mors, very
unfavorable to his reputation, even for integrity, had been
industriously circulated in the Western country. It had been stated
that he had made a proposition at Ghent to grant to the British the
right to navigate the Mississippi, in return for the Newfoundland
fisheries, and that it was in that section represented as a high
misdemeanor. Mr. Adams said, that a proposition to confirm both those
rights as they had stood before the war, and as stipulated by the
treaty of 1783, had been offered to the British commissioners, not by
him, but by the whole American mission, every one of whom had
subscribed to it. The proposition was not made by him, but by Mr.
Gallatin, who knew it would be nothing to the British but a mere naked
right, of which they could not make any use. It was accordingly
promptly rejected by the British commissioners, and made the ground of
a counter proposition of renouncing the right they had, under the
treaty of 1783, of navigating that river, on condition of our
renouncing the old article on the fisheries. Mr. Adams at once declared
that, if it was acceded to, he would never sign the treaty; and it was
promptly rejected by the American commissioners. When he was again told
that he would be accused in the Western States of the proposition to
confirm the British rights as they stood before the war, he replied,
that he had no doubt it would be so; for Mr. Clay had already, in one
of his speeches in Congress, represented that this proposition had been
made by a _majority_ of the Ghent commissioners, he being in the
minority, without acknowledging _that he had himself signed the note by
which the offer was made_, and without disclosing how lightly the
concession was estimated by the British commissioners, and how promptly
they rejected it.

Accordingly, on the 18th of April, 1822, John Floyd, of Virginia, who,
both in that state and in Congress, was active in seeking and scattering
malign imputations concerning the political course of Mr. Adams, called,
in the House of Representatives, for a letter, written by Jonathan
Russell, in 1814, to Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, and, as he
stated, deposited in that office.

This call of Floyd was the springing of the mine for a long-meditated
explosion. On searching the records of state, no such letter could be
found. Mr. Russell immediately volunteered a copy, and deposited it in
that office. This letter was addressed to James Monroe, then Secret