183 



to fish on the banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 

 and at all other places in the sea, and the liberty to fish on the coasts 

 of Newfoundland and the other British provinces, arose only from 

 the circumstance, that by the same act which recognised these li 

 berties, (the treaty of peace,) the territorial jurisdiction of those 

 provinces, which had until then been the same with that of the other 

 British colonies, became to the United States n foreign jurisdiction. 

 The continuance of the fishing liberty was the great object of the 

 article ; and the language of the article was accommodated to the 

 severance of the jurisdictions, which was consummated by the 

 same instrument. It was co-instantaneous with the severance of the 

 jurisdiction itself; and was no more a grant from Great Britain, 

 than the right acknowledged in the other part of the article ; or than 

 the Independence of the United States, acknowledged in the first 

 article. It was a continuance of possessions enjoyed before ; and 

 at the same moment, and by the same act, under which the United 

 States acknowledged those coasts and shores as being under a fo 

 reign jurisdiction. Great Britain recognised the liberty of the peo 

 ple of the United States to use them for purposes connected with 

 the fisheries. 



This also was the peculiar character of the treaty of 1783, in 

 which our title was recognised to the rights and liberties in the 

 fisheries. They had all the qualities mentioned by the authors on 

 the laws of nations, as appropriate to permanent and irrevocable 

 acknowledgments : 



Who can doubt,&quot; says Vattel, &quot; that the pearl fishery of Bah- 

 &quot; rem and Ceylon, may not lawfully be enjoyed as property ? And 

 &quot; though a fishery for food appears more inexhaustible, if a nation 

 &quot; has a fishery on its coasts that is particularly advantageous, and 

 &quot; of which it may become master, shall it not be permitted to ap- 

 &quot; propriate this natural advantage to itself, as a dependence on the 

 &quot; country it possesses ; and if there are a sufficient number of fish 

 &quot; to furnish the neighbouring nations, of reserving to itself the great 

 &quot; advantage it may receive from them by commerce ? But if, so 

 &quot; far from taking possession of it, it has once acknowledged the com- 

 &quot; mon right of other nations to come and fish there, it can no longer 

 &quot; exclude them from it ; it has left that fishery in its primitive free- 

 &quot; dom, at least with respect to those who have been in possession of it. 

 &quot; The English not having taken the advantage /rom the beginning, 

 &quot; of the herring fishery on their coast, it is become common to them 

 &quot;with other nations.&quot; Vattel, b. 1, ch. 23, 287. 



In the third article of the treaty of 1783, the liberties of the peo 

 ple of the United States in the fisheries within the British North 

 American colonial jurisdiction were, in the most rigorous sense of 

 the words, acknowledged/rom the beginning for it was by the very 

 same act, which constituted it, as to the United States, a foreign 

 jurisdiction. 



