III. Fishing Liberties-their Value.

Of all the errors in Mr. Russell's letter of 11th February, 1815, to the Secretary of State, there is none more extraordinary in its character, or more pernicious in its tendency, than the disparaging estimate which he holds forth of the value of the liberties in the fisheries, secured by the treaty of 1783, and, as he would maintain, extinguished, by the war of 1812. Not satisfied with maintaining in the face of his own signatures at Ghent, the doctrine that all right to them had been irredeemably extinguished by the war; not contented with the devotion of all his learning and all his ingenuity, to take from his country the last and only support of right upon which this great interest had, by himself and his colleagues, been left at the conclusion of the peace to depend; not ashamed of urging the total abandonment of a claim, at that very time in litigation, and of which he was himself one of the official defenders, he has exhausted his powers, active and meditative, in the effort to depreciate the value of those possessions, which, while committed to his charge, he was so surprisingly intent upon relinquishing forever.

His first attempt in this patriotic career, is to represent this interest as a merely sectional and very trifling concern, brought in conflict at Ghent with another but a much greater and deeper interest of a different section of the Union.

His next endeavour is to represent it as an exclusive interest of a few individuals, the mere accommodation of a few fishermen, annually decreasing in number.

And, finally, he degrades the value of the object itself, by affirming that the fogs in the high northern latitudes prevented the effectual ́ curing of the fish, and that this liberty was totally unnecessary to us for subsistence or occupation, and afforded in no way, (in the duplicate he says in no honest way,) any commercial facility or political advantage.

It is scarcely possible to render a greater disservice to the people of this Union, than in their controversies with foreign powers, to array the interests of one section of the Union against those of another. On no occasion can this be so dangerous as when the power, with whom the negotiation is held, has the purpose of wresting from us the enjoyment of such a possession, the immediate interest of which is confined to one section; and I confidently affirm, that never since the existence of the United States as an independent nation, has there been an emergency upon which there was less reason for flinging into the discussion this torch of dissension, than at the negotiation of Ghent. The aim of the enemy was at the fisheries. His object was to deprive us of them. The American plenipotentiaries were instructed not to surrender them. What more could the enemy desire, than to excite within the American mission itself, a sectional interest adverse to that of the fisheries? He did so; and so far as Mr. Russell dared to indulge his disposition, most

successfully. Had Mr. Russell been in the mission of Great Britain instead of that of the United States, he could not have performed a more zealous and acceptable service, than by maintaining the doctrines of his letter of 11th February, 1815. As to the object at issue, it was their argument that he urged. As to the spirit he excited, it was their interest he was promoting. Excellent indeed would have been the account to which they would have turned their right of navigating the Mississippi, if, at the very moment while they disclaimed it, they could have obtained for its renunciation, that of these United States to their fishing liberties. Besides the immense disproportion of what they would have gained by the exchange, they would have planted in the heart of the Union, a root of bitterness which never could have been plucked up but with its blood. Had the fisheries been surrendered-when the people of New-England came to inquire where were their liberties in them, and how they had been lost? what would their feelings have been to be told they were lost, that we might gain the right of forbidding British subjects from descending the Mississippi river in boats? With what human endurance would they have heard it said, We have lost nothing, upon the whole. You, indeed, have lost your fisheries-but we have acquired the right of interdicting all Englishmen from travelling a highway in the Western Country.It was not in the power of man to devise an expedient better suited to detach the affections of the people of New-England from the Union, or to fill their bosoms with heart-burning and jealousy against the people of the West.

I have already shown that the importance which Mr. Russell strains to the utmost all his faculties to give to this British right of navigating the Mississippi, is all founded upon a mis-statement of what it was. He begins by saying that it would be absurd to suppose that the article meant no more than what it expressly purported to mean; and then he infers that it would have been understood to mean the same thing as the third article of the treaty of 1794 ; and as the free access, both of intercourse and of trade with the Indians within our territories, which that had given to the British, had caused inconveniences to us, which had been mentioned in the instructions of 15th April, 1813, he infers that all the same evils would have flowed from the continuance of their right to navigate the Mississippi. No such inference could have been drawn from the article. The article was precisely what it purported to be, and no more; and if, under colour of it, British subjects had ever attempted to give it a greater extension, it would always have been entirely in the power of the American government to control them.

It is the first common-place of false and sophistical reasoning, to mis-state the question in discussion; and Mr. Russell, after making this, without reason or necessity, a question of one sectional interest against another, changes the nature of the question itself, for the double purpose of magnifying the Western, and of diminish

ing the Eastern interest, which he has brought in conflict with each other.

I have shown that the proposal actually made to the British plenipotentiaries, was, by the admission of Mr. Russell himself, so worthless, that it was nothing that they could accept; as in fact it was not accepted by them. Let us now see what was the value of this fishery; this "doubtful accommodation of a few fishermen, annually decreasing in number."

From the tables in Dr. Seybert's Statistical Annals, it will be seen that in the year 1807, there were upwards of seventy thousand tons of shipping employed in the cod fishery alone; and that in that and the four preceding years, the exports from the United States of the proceeds of the fisheries, averaged three millions of dollars a year. There was indeed a great diminution during the years subsequent to 1807, till the close of the war-certainly not voluntary, but occasioned by the state of our maritime relations with Europe, by our own restrictive system, and finally by the war. But no sooner was that terminated, than the fisheries revived, and in the year 1816, the year after Mr. Russell's letter was written, there were again upwards of sixty-eight thousand tons, employed in the cod fishery alone. From Dr. Seybert's statements, it appears further, that in this occupation the average of seamen employed is of about one man to every seven tons of shipping, so that these vessels were navigated by ten thousand, of the hardiest, most skilful, soberest, and best mariners in the world.— "Every person (says Dr. Seybert,) on board our fishing vessels, "has an interest in common with his associates; their reward depends upon their industry and enterprise. Much caution is ob"served in the selection of the crews of our fishing vessels: it often happens that every individual is connected by blood, and the "strongest ties of friendship. Our fishermen are remarkable for "their sobriety and good conduct, and they rank with the most skilful navigators."

