undaries conceded to the United States: the other was the
right to the fisheries. The people of the Colonies, especially the
people of the New-England Colonies, had as British subjects used all
the British fisheries in what is now known as the Dominion of Canada
and the island of Newfoundland; and in the preliminary treaty to which
George III. gave his assent in 1782, as well as in the final and more
definite treaty of 1783, it was provided that the privilege should
continue to be enjoyed by citizens of the new Republic.(1) No doubt of
the intent and proper construction of this clause in both treaties had
ever been suggested, until the English and American negotiators were
engaged in framing the treaty of peace at Ghent in 1814, at the close
of the second war with Great Britain. The British negotiators claimed
that the war of 1812 had put an end to all existing treaties, and that,
the fishery clause in the treaty of 1782 being no longer in force, our
fishery rights had expired, and if revived at all must be revived under
new stipulations.

The direct purpose of this movement was obvious. By the treaty of
1782 it was declared that "the navigation of the Mississippi River
from its source to the ocean shall forever remain free and open to the
subjects of Great Britain and to the citizens of the United States."
It was at that time assumed that the boundary line between the
territory of British America and the United States, as set forth in the
treaty of peace, would at a certain point cross the Mississippi River,
and that the navigation of that river would thus be secured to the
subjects of his Britannic Majesty. But his was soon ascertained to
be an error, and to that end that the line might be determined with
precision the Jay treaty of 1794 provided for a joint survey. By the
time of the negotiation of the Treaty of Ghent, twenty years later, it
was definitely ascertained that the northern boundary of the United
States ran above the sources of the Mississippi, while the purchase
of Louisiana had given to our Government the control of the mouth of
the river. Hence the privilege of navigating the Mississippi (so
earnestly desired by the British Government) could not be insisted on,
since the river from its source to the sea was wholly within the
territory of the United States. If, therefore, our fishery rights were
void by the abrogation of the fishery clause of the treaty of 1792,
the restoration of those rights c