and liberties previously existing and enjoyed, it was neither a privilege gratuitously granted, nor liable to be forfeited by the mere existence of a subsequent war. If it was not forfeited by the war, neither could it be impaired by the declaration of Great Britain, that she did not intend to renew the grant. Where there had been no gratuitous concession, there could be none to renew; the rights and liberties of the United States could not be cancelled by the declaration of Great Britain's intentions. Nothing could abrogate them but the renunciation of them by the United States themselves.

Among the articles of that same treaty of 1783, there is one stipulating that the subjects and citizens of both nations shall enjoy, for ever, the right of navigating the River Mississippi, from its sources to the ocean. And although, at the period of the negotiations of Ghent, Great Britain possessed no territory upon that river, yet the British plenipotentiaries, in their first note, considered Great Britain as still entitled to claim the free navigation of it, without offering for it any equivalent. And, afterwards, when offering a boundary line, which would have abandoned every pretension even to any future possession on that river, they still claimed, not only its free navigation, but a right of access to it, from the British dominions in North America, through the territories of the United States. The American plenipotentiaries, to foreclose the danger of any subsequent misunderstanding and discussion upon either of these points, proposed an article recognising anew the liberties on both sides. In declining to accept it, the British plenipotentiaries proposed an article engaging to negotiate, in future, for the renewal of both, for equivalents to be mutually granted. This was refused by the American plenipotentiaries, on the avowed principle that its acceptance would imply the admision on the part of the United States that their liberties in the fisheries, recognised by the treaty of 1783, had been annulled, which they declared themselves in no manner authorised to concede.

Let it be supposed, my Lord, that the notice given by the British plenipotentiaries, in relation to the fisheries, had been in reference to another article of the same treaty: that Great Britain had declared she did not intend to grant again, gratuitously, the grant in a former treaty of peace, acknowledging the United States as free, sovereign, and independent States; or, that she did not intend to grant, gratuitously, the same boundary line which she had granted in the former treaty of peace: is it not obvious that the answer would have been that the United States needed no new acknowledgment of their independence, nor any new grant of a boundary line?-that, if their independence was to be forfeited, or their boundary line curtailed, it could only be by their own acts of renunciation, or of cession, and not by the declaration of the intentions of another Government? And, if this reasoning be just, with regard to the other articles of the treaty of 1783, upon what principle can Great Britain select one article, or a part of one article, and say, this particular stipulation is liable to forfeiture by war, or by the declaration of her will, while she admits the rest of the treaty to be permanent and irrevocable? In the negotiation of Ghent, Great Britain did propose several variations of the boundary line, but she never intimated that she considered the line of the treaty of 1783 as forfeited by the war, or that its variation could be effected by the mere declaration of her intentions. She perfectly understood that no alteration of

that line could be effected but by the express assent of the United States; and, when she finally determined to abide by the same line, neither the British nor the American plenipotentiaries conceived that any new confirmation of it was necessary. The treaty of Ghent, in every one of its essential articles, refers to that of 1783 as being still in full force. The object all its articles relative to the boundary, is to ascertain with more precision, and to carry into effect, the provisions of that prior compact. The treaty of 1783 is, by a tacit understanding between the parties, and without any positive stipulation, constantly referred to as the fundamental law of the relations. between the two nations. Upon what ground, then, can Great Britain assume that one particular stipulation in that treaty is no longer binding upon her?

Upon this foundation, my Lord, the Government of the United States consider the people thereof as fully entitled, of right, to all the liberties in the North American fisheries which have always belonged to them; which, in the treaty of 1783, were, by Great Britain, recognised as belonging to them; and which they never have, by any act of theirs, consented to renounce. With these views, should Great Britain ultimately determine to deprive them of the enjoyment of these liberties by force, it is not for me to say whether, or for what length of time, they would submit to the bereavement of that which they would still hold to be their unquestionable right. It is my duty to hope that such measures will not be deemed necessary to be resorted to on the part of Great Britain; and to state that, if they should, they cannot impair the right of the people of the United States to the liberties in question, so long as no formal and express assent of theirs shall manifest their acquiescence in the privation.

