* After the treaty of 1783
he had a seal struck with the figures of the pine tree, the deer
and the fish, emblems of the territory and the fisheries
secured in 1783. He had it engraved anew in 1815 with the
motto, "Piscemur, venemur, ut olim." I have in my possession
an impression taken from the original seal of 1815. This
letter from John Quincy Adams tells its story:
"QUINCY, September 3, 1836.
_"My Dear Son:_ On this day, the anniversary of the definitive
treaty of peace of 1783, whereby the independence of the United
States of America was recognized, and the anniversary of your
own marriage, I give you a seal, the impression upon which
was a device of my father, to commemorate the successful assertion
of two great interests in the negotiation for the peace, the
liberty of the fisheries, and the boundary securing the acquisition
of the western lands. The deer, the pine tree, and the fish
are the emblems representing those interests.
"The seal which my father had engraved in 1783 was without
the motto. He gave it in his lifetime to your deceased brother
John, to whose family it belongs.
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