against his will, did do. We had, says he, three other ways of proceeding:

"First, to contend for the indestructibility of the Treaty of 1783, thence inferring the continuance of the Fishing privilege, without saying any thing about the navigation of the Mississippi, which would have reserved our right of contesting this navigation, on the grounds I have mentioned, specially applicable to it. Secondly, to have considered the Treaty at an end, and offered a reasonable equivalent, wherever it might be found, for the Fishing privilege. Thirdly, to have made this liberty a sine quâ non of Peace, as embraced by the principle of status ante bellum.'

دو

"To either of these Propositions" (he adds,) " I would have assented. But I could not consent to grant or revive the British right to the navigation of the Mississippi."

He could not consent! He did consent: see his name subscribed to the Letter from the American to the British Plenipotentiaries of 12th December, 1814, accompanying the Message of 25th February last.

It is, indeed, painful to remark here, and throughout this Letter of Mr. Russell, how little solicitude there is discoverable, to preserve even the appearance of any coincidence between his real sentiments and his professions: half his Letter is an argument in form to prove, that the Treaty of 1783 was abrogated by the War; yet, he says he would have assented to contend for its indestructibility, so long as it applied only to the defence of the Fisheries, reserving his special grounds of objection to its being applied to the navigation of the Mississippi. I have shewn, that the indestructibility of the Treaty of 1783 never was asserted by any of the American Commissioners; but, that the principle that it had not been abrogated by the War, and that none of the rights stipulated and recognized in it, as belonging to the People of The United States, could be abrogated, but by their own renunciation, was at first assumed in defence of the Fisheries only, and without saying any thing of the Mississippi. When, therefore, the demand for the navigation of the Mississippi came from the British Plenipotentiaries, Mr. Russell's special objections to the application of our principle, in favour of our demand, might have been urged. But what were these special objections? I have shewn, that they were our own wrong-fraud and extortion upon Spain, to justify perfidy to Great Britain. Mr. Russell never did allege these objections at Ghent, and, if he had, a majority of the American Mission, would, assuredly, have been ashamed to allege them to the British Go

vernment.

The second way of proceeding, to which Mr. Russell says he would have assented, was to consider the Treaty of 1783 at an end, and offer for the Fishing privilege, a reasonable equivalent, wherever it might be

found; and where would he have found it? He will not affirm that we had authority to offer any equivalent whatever; we had been specially instructed not to surrender them. He says he would have surrendered, and purchased them at a reasonable price again.

The third substitute, to which he says he would have assented, is the strangest of all. He says he would have made it a sine quâ non of Peace, as embraced by the principle of status ante bellum.

A sine quâ non for the status ante bellum! And yet he could not consent to grant or revive the British Right to the navigation of the Mississippi, in order to procure or preserve the Fishing liberty; when the status ante bellum would have given them not only the whole Treaty of 1783, but the permanent Articles of the Treaty of 1794; not only the navigation of the Mississippi, but unrestrained access to our Territories and intercourse with our Indians.

I have shown that the most aggravated portion of Mr. Russell's charge against his Colleagues of the majority, that of wilful violation of positive and unequivocal Instructions, by a senseless offer to the British Plenipotentiaries, sacrificing an important Western to a trifling Eastern interest, is not only utterly destitute of foundation, but that it was not even made, nay, more, that it was distinctly contradicted by the Letter really written by Mr. Russell at Paris, on the 11th of February, 1815. Into Mr. Russell's motive for introducing it into the Duplicate of that Letter, delivered by himself at the Department of State, to be communicated to the House as the Letter called for by their Resolution, I shall not attempt to penetrate; having, as I trust, equally shown that the charges implied in the real Letter are as groundless as their aggravations in the Duplicate. The professions of unfeigned respect for the integrity, talents, and judgment, of those Colleagues whose conduct is, in the same Letter, represented as so weak, absurd, and treacherous, I can, for my own part, neither accept nor reciprocate. To have been compelled to speak, as in these Remarks I have done, of a Person distinguished by the favour of his Country, and with whom I had been associated in a Service of high interest to this Union, has been among the most painful incidents of my life. In the defence of myself and my Colleagues, against imputations so groundless in themselves, at first so secretly set forth, and now so wantonly promulgated before the Legislative Assembly of the Nation, it has been impossible entirely to separate the language of self-vindication from that of reproach. With Mr. Russell I can also rejoice, that the Proposal offered on the 1st of December, 1814, was rejected by the British Government, not because I believe it now, more than I did then, liable to any of the dangers and mischiefs so glaring in the vaticinations of Mr. Russell, but because both the interests to which it relates have since been adjusted in a manner still more satisfactory to The United States. I rejoice, too, that this adjustment has taken

