copies of the protocol, and documents 

 annexed to it, and of two unofficial notes sent by us to the British plenipoten- 

 tiaries. We will add some observations on the several objects embraced by the 

 convention. 



' Appendix, British Case, p. 85. 



'' Appendix, U. S. Case, p. 306; Appendix, British Case, p. 94- 



