HISTORY OF THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY. 69 



fish.* In regartf <"o what disposition should bo made of that island in 

 case it should b'» /japtnred, nothing was said; the sentiment of ^STew 

 England, however, upon that point was unmistakable. Later in the 

 same year Samuel Adams, in a letter from Philadelphia, wrote: " I hope 

 we shall secure to the United States, Canada, Nova Scotia, Florida too, 

 and the fishery, by our arms or by treaty." He writes further, and 

 every year of the past century has borne witness to the soundness of 

 his views : '' We shall never he on a solid footing, till Great Britain cedes 

 to us, or ive icrest from Jier, tchat nature designs we sJiould have.] 



France also sought the aid of Spain, and that iwwer Avas given to 

 understand that in the final treaty of peace between the United States 

 and England, they, too, would necessarily have some voice. Vergennes, 

 in October (1778) stated, as the only stipulations which* France would 

 require, that in the final negotiations the treaty of Utrecht must be 

 either wholly continued or entirely annulled; that she must be allowed 

 to restore the harbor of Dunkirk; an<l that she must be allowed '-the 

 coast of Newfoundland, from Cape Bouavista to Cape St. John, with 

 the exclusive fishery from Cape Bona\nsta to Point Riche."| By a treaty 

 made with Spain, April 12, 1779, France bound herself to attempt the 

 invasion of Great Britain or Ireland, and to share only with Spain the 

 jSTorth American fisheries, in case she succeeded in driving the English 

 from Newfoundland. 



These discussions (as to the terms to be embraced in the final treaty 

 of peace) were necessary pending the question of an alliance with France 

 and Spain against England. When the subject of frontiers was brought 

 up, France, while yielding all claim to the provinces of Canada and Nova 

 Scotia, which for years had been hers, joined heartily with Spain in 

 opposing the manifest desire of the Americans to secure thera. Two 

 States persisted in the right and policy of acquiring them, but Congress, 

 as a body, deferred to the French view of the subject. " With regard 

 to the fisheries, of which the interruption formed one of the elements 

 of the war, public law had not yet been settled. By the treaty of 

 Utrecht, France agreed not to fish within thirty leagues of the coast of 

 Nova Scotia ; and by that of Paris, not to fish within fifteen leagues of 

 Cape Breton. Moreover, New England at the beginning of the war 

 had, by act of Parliament, been debarred from fishing on the banks of 

 Newfoundland * * * *. " The fishery on the high seas," so Ver- 

 gennes expounded the law of nations, " is as free as the sea itself, and 

 it is superfl.uous to discuss the right of the Americans to it. But the 

 coast-fisheries belong of right to the proprietary of the coast. There- 

 fore the fisheries on the coasts of Newfoundland, of Nova Scotia, of Can- 

 ada, belong exclusively to the English j and the Americans have no 



* Bancroft's U. S., ix, 481. The fact must be kept in miud that whaliug and fishing 

 for cod were both carried on on nearly the same waters and often by the same vessels, 

 t Bancroft's U. S., x, 177. 

 X Bancroft's U. S., x, p. 184. 



