PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF 1818. 319 



7. We urged upon the British ministers that it was the interest of 

 England herself that we should hold fast forever all the rights con- 

 tained in that article, because all the profits we made by those fisheries 

 went regularly to Great Britain in gold and silver, to purchase and 

 pay for their manufactures; that if it were in her power, which it 

 was not, to exclude us from or abridge these rights, they would be 

 the dupes of their weak policy. 



8. That if we should consent to an exclusion, the stipulation would 

 not be regarded; our bold and hardy seamen would trespass; they 

 must keep a standing naval force on the coast to prevent them; our 

 people would fight and complain, and this would be speedily and 

 infallibly the source of another war between the two nations. 



Extract from "Memoranda of a Residence at the Court of London" 

 by Richard Rush, published at Philadelphia, 1833. 



By the third article of the treaty of September, 1783, between 

 the United States and Great Britain, the people of the former had 

 the RIGHT to take fish on the Grand Bank, and all other banks of 

 Newfoundland; in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and all other places in 

 the sea, where the inhabitants of both countries had been used to 

 fish before; and the LIBERTY to fish on such part of the coast of 

 Newfoundland as British fishermen used, {but not to dry or cure 

 fish there,) and on the coasts, bays and creeks of all other BHtish 

 dominions in America. American fishermen had also the liberty to 

 dry and cure fish in any unsettled bays, harbours, and creeks of 

 Nova Scotia, Magdalen Islands, and Labrador; but as soