yet some time do so.
"Mr. Clay lost his temper," writes Mr. Adams a day or two later, (p. 089)
"as he generally does whenever this right of the British to navigate
the Mississippi is discussed. He was utterly averse to admitting it as
an equivalent for a stipulation securing the contested part of the
fisheries. He said the more he heard of this [the right of fishing],
the more convinced he was that it was of little or no value. He should
be glad to get it if he could, but he was sure the British would not
ultimately grant it. That the navigation of the Mississippi, on the
other hand, was an object of immense importance, and he could see no
sort of reason for granting it as an equivalent for the fisheries."
Thus spoke the representative of the West. The New Englander--the son
of the man whose exertions had been chiefly instrumental in originally
obtaining the grant of the Northeastern fishery privileges--naturally
went to the other extreme. He thought "the British right of navigating
the Mississippi to be as nothing, considered as a grant from us. It
was secured to them by the peace of 1783, they had enjoyed it at the
commencement of the war, it had never been injurious in the slightest
degree to our own people, and it appeared to [him] that the British
claim to it was just and equitable." Further he "believed the right to
this navigation to be a very useless thing to the British.... But
their national pride and honor were interested in it; the (p. 090)
government could not make a peace which would abandon it." The
fisheries, however, Mr. Adams regarded as one of the most inestimable
and inalienable of American rights. It is evident that the United
States could ill have spared either Mr. Adams or Mr. Clay from the
negotiation, and the joinder of the two, however fraught with
discomfort to themselves, well served substantial American interests.

Mr. Adams thought the British perfidious, and suspected them of not
entertaining any honest intention of concluding a peace. On December
12, after an exceedingly quarrelsome conference, he records his belief
that the British have "insidiously kept open" two points, "for the
sake of finally breaking off the negotiations and making all their
other concessions proofs of their extreme moderation, to put upon us
the blame of the rupture."

On December 11 we find Mr. Clay ready "for a war three years longer,"
and anxious "to begin to play at _brag_" with the Englishmen. His