222 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



November 26, 1782. 



Breakfasted at Mr. Jay's with Dr. Franklin, in consultation upon 

 the propositions made to us yesterday by Mr. Oswald. We agreed 

 unanimously to answer him that we could not consent to the article 

 respecting the refugees as it now stands. Dr. Franklin read a letter 

 which he had prepared to Mr. Oswald upon the subject of the Tories, 

 which we had agreed with him that he should read as containing his 

 private sentiments. We had a vast deal of conversation upon the 

 subject. My colleagues opened themselves and made many observa- 

 tions concerning the conduct, crimes, and demerits of those people. 

 Before dinner Mr. Fitzherbert came in, whom I had never seen 

 before, a gentleman of about thirty-three; scorns pretty discreet and 

 judicious, and did not discover those airs of vanity which are imputed 

 to him. He came in consequence of the desire I expressed yesterday 

 of knowing the state of the negotiation between him and the Count 

 de Vergennes respecting the fishery. He told us that the Count was 

 for fixing the boundaries where each nation should fish ; he must con- 

 fess he thought the idea plausible for that there had been great dis- 

 sensions among the fishermen of the two nations; that the French 

 marine office had an apartment full of complaints and representa- 

 tions of disputes ; that the French pretended that Cape Ray was the 

 Point Riche. 



I asked him if the French demanded of him an exclusive right to 

 fish and dry between Cape Bonavista and the Point Riche. He said 

 they had not expressly, and he intended to follow the w T ords of the 

 treaty of Utrecht and Paris, without stirring the point. I showed 

 him an extract of a letter from the Earl of Egremont to the Duke 

 of Bedford, March 1, 17G3, in which it is said that by the 13th 

 article of the treaty of Utrecht a liberty was left to the French to 

 fish and to dry their fish on shore, and for that purpose to erect 

 the necessary stages and buildings, but with an express stipula- 

 tion " de ne pas sejourner dans la dite Isle, au dela du dit terns neces- 

 saire pour pecher et secher les poissons." That it is a received law 

 among the fishermen, that whoever arrives first shall have his choice 

 of the stations; that the Due de Nivernois insisted that by the 

 treaty of Utrecht the French had an exclusive right to the fishery 

 from Cape Bonavista to Point Riche; that the King gave to his 

 Grace the Duke of Bedford express instructions to come to an eclair- 

 cissement upon the point with the French ministry, and to refuse the 

 exclusive construction of the treaty of Utrecht. I also showed him 

 a letter from Sir Stamier Porteen, Lord Weymouth's secretary, to 

 Lord Weymouth, enclosing an extract of Lord Egremont 's letter to 

 the Duke of Bedford, by which it appears that the Due de Nivernois 

 insisted " that the French had an exclusive right to the fishery from 

 Cape Bonavista to Point Riche, and that they had, on ceding the 

 Island of Newfoundland to Great Britain by the thirteenth article 

 of the treaty of Utrecht, expressly reserved to themselves such an 

 exclusive right, which they had constantly been in possession of till 

 they were entirely driven from North America in the last war." 



For these papers I am obliged to Mr. Izard. Mr. Fitzherbert 

 said it was the same thing now, word for w r ord, but he should en- 

 deavor to have the treaty conformable to those of Utrecht and Paris. 

 But he said w r e had given it up by admitting the word " exclusive " 

 into our treaty. I said perhaps not, for the whole was to be conform- 