In the interview with which your Lordship recently favoured me, I suggested several other considerations, with the hope of convincing your Lordship that, independent of the question of rigorous right, it would conduce to the substantial interests of Great Britain herself, as well as to the observance of those principles of benevolence and humanity which it is the highest glory of a great and powerful

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nation to respect, to leave to the American fishermen the participation of those benefits which the bounty of nature has thus spread before them; which are so necessary to their comfort and subsistence; which they have constantly enjoyed hitherto; and which, far from operating as an injury to Great Britain, had the ultimate result of pouring into her lap a great portion of the profits of their hardy and laborious industry; that these fisheries afforded the means of subsistence to a numerous class of people in the United States, whose habit of life had been fashioned to no other occupation, and whose fortunes had allotted them no other possession; that to another, and, perhaps, equally numerous class of our citizens, they afforded the means of remittance and payment for the productions of British industry and ingenuity, imported from the manufactures of this United Kingdom; that, by the common and received usages among civilised nations, fishermen were among those classes of human society whose occupations, contributing to the general benefit and welfare of the species, were entitled to a more than ordinary share of protection; that it was usual to spare and exempt them even from the most exasperated conflicts of national hostility; that this nation had, for ages, permitted the fishermen of another country to frequent

and fish upon the coasts of this island, without interrupting them, even in times of ordinary war; that the resort of American fishermen to the barren, uninhabited, and for the great part, uninhabitable rocks on the coasts of Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Labrador, to use them occasionally for the only purposes of utility of which they are susceptible, if it must, in its nature, subject British fishermen on the same coasts to the partial inconvenience of a fair competition, yet produces, in its result, advantages to other British interests equally entitled to the regard and fostering care of their Sovereign. By attributing to motives derived from such sources as these the recognition of these liberties by His Majesty's Government in the treaty of 1783, it would be traced to an origin certainly more conformable to the fact, and surely more honourable to Great Britain, than by ascribing it to the improvident grant of an unrequited privilege, or to a concession extorted from the humiliating compliance of necessity.

In repeating, with earnestness, all these suggestions, it is with the hope that from some, or all of them, His Majesty's Government will conclude the justice and expediency of leaving the North American fisheries in the state in which they have heretofore constantly existed, and the fishermen of the United States unmolested in the enjoyment of their liberties.

No. 19.-1815, October 30: Letter from Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adams. FOREIGN OFFICE, October 30, 1815.

The undersigned, one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of State, had the honour of receiving the letter of the Minister of the United States, dated the 25th ultimo, containing the grounds upon which the United States conceive themselves, at the present time. entitled to prosecute their fisheries within the limits of the British sovereignty, and to use British territories for purposes connected with the fisheries.

A pretension of this kind was certainly intimated on a former occasion, but in a manner so obscure that His Majesty's Government were not enabled even to conjecture the grounds upon which it could be supported.

His Majesty's Government have not failed to give to the argument contained in the letter of the 25th ultimo a candid and deliberate consideration; and, although they are compelled to resist the claim of the United States, when thus brought forward as a question of right, they feel every disposition to afford to the citizens of those States all the liberties and privileges connected with the fisheries which can consist with the just rights and interests of Great Britain, and secure His Majesty's subjects from those undue molestations in their fisheries which they have formerly experienced from citizens of the United States. The Minister of the United States appears, by his letter, to be well aware that Great Britain has always considered the liberty formerly enjoyed by the United States of fishing within British limits, and using British territory, as derived from the third article of the treaty of 1783. and from that alone; and that the claim

of an independent State to occupy and use at its discretion any portion of the territory of another, without compensation or corresponding indulgence, cannot rest on any other foundation than conventional stipulation. It is unnecessary to enquire into the motives which might have originally influenced Great Britain in conceding such liberties to the United States, or whether other articles of the treaty wherein these liberties are specified did, or did not, in fact, afford an equivalent for them, because all the stipulations profess to be founded on reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience. If the United States derived from that treaty privileges from which other independent nations not admitted by treaty were excluded, the duration of the privileges must depend on the duration of the instrument by which they were granted; and if the war abrogated the treaty, it determined the privileges. It has been urged, indeed, on the part of the United States, that the treaty of 1783 was of a peculiar character, and that, because it contained a recognition of American independence, it could not be abrogated by a subsequent war between the parties. To a position of this novel nature Great Britain cannot accede. She knows of no exception to the rule, that all treaties are put an end to by a subsequent war between the same parties: she cannot, therefore, consent to give to her diplomatic relations with one State a different degree of permanency from that on which her connection with all other States depends. Nor can she consider any one State at liberty to assign to a treaty made with her such a peculiarity of character as shall make it, as to duration, an exception to all other treaties, in order to found, on a peculiarity thus assumed, an irrevocable title to all indulgences, which have all the features of temporary concessions.

