limits of The United States, at the time of the exchange of the Ratifications. Neither would there be any limitation as to the time subsequent to which the carrying away is not to take place. It might be from the commencement of the War, or from the signature of the Treaty, or from the exchange of the Ratifications: whereas, Mr. Monroe contends, that the places where they had been originally captured, the places from whence they must not be carried away, and the period to which this limitation applies, are all ascertained by the 1st Article.

According to the construction of this Article by the American Government, the private property, in contemplation, is limited to such as had been originally captured within the Territories of The United States; and such property, so captured, must not be carried away after the exchange of the Ratifications, nor from any place within the limits of The United States, whether this private property be, at that period, in American Ports, or British Ships of War, or British Vessels.

But if the 1st Article provide for all these stipulations, one of them placing private property on the same footing as that on which, by the same, public property is placed, and the others establishing dissimilar conditions, it is impossible to look at those passages in this 1st Article, which can alone be made to apply to such provisions, and not be at once satisfied that these limitations cannot be extracted without such omissions and interpolations, as the Undersigned is persuaded that it is not the intention of the American Government to maintain. As to the application of this Article to private property, on ship board, neither does the 1st Article itself, nor did any discussion respecting it, express or refer to any such restitution of property remaining in British Ships of War or British Vessels. There are not only no words in the Article, which stipulate such a provision, but there is a provision in the IInd Article, which stipulates the contrary. By the IId, the conditions are stipulated on which Vessels and their effects are to be restored. They are to be restored, if the Vessels be not captured until after a given time from the exchange of the Ratifications. If the Vessels were captured previous to the time limited, neither they, nor their effects, are to be restored, wherever such Vessels with their effects, may be, although they should be within the limits of The United States; yet, according to the Stipulations of the IId Article, which have a direct application to private property, on ship board, if they have been captured within a limited time, they may be carried away at any subsequent period, without reference to the exchange of the Ratifications.

To Mr. Monroe's observation, that destruction, in the Ist Article, cannot apply to Slaves, it might be sufficient to answer, that the expression may certainly apply to other private property, and that the Stipulations which apply to the one must apply to the other; but the observation is, in truth, not material to the question at issue, because the point in dispute is not with reference to private property destroyed,

but to private property carried away, which words, it is admitted, do apply to Slaves and other private property. The question then seems to be this: is that construction the true one which is the most simple, and is grammatically correct, and was that which, it is admitted, one of the Contracting Parties intended, and against which the other did not at the time object; or is that construction to be adopted which was not at the time professed, which the words in the Article do not express, and which is in contravention of the Article which immediately follows it?

In this alternative, the Undersigned has no hesitation in communicating to Mr. Adams, that the British Government is under the necessity of adhering to the construction of the disputed point, in the Ist Article of the Treaty of Ghent, as set forth in this Note, much as it has to regret, that that construction should differ so widely from that of the Government of The United States.

The Undersigned requests Mr. Adams to accept, &c. J. Q. Adams, Esq.

SIR,

No. 10.-Mr. Adams to Mr. Monroe.

BATHURST.

London, 8th November, 1815. SINCE I had the honour of writing you last, of the 31st ultimo, I have received from Lord Bathurst a Note, in answer to my Letter to him relating to the Fisheries, Copy of which is herewith enclosed. I hope shortly to reply to this Note, and perceive nothing in it which can render the rights of The United States, to the participation in the Fisheries, in any manner dubious.

It will be for the Government of The United States to determine, whether the Negotiation proposed by Lord Bathurst will be advisable, and I pray to be honoured with the President's Instructions on the subject, as soon as possible.

I am, &c.

The Hon. James Monroe.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

(Enclosure)-Earl Bathurst to Mr. Adams.

Foreign Office, 30th October, 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 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 fishery, 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 IIId 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 inquire 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. 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 indulgences, which have all the features of temporary concessions.

It

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, recognized 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 shewn that the advantages themselves are of the same, or, at least, of a similar character; for the character of one advantage recognized, 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, but it had been before 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 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 commercial 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 liable to forfeiture by War, and that is irrevocable; but the principle of her reasoning 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