place before the publication of Mr. Russell's Letter could have any possible influence in defeating or retarding it. The Convention of 20th October, 1818, is the refutation of all the doctrines of Mr. Russell's Letter, to which there can be no reply. It has adjusted the Fishing interest upon the principle asserted by the American Mission at Ghent, but disclaimed by Mr. Russell. It has given us the Boundary of Latitude 49, from the Lake of the Woods Westward, and it has proved the total indifference of the British Government to the right of navigating the Mississippi, by their abandonment of their last claim to it, without asking an equivalent for its renunciation.

With regard to the magnitude of the Fishing interest which was at stake during the Negotiation at Ghent, I believe the views disclosed in Mr. Russell's Letter as incorrect as the principles upon which he would have surrendered it. The notification of exclusion was from all Fisheries within exclusive British jurisdiction. I have shown that, historically, Great Britain had asserted and maintained exclusive proprietary jurisdiction over the whole. Had we tamely acquiesced in her principle of forfeiture without renunciation, we should soon have found that her principle of exclusion embraced the whole. That a Citizen of Massachusetts, acquainted with his Colonial history, with the share that his Countrymen had had in the conquest of a great part of these Fisheries, with the deep aud anxious interest in them taken by France, by Spain, by Great Britain, for Centuries before the American Revolution; acquainted with the Negotiations of which they had been the knot, and the Wars of which they had been the prize, between the 3 most Maritime Nations of modern Europe; acquainted with the profound sensibility of the whole American Union, during the Revolutionary War, to this interest, and with the inflexible energies by which it had been secured at its close; acquainted with the indissoluble links of attachment between it and the Navigation, the Navy, the Maritime defence, the national spirit and hardy enterprise of this great Republick; that such a Citizen, stimulated to the discharge of duty by a fresh Instruction from his Government, given at the most trying period of the War upon the very first rumour of an intention, on the part of Great Britain, to demand its surrender, not to surrender it, sooner to break off the Negotiation than surrender it; that such a Citizen, with the dying words of Lawrence, "don't give up the Ship," still vibrating on his ear, should describe this interest "as totally unnecessary for us for subsistence or occupation," and affording, "in no honest way, either commercial facility or political advantage," as "the doubtful accommodation of a few Fishermen annually decreasing in number," is as strange and unaccountable to me as that he should deliberately sit down, 2 months after the Treaty was concluded, and write to his Government a cold-blooded dissertation to prove that there was nothing, absolutely nothing, in the principle upon which he and

his Colleagues had rested its future defence, and that he considered the Fishing liberty "to be entirely at an end, without a new Stipulation for its revival."

Such were not the sentiments of the majority of the American Commissioners at Ghent; such were particularly, not the sentiments of the Writer of these remarks. He reflects, with extreme satisfaction, upon that deep and earnest regard for this interest, manifested at that time by the Executive Government of The United States, in the positive and unqualified Instruction of 25th June, 1814, to the Commissioners, on no consideration whatever to surrender the Fisheries. He rejoices that this Instruction was implicitly obeyed; that the Nation issued from the War with all its rights and liberties unimpaired, preserved as well from the artifices of Diplomacy, as from the force of preponderating power upon their element, the Seas; and he trusts that the history of this transaction, in all its details, from the Instruction not to surrender the Fisheries, to the conclusion of the Convention of 20th October, 1818, will give solemn warning to the Statesmen of this Union, in their conflicts with Foreign Powers, through all future time, never to consider any of the liberties of this Nation as abrogated by a War, or capable of being extinguished by any other agency than our own express renunciation.

JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.

