226 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE FISHERIES. 



HISTORY OF THE QUESTION. 



THE TREATY OF INDEPENDENCE was, I repeat, a vir 

 tual partition of the British Empire in America be 

 tween the Metropolis and the Thirteen United Col 

 onies. It was not a treaty founded on military pos 

 session : for the Colonies had no such possession save 

 along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and Great 

 Britain occupied several posts north and west of 

 the Ohio and on the Great Lakes. The theory of the 

 treaty was to recognize the Colonies as sovereign ac 

 cording to their political limits as fixed by charter 

 and by the public law of England. 



In conformity W 7 ith this theory, the treaty stipu 

 lates that the United States shall continue in the en 

 joyment of the coast fisheries, as follows : 



&quot; Article III. It is agreed that the people of the United States 

 shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of ev 

 ery kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the otherbanks of New 

 foundland ; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other 

 places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used 

 at any time heretofore to fish ; and also that the inhabitants of 

 the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind 

 on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen 

 shall use [but not to dry or cure the same on that island] ; and 



