8950. WAR OF 1812, Conquest and.—
The war, undertaken, on both sides, to settle the questions of impressment, and the Orders
of Council, now that these are done away by
events, is declared by Great Britain to have
changed its object, and to have become a war
of conquest, to be waged until she conquers
from us our fisheries, the province of Maine,
the Lakes, States and territories north of the
Ohio, and the navigation of the Mississippi; in
other words, till she reduces us to unconditional
submission. On our part, then, we ought to
propose, as a counterchange of object, the establishment
of the meridian of the mouth of the
Sorel northwardly, as the western boundary of
all her possessions.—
To President Madison. Washington ed. vi, 391.
Ford ed., ix, 489.
(M.
Oct. 1814)