Rush-Bagot Treaty

(1817)

   An exchange of notes between Richard Rush, acting U.S. secretary of state, and Charles Bagot, British minister in Washington on April 28 and 29, 1817, in which the two nations agreed to limit their naval forces on the Great Lakes. President James Monroe officially proclaimed the exchange on April 28, 1818. After the War of 1812, intense Anglo-American naval competition had developed on Lake Ontario. To reduce the dangers, the agreement limited each nation to one vessel, maximum 100-ton burden with one 18-pound cannon, appropriate for enforcing revenue laws. On the Upper Lakes, each nation was limited to two vessels of like size and armament. All other warships would be decommissioned and no others would be built or armed.

   The treaty, a mark of the rising continental power of the United States, was an important step in the long process of Anglo-American rapprochement and Canadian-American partnership building. The transatlantic and continental relationships that the treaty presaged were to shape international affairs throughout the twentieth Century.

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   FURTHER READING:

    Miller, Hunter, ed. Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America. Vol. II. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1931, pp. 645–654;

    Perkins, Bradford. Castlereigh and Adams: England and the United States, 1812–1823. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.

   KENNETH J. BLUME