220 COKKliSPOMDE^CB, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OP 1818 



Extracts from J. Adams' Journal of Peace Negotiations. 



November 25, 1782. 



Doctor Franklin, Mr. Jay. and myself, at 11 o'clock, met at Mr. 

 Oswald's lodgings. Mr. Strachey told us he had been to London, 

 and waited personally on every one of the King's cabinet council, 

 and had communicated the last propositions to them. They every 

 one of them unanimously condemned that respecting the Tories, so 

 that that unhappy affair stuck, as he foresaw and foretold it would. 



The affair of the fishery too was somewhat altered. They could 

 not admit us to dry on the shores of Nova Scotia, nor to fish within 

 three leagues of the coast, nor within fifteen leagues of the coast of 

 Cape Breton. The boundary they did not approve. They thought 

 it too extended, too vast a country; but they would not make a diffi- 

 culty. That if these terms were not admitted, the whole affair must 

 be thrown into Parliament, where every man would be for insisting 

 on restitution to the refugees. He talked about excepting a few, by 

 name, or the most obnoxious of the refugees. 



I could not help observing, that the ideas respecting the fishery 

 appeared to me to come piping hot from Versailles. I quoted to 

 them the words of our treaty with France, in which the indefinite 

 and exclusive right to the fishery on the western side of Newfound- 

 land was secured against us, according to the true construction of 

 the treaties of Utrecht and Paris. I showed them the 12th and 13th 

 articles of the treaty of Utrecht, by which the French were admitted 

 to fish from Cape Bonavista to Point Riche. I related to them the 

 manner in which the cod and haddock came into the rivers, harbors, 

 creeks, and up to the very wharves, on all the northern coasts of 

 America, in the spring, in the month of April, so that you have noth- 

 ing to do but step into a boat and bring in a parcel of fish in a few 

 hours. But that in May they began to withdraw. We have a saying 

 in Boston, that " when the blossoms fall, the haddock begin to crawl," 

 i. e., to move into deep water: so that in summer you must go out some 

 distance to fish ; at Newfoundland it was the same. The fish in March 

 and April were in shore, in all the creeks, bays, and harbors, i. e.. 

 within three leagues of the coasts or shores of Newfoundland and 

 Nova Scotia ; that neither French nor English could go from Europe 

 and arrive early enough for the first fare; that our vessels could. 

 being so much nearer — an advantage which God and nature had 

 put into our hands; but this advantage of ours had been an ad- 

 vantage to England; because our fish had been sold in Spain and 

 Portugal for gold and silver, and that gold and silver sent to Lon- 

 don for manufactures; that this would be the course again; that 

 France foresaw it, and wished to deprive England of it, by persuad- 

 ing her to deprive us of it; that it would be a master stroke of policy 

 if she could succeed; but England must be completely the dupe be- 

 fore she would succeed. 



There were three lights in which it might be reviewed. 1st. As a 

 nursery for seamen. 2d. As a source of profit. 3d. As a source of 

 contention. As a nursery of seamen, did England consider us as 

 worse enemies than France? Had she rather France should have 

 the seamen than America? The French marine was nearer and more 

 menacing than ours. As a source of profit, had England rather 

 France should supply the markets of Lisbon and Cadiz with fish, 



