APPENDIX 435 



ica. ' It is well known that the negotiators of the Treaty 

 of 1783 gave a very different meaning to the terms liberty 

 and right, as distinguished from each other. In this con- 

 nection Mr. ADAMS ' Journal may be recited. To this Jour- 

 nal the British Counter Case refers in the following terms : 

 "From an entry in Mr. ADAMS' Journal it appears that 

 he drafted an article by which he distinguished the right 

 to take fish (both on the high seas and on the shores) and 

 the liberty to take and cure fish on the land. But on the 

 following day he presented to the British negotiators a 

 draft in which he distinguishes between the <( right' to 

 take fish on the high seas, and the "liberty' to take fish 

 on the "coasts/ and to dry and cure fish on the land. 

 . . The British Commissioner called attention to the 

 distinction thus suggested by Mr. ADAMS and proposed 

 that the word liberty should be applied to the privileges 

 both on the water and on the land. Mr. ADAMS thereupon 

 rose up and made a vehement protest, as is recorded in 

 his Diary, against the suggestion that the United States 

 enjoyed the fishing on the banks of Newfoundland by any 

 other title than that of right. . . . The application 



of the word liberty to the coast fishery was left as Mr. 

 ADAMS proposed.' "The incident, proceeds the British 

 Case, is of importance, since it shows that the difference 

 between the two phrases was intentional.' (British 

 Counter Case, page 17). And the British Argument em- 

 phasizes again the difference. "More cogent still is the 

 distinction between the words right and liberty. The word 

 right is applied to the sea fisheries, and the word liberty 

 to the shore fisheries. The history of the negotiations shows 

 that this distinction was advisedly adopted. ' If then a lib- 

 erty is a grant and not the recognition of a right; if, as the 

 British Case, Counter Case and Argument recognize, the 

 United States had the right to fish in the open sea in con- 

 tradistinction with the liberty to fish near the shores or 



