306 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



conclude concerning them, conformably to the instructions already in 

 possession of Mr. flush; or, if the difficulty of agreeing upon the 

 principles should continue as great as it has been hitherto, you may 

 omit them altogether. 



You will not fail to transmit, by duplicates, the result of your 

 conferences at as early a period as may be found practicable. 

 I am, etc. 



John Quincy Adams. 



Messrs. Gallatin and Rush to Mr. Adams. 



London, October 20, 1818. 



We have the honor to transmit a convention which we concluded 

 this day with the British plenipotentiaries. 



Lord Castlereagh having expressed a wish that the negotiations 

 might be opened before his departure for Aix-la-Chapelle, Mr. Galla- 

 tin left Paris as soon as he had received our full powers, and arrived 

 here on the 16th of August. Our joint instructions contained in your 

 despatch of the 28th of July did not, however, reach us till the 3d of 

 September. We had long conversations with Lord Castlereagh at his 

 country seat, on the 22nd and 23d of August, but could not, owing to 

 our instructions not having arrived, discuss with him the question of 

 the fisheries and of the West India intercourse. He left London on 

 the 1st of September. The official conferences had begun on the 27th 

 of August, and, for the progress of the negotiation, we beg leave to 

 refer to the enclosed copies of the protocol, and documents annexed 

 to it, and of two unofficial notes sent by us to the British plenipo- 

 tentiaries. We will add some observations on the several objects 

 embraced by the convention. 



1. FISHERIES. 



We succeeded in securing, besides the rights of taking and curing 

 fish within the limits designated by our instructions, as a sine qua ?ion, 

 the liberty of fishing on the coasts of the Magdalen islands, and of 

 the western coast of Newfoundland, and the privilege of entering for 

 shelter, wood, and water, in all the British harbors of North America. 

 Both were suggested as important to our fishermen, in the com- 

 munications on that subject which were transmitted to us with our 

 instructions. To the exception of the exclusive rights of the Hudson's 

 Bay Company we did not object, as it was virtually implied in the 

 treaty of 1783, and we had never, any more than the British subjects, 

 enjo} T ed any right there; the charter of that company having been 

 granted in the year 1G70. The exception applies only to the coasts 

 and their harbors, and does not affect the right of fishing in Hudson's 

 Bay beyond three miles from the shores, a right which could not ex- 

 clusively belong to, or be granted by, any nation. 



The most difficult part of the negotiation related to the permanence 

 of the right. To obtain the insertion in the body of the convention of 

 a provision declaring expressly that that right should not be abro- 

 gated by war, was impracticable. All that could be done was to 

 express the article in such manner as would not render the right 

 liable to be thus abrogated. The words " for ever " were inserted for 