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Of these ten thousand men, and of their wives and children, the cod fisheries, if I may be allowed the expression, were the daily bread-their property-their subsistence. To how many thousands more were the labours and the dangers of their lives subservient? Their game was not only food and raiment to themselves, but to millions of other human beings.

There is something in the very occupation of fishermen, not only beneficent in itself but noble and exalted in the qualities of which it requires the habitual exercise. In common with the cul

tivators of the soil, their labours contribute to the subsistence of mankind, and they have the merit of continual exposure to danger, superadded to that of unceasing toil. Industry, frugality, patience, perseverance, fortitude, intrepidity, souls inured to perpetual conflict with the elements, and bodies steeled with unremitting action, ever grappling with danger, and familiar with death: these are the properties to which the fisherman of the ocean is formed by

the daily labours of his life. These are the properties for which he who knew what was in man, the Saviour of mankind, sought his first, and found his most faithful, ardent, and undaunted disciples among the fishermen of his country. In the deadliest rancours of national wars, the examples of latter agès have been frequent of exempting, by the common consent of the most exasperated enemies, fishermen from the operation of hostilities. In our treaties with Prussia, they are expressly included among the classes of men "whose occupations are for the common subsistence and benefit of mankind;" with a stipulation, that in the event of war between the parties, they shall be allowed to continue their employment without molestation. Nor is their devotion to their country less conspicuous than their usefulness to their kind. While the huntsman of the ocean, far from his native land, from his family, and his fire-side, pursues at the constant hazard of life, his game upon the bosom of the deep, the desire of his heart, is by the nature of his situation ever intently turned towards his home, his children, and his country. To be lost to them gives their keenest edge to his fears; to return with the fruits of his labours to them is the object of all his hopes. By no men upon earth have these qualities and disposi tions been more constantly exemplified than by the fishermen of New-England. From the proceeds of their "perilous and hardy industry," the value of three millions of dollars a year, for five years preceding 1808, was added to the exports of the United States. This was so much of national wealth created by the fishery. With what branch of the whole body of our commerce was this interest unconnected? Into what artery or vein of our political body did it not circulate wholesome blood? To what sinew of our national arm did it not impart firmness and energy? We are told they were "annually decreasing in number:" Yes! they had Jost their occupation by the war; and where were they during the war? They were upon the ocean and upon the lakes, fighting the battles of their country. Turn back to the records of your revolution-ask Samuel Tucker, himself one of the number; a living example of the character common to them all, what were the fishermen of New-England, in the tug of war for Independence? Appeal to the heroes of all our naval wars-ask the vanquishers of Algiers and Tripoli-ask the redeemers of your citizens from the chains of servitude, and of your nation from the humiliation of annual tribute to the barbarians of Africa-call on the champions of our last struggles with Britain-ask Hull, and Bainbridge, ask Stewart, Porter, and Macdonough, what proportion of New England, fishermen were the companions of their victories, and sealed the proudest of our triumphs with their blood; and then listen if you' can, to be told, that the unoffending citizens of the West were not at all benefited by the fishing privilege, and that the few fishermen in a remote quarter, were entirely exempt from the danger. But we are told also that " by far the greatest part of the fish taken by our fishermen before the present war, was caught in the

open sea, or upon our own coasts, and cured on our own shores:" This assertion is, like the rest, erroneous.

The shore fishery is carried on in vessels of less than twenty tons burthen, the proportion of which, as appears by Seybert's Statistical Annals, is about one seventh of the whole. With regard to the comparative value of the Bank, and Labrador fisheries, I subjoin hereto, information collected from several persons, acquainted with them, as their statements themselves will show in their minutest details.

At an early period of the negotiation, I had been satisfied, that the British plenipotentiaries would not accept the renewal of the 8th article of the treaty of 1783, (the Mississippi navigation) as an equivalent for the renewal of the third, (the fisheries.) In the correspondence which followed their notification at the first conference, that their government did not intend to grant the former fishing liberties without an equivalent, they had even dropped their claim for an article renewing their right of navigating the Mississippi, until we met their pretension that the fisheries had been forfeited by the war, which we first did in our note of the 10th of November, 1814. The principle upon which I had always relied, was, that the rights and liberties recognised in the 3d article of the treaty of 1783, had not been abrogated by the war, and would remain in full force after the peace, unless we should renounce them expressly by an article in the treaty, or tacitly by acquiescing in the principle asserted by the British plenipotentiaries. There was a period during the negotiations, when it was probable they might be suspended, until the American commissioners could receive new instructions from their government. After the peace was signed I was aware that the question relating to the fisheries, must become a subject of discussion with the British government; and I had been previously informed by the Secretary of State, that if the negotiation should result in the conclusion of peace, it was the President's intention to nominate me for the subsequent mission to Great Britain. I felt it, therefore, to be peculiarly my duty to seek the best information that I could obtain, in relation both to the rights and liberties in the fisheries, as recognised in the treaty of 1783, and to their value. The following are extracts of two letters written by me from Ghent, to one of the negotiators of the treaty of 1783. By attending to the dates it will be seen, that the first of them was written three days before the first proposal by Mr. Gallatin, of the article relating to the Mississippi and the fisheries, and the second, two days after the signature of the peace.

to

Ghent, 27th October, 1814.

"My dear sir: The situation in which I am placed, often brings my mind that in which you were situated in the year 1782, and I will not describe the feelings with which the comparison, or I might rather say, the contrast affects me. I am called to support