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The treaty of Ghent has been brought forward by the American Minister as supporting, by its reference to the boundary line of the United States, as fixed by the treaty of 1783, the opinion that the treaty of 1783 was not abrogated by the war. The undersigned, however, cannot observe in any one of its articles any express or implied reference to the treaty of 1783 as still in force. It will not be denied that the main object of the treaty of Ghent was the mutual restoration of all territory taken by either party from the other during the war. As a necessary consequence of such a stipulation, each party reverted to their boundaries as before the war, without reference to the title by which these possessions were acquired, or to the mode in which their boundaries had been previously fixed. In point of fact, the United States had before acquired possession of territories asserted to depend on other titles than those which Great Britain could confer. The treaty of Ghent, indeed, adverted, as a fact of possession, to certain boundaries of the United States which were specified in the treaty of 1783; but surely it will not be contended that therefore the treaty of 1783 was not considered at an end. It is justly stated by the American Minister that the United States did not need a new grant of the boundary line. The war did not arise out of a contested boundary; and Great Britain, therefore, by the act of treating with the United States, recognised that nation in its former dimensions, excepting so far as the jus belli had interfered with them; and it was the object of the treaty of Ghent to cede such rights to territory as the jus belli had conferred.

Still less does the free navigation of the Mississippi, as demanded by the British negotiators at Ghent, in any manner express or imply the non-abrogation of the treaty of 1783 by the subsequent war. It was brought forward by them as one of many advantages which they were desirous of securing to Great Britain; and if in the first instance demanded without equivalent, it left it open to the negotiators of the United States to claim for their Government, in the course of their conferences, a corresponding benefit. The American Minister will recollect that propositions of this nature were at one time under discussion, and that they were only abandoned at the time that Great Britain relinquished her demand to the navigation of the Mississippi. If, then, the demand on the part of Great Britain can be supposed to have given any weight to the present argument of the United States, the abandonment of that demand must have effectually removed it.

It is by no means unusual for treaties containing recognitions and acknowledgments of title, in the nature of perpetual obligation, to contain, likewise, grants of privileges liable to revocation. The treaty of 1783, like many others, contained provisions of different characters some in their own nature irrevocable, and others of a temporary nature. If it be thence inferred that, because some advantages specified in that treaty would not be put an end to by the war, therefore all the other advantages were intended to be equally permanent, it must first be shown that the advantages themselves are of the same, or at least of a similar character; for the character of one advantage recognised or conceded by treaty can have no connection with the character of another, though conceded by the same instrument, unless it arises out of a strict and necessary connection between the advantages themselves. But what necessary connection can there be between a right to independence and a liberty to fish within British jurisdiction, or to use British territory? Liberties within British. limits are as capable of being exercised by a dependent, as by an independent State, and cannot, therefore, be the necessary consequence of independence.

The independence of a State is that which cannot be correctly said to be granted by a treaty, but to be acknowledged by one. In the treaty of 1783, the independence of the United States was certainly acknowledged, not merely by the consent to make the treaty, but by the previous consent to enter into the provisional articles executed in November, 1782. The independence might have been acknowledged, without either the treaty or the provisional articles; but, by whatever mode acknowledged, the acknowledgment is, in its own nature, irrevocable. A power of revoking, or even of modifying it, would be destructive of the thing itself; and, therefore, all such power is necessarily renounced when the acknowledgment is made. The war could not put an end to it, for the reason justly assigned by the American Minister, because a nation could not forfeit its sovereignty by the act of exercising it; and for the further 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