hitherto conducted should be made known by us to His Majesty's

FOREIGN OFFICE, August 14, 1814.

Your dispatch with its Inclosures of the 9th from Ghent has been received and laid before the Prince Regent.

It appears from the communications you have had with the American Commissioners that upon two out of the four points referred to in your Instructions, namely, upon the second and fourth, the American Negotiators have received no Instructions from their Government, and that they have on their part suggested three additional topicks for discussion.

Upon the point of the Fisheries it does not clearly appear whether in the absence of Instructions they consider themselves authorized, supposing all other questions arranged, to sign a Treaty of peace upon the distinct understanding that the right of fishing and drying within the British jurisdiction does not thereby as of right revive. Their mode of receiving your remarks on this head seems to countenance such an interpretation of their meaning, but you will feel the importance of not leaving this matter in doubt.

Upon the question of the Indians there is also room for farther Explanation. You will observe that this subject in your Instructions divides itself into two Propositions; 1st. The Indians being included in the peace: 2ndly. Such arrangement of limits, as whilst it secures to the Indians the benefits of the peace, may tend the better to preserve hereafter the relations of amity between

'Foreign Office, America, Vol. 101.

the British and American Governments. On both of these points it would seem that. the American Commissioners are equally unauthorized to conclude, and although the second point might possibly not have been foreseen, yet it appears unaccountable, upon the first, that the American Government should have left their negotiators without Instructions, inasmuch as they could have had no reason to suppose that the British Government would, for a moment listen to a separate peace to the exclusion of the Indians, who have acted with them as allies during the war.

But upon the practicability of prosecuting the negotiation with any utility in the present imperfect state of the instructions of which the American Negotiators avow themselves to be in possession, the whole seems to turn upon the point you have so properly suggested; viz: whether the Commissioners will or will not take upon themselves to sign a provisional agreement upon the points on which they have no instruction. If they decline this, the British Government sees no advantage in prosecuting the discussions further, until the American Negotiators shall have rereceived instructions upon these points. If on the contrary upon a candid explanation of the principles upon which Great Britain is prepared to treat on these subjects, they are willing upon their own responsibility to sign a provisional agreement, the negotiation may proceed, and the Treaty when concluded may be sent with the British Ratification to America, to be at once exchanged, if the American Government shall think fit to confirm the act of their Commissioners. The British Government cannot better evince their cordial desire for peace than by placing the negotiation upon this issue.

You will with this view again call the attention of the America Commissioners to the Indian Question, and as connected with it, to the Question of Boundary.

I am desirous of particularly directing your attention to these points as the others suggested on either side for deliberation, if you have rightly interpreted the meaning of the American Commissioners as to the fisheries do not appear necessarily calculated to create an insurmountable obstacle to the immediate restoration of peace. In illustration of this you may remark that upon the first of the British points, we are not disposed to insist upon any express stipulations and are willing to leave the Questions therein involved to rest as heretofore upon the principles of general Law.

We see as little necessity for any stipulation upon the first of the American points whatever difference may have existed upon the retaliatory measures to which the British Government was obliged to have recourse in the late War against France. We are not aware of any difference that exists upon the ordinary law of Blockade or any other Branch of Belligerent or Neutral rights. If the American Commissioners shall bring forward any thing specific on this or any other subject it will be the duty of the British Government to consider it, but there seems no adequate motive on either side for encouraging abstract discussions of this nature, which if gone into at all must be gone into generally and not partially, with a view of arriving at express stipulations upon the Points of Sovereignty and Impressment as well as on the points of Blockade &c.

With respect to the second of the American points, you cannot be too peremptory in discouraging, at the outset, the smallest Expectation of any Restitution of Captures made under the Orders in Council. There may be claims on both sides of an ordinary description involving no principles to which His Majesty's Government would have to object and upon which mutual satisfaction might be given; but as these causes are probably of a very limited Extent, and of nearly equal amount on each side, it seems better not to entangle the Question of Peace with their discussion.

