PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OP TEEATY OF 1818. 283 



British limits, or to use British territory, is essentially different from 

 the right to independence in all that can reasonably be supposed to 

 regard its intended duration; that the grant of this liberty has all the 

 aspect of a policy, temporary and experimental, depending on the use 

 that might be made of it, on the condition of the islands and places 

 where it was to be exercised, and the more general conveniences or 

 inconveniences, in a military, naval, or commercial point of view, 

 resulting from the access of an independent nation to such islands and 

 places." 



The undersigned is induced, on this occasion, to repeat his lord- 

 ships's own words, because, on a careful and deliberate review of the 

 article in question, he is unable to discover in it a single expression 

 indicating, even in the most distant manner, a policy, temporary or 

 experimental, or having the remotest connexion with military, naval 

 or commercial conveniences or inconveniences to Great Britain. He 

 has not been inattentive to the variation in the terms, by which the 

 enjoyment of the fisheries on the main ocean, the common possession 

 of both nations, and the same enjoyment within a small portion of the 

 special jurisdiction of Great Britain, are stipulated in the article, 

 and recognised as belonging to the people of the United States. He 

 considers the term right as importing an advantage to be enjoyed in 

 a place of common jurisdiction, and the term liberty as referring to 

 the same advantage, incidentally leading to the borders of a special 

 jurisdiction. But, evidently, neither of them imports any limita- 

 tion of time. Both were expressions no less familiar to the under- 

 standings than dear to the hearts of both the nations parties to the 

 treaty. The undersigned is persuaded it will be readily admitted 

 that,' wherever the English language is the mother tongue, the term 

 liberty, far from including in itself either limitation of time or pre- 

 cariousness of tenure, is essentially as permanent as that of right, and 

 can. with justice, be understood only as a modification of the same 

 thing: and as no limitation of time is implied in the term itself, so 

 there is none expressed in any part of the article to which it belongs. 

 The restriction at the close of the article is itself a confirmation of 

 the permanency which the undersigned contends belongs to every part 

 of the article/ The intention was, that the people of the United 

 States should continue to enjoy all the benefits of the fisheries which 

 they had enjoyed theretofore, and, with the exception of drying and 

 cunng fish on the island of Newfoundland, all that British subjects 

 shoidd enjoy thereafter. Among them, was the liberty of drying and 

 curing fish on the shores, then uninhabited, adjoining certain bays. 



harbors, and creeks. But, when those shores should become settled, 

 and thereby become private and individual property, it was obvious 

 that the liberty of drying and curing fish upon them must be con- 

 ciliated with tie' proprietary rights of the owners of the soil. The 

 same restriction would apply to British fishermen; and it was pic 

 ely because no grant of a new right was intended, bul merely the con 

 tinuance of what had been previously enjoyed, that the restriction 

 must have been assented to on the part of the United states. But, 

 upon the common and equitable rule, of construction for treaties, the 

 expression of one restriction implies the exclusion <»f all others not 

 expressed; and thue the \rery limitation which look's forward to the 

 time when the unsettled de erts should become inhabited, to modify 