CONVENTION between Denmark and Sweden, relative to the Liquidation of the Danish-Norwegian Debt.-Signed at Copenhagen, 8th November 1822. (Translation.)

Au Nom de la Très Sainte et Indivisible Trinité.

SA Majesté le Roi de Dannemarc, et Sa Majesté le Roi de Suède et de Norvège, ayant jugé à propos de convenir d'un Arrangement pour effectuer par anticipation le payement de la quotepart à la Dette de l'ancienne Monarchie Danoise, que d'après les Stipulations de la Convention, conclue à Stockholm le 1 Septembre, 1819, la Norvège aura à fournir; les Hautes Parties Contractantes ont respectivement nommé des Plénipotentiaires pour traiter de cet objet; savoir, Sa Majesté le Roi de Dannemarc, le Sieur Niels Rosenkrantz, etc, et Sa Majesté le Roi de Suède et de Norvège, le Sieur Paul Chrétien Holst; lesquels, après avoir échangé leurs Pleins Pouvoirs respectifs, trouvés en bonne et due forme, se sont ce jourd'hui accordés sur les points suivans:

ART. I. Sa Majesté le Roi de Suède et de Norvège, en sa qualité de Roi de ce dernier Royaume, s'engage avant l'expiration de 6 mois, à compter depuis la date de cette Convention, à faire payer dans la Ville de Copenhague a celui ou ceux, que Sa Majesté le Roi de Danne

marc autorisera pour cet effet, la somme de 1,700,000 Rixdalers de Banque de Hambourg, (ou espèces à 94 pièces par marc fin, poids de Cologne.)

En payant cette somme le Royaume de Norvège est censé avoir acquitté les sommes qu'en vertu de la Convention de Stockholm du 1 Septembre, 1819, le dit Royaume est chargé de fournir au Dannemarc depuis le 1 Janvier, 1823, jusqu'au 1 Juillet 1829, tant à titre de payemens successifs sur le Capital qu'à celui d'intérêts.

II. A la reception de la somme susdite de 1,700,000 Rxds de Banque de Hambourg, Sa Majesté le Roi de Dannemarc s'engage à faire remettre à celui ou ceux, qui pour cet effet se trouveront munis de Pleins Pouvoirs de la part de Sa Majesté le Roi de Suède et de Norvège, aussi bien les 7 obligations, chacune valable pour la somme de 300,000 Ecus de Banque de Hambourg, qui à la suite de la Convention de Stockholm du 1 Septembre, 1819, ont été émises par le Département des Finances du Royaume de Norvège, mais dont les termes de payement ne sont pas encore échûs, après les avoir fait munir de la quittance réquise, que les Coupons représentans les intérêts annuels et appartenans aux dites obligations; bien entendu cependant, qu'aucune de ces obligations ou de ces Coupons ne sera à délivrer avant que, conformément aux termes du I. Article de cette Conention, la susdite somme de 1,700,000 Rixds de Banque de Hambourg, n'ait été payée à Sa Majesté le Roi de Dannemarc; jusqu'à quel terme resteront en pleine vigueur, en autant qu'ils ne sont déjà remplis, les engagemens pris par la Convention de Stockholm du 1 Septembre, 1819, par rapport à la participation du Royaume de Norvège aux Dettes d'Etat du Royaume de Dannemarc.

III. Cette Convention sera ratifiée, et les Ratifications en seront échangées à Copenhague, dans l'espace de 20 Jours, à compter du jour de la signature, ou plutôt si faire se peut.

En foi de quoi, les Soussignés, en vertu de leurs Pleins Pouvoirs respectifs, ont signé la présente Convention, et y ont apposé les empreintes de leurs Cachets.

Fait à Copenhague, le 8 Novembre, 1822.

(L. S.) N. ROSENKRANTZ.

(L.S.) P. C. HOLST.

CONSTITUTION PROVISOIRE de l'Hellénie.-Donné à Epidaure, le 13 Janvier, 1822.

Au nom de la Très Sainte et Indivisible Trinité!

(Traduction.)

LA Nation Hellène s'étant affranchie par de grands sacrifices du joug de l'odieuse tyrannie Ottomane, qu'Elle ne pouvait supporter plus longtems, proclame aujourd'hui, par l'organe de Ses Représentants