And with respect to the third Point although the British Government will be prepared to enter into it with every desire to come to an Understanding they do not conceive that the War ought to be protracted on this ground alone.

The Main Question then seems to be upon what general principles is the British Government ready to terminate the contest as far as relates to Boundaries and the Indians. I state upon what general principles, for until the American Commissioners are prepared to agree to certain fixed Principles as the Basis of a Provisional Article, the discussion of details can be productive of no possible advantage. Upon the Point of Frontier You may state that the views of the British Government are strictly defensive. They consider the course of the Lakes from Lake Ontario to Lake Superior both inclusive to be the natural military Frontier of the British Possessions in North America; as the weaker Power on the North American Continent, the least capable of acting offen

sively and the most exposed to sudden Invasion, Great Britain considers itself entitled to claim the use of those Lakes as a military Barrier. It is quite obvious that a Boundary Line equally dividing these Waters with a right in each state to arm both upon the Lakes and upon their Shores must be calculated hereafter to create a perpetual contest for naval ascendancy in Peace as well as in War, a species of Conflict which is likely to be productive of an Extent of Expense and Jealousy equally to be deprecated by both Governments. It becomes therefore, necessary, for the sake of Peace to decide to which Power these Waters shall in a military sense exclusively belong, and for the reason above stated, Great Britain considers that she is entitled to lay claim to them.

To give practical operation to this principle, it seems necessary that the Power to whom the Lakes belong shall have the military command of both Shores, to effect which a scope of Territory with a suitable Frontier is important. The British Government is prepared to assign for deliberation a Boundary in execution of this object, but as this would necessarily extend their possessions to the Southward of the Lakes and as Territory as such is by no means the object they have in view they will be disposed to leave the Sovereignty of the Soil undisturbed and as incident to it the free commercial navigation of the Lakes as at present enjoyed by the United States provided the American Government will stipulate not to preserve or to construct any fortifications upon or within a limited distance of the Shores or maintain or construct any armed vessel upon the Lakes in question or upon the Rivers which empty themselves into the same.

If this can be regulated there will then remain for discussion the arrangement of the North Western Boundary between lake Superior and the Mississippi and on the side of Lower Canada such a line of demarcation as may establish a direct communication between Quebec and Halifax.

The Free Navigation of the Mississippi must also be provided for in the arrangements to be made.

With respect to the Indians you will repeat that their being expressly included in the Peace is considered to be a sine qua non, and that with respect to their Limits the British Government is prepared as the least objectionable arrangement to the United States to take the Treaty of Greenville subject to certain modifi

cations as a Basis for negotiation; and having agreed to the general Boundaries to stipulate mutually with the American Government against any acquisition by purchase on the part of either state.

I trust that this outline will enable you without further delay to ascertain whether the negotiation can now be prosecuted with a prospect of advantage or whether the conferences must not be suspended until the American Negotiators can receive further instructions from their Government. In the latter case you will however declare to them that the British Government upon the resumption of the Conferences will not consider themselves bound by any thing which has hitherto passed, or precluded from regulating its conduct by the then state of the War, the causes which obstruct an immediate adjustment originating exclusively with the negotiators on the part of the United States.

I trust the American Commissioners will continue to do justice to the frank & explicit conduct which your instructions have enabled you to adopt, and to the desire manifested by the British Government to bring forward nothing which can either be deemed derogatory to the honor of the American Government or which can tend unnecessarily to delay the restoration of Peace.

I have &c.

(Signed)

CASTLEREAGH.

P. S. Care must be taken in any Settlement to be made to remove all doubt as to the Islands in Passamaquoddie Bay being considered as falling within the British Boundary there.

EXHIBIT 375.

The Commissioners to Lord Castlereagh.1

No. 3.

GHENT, August 26, 1814.

MY LORD: We have had the honour of receiving Your Lordship's Dispatch No. 3 of the 14th Instant.

As the American Plenipotentiaries had in the preceding conferences declined to express themselves able within the scope of their general discretion to accede to a provisional Article relative

'Foreign Office, America, Vol. 102.