290 TREATY WITII GREAT BRITAIN. 1822. effected at Washington, in six months from the date hereof, or sooner if possible. In faith whereof, the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed this Convention, drawn up in two languages, and have hereunto affixed their seals. Done in triplicate, at St. Petersburg, this day of one thousand eight hundred and twenty-two. NESSELRODE. (L. s.) CAPODISTRIAS. (L. s.) HENRY MIDDLETON. (1.. s.) CHARLES BAGOT. (1.. s.) A. Ap,,; 22, 1822. Count Nessclrode to Mir. Middleton. Tun undersigned Secretary of State, directing the Imperial administration of Foreign Atfairs, has the honor to communicate to Mr. Middleton, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States of America, the opinion which the Emperor, his master, has thought it his duty to express upon the object of the differences which have arisen between the United States and Great Britain, relative to the interpretation of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent. Mr. Middleton is requested to consider this opinion as the award required of the Emperor by the two powers. He will doubtless recollect, that he, as well as the Plenipotentiary of His Britannic Majesty, in all his memorials, has principally insisted on the grammatical sense of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent, and that, even in his note of the 4th [16d;] November, 1821, he has formally declared, that it was on the signi cation if t/ec words in the tex! of the article as it now is, that the decision of His Imperial Majesty should be founded. The same declaration being made in the note of the British Plenipotentiary, dated Sth [20th] October, 1821, the Emperor had only to conform to the wishes expressed by the two parties, by devoting all his attention to the examination of the grammatical question. The above mentioned opinion will show the manner in which His Imperial Majesty judges of this question: and in order that the cabinet of Washington may also know the motives upon which the Emperor’s judgment is founded, the undersigned has hereto subjoined an extract of some observations upon the literal sense of the first article of the Treaty of Ghent. In this respect, the Emperor has confined himself to following the rules of the language employed in drawing up the act, by which the two powers have required his arbitration, and defined the object of their difference. His Imperial Majesty has thought it his duty, exclusively,to obey the authority of these rules, and his opinion could not but be the rigorous and necessary consequence thereof The undersigned eagerly embraces this occasion to renew to Mr Middleton the assurances of his most distinguished consideration. NESSELRODE. St. Petersburg, 22d April, 1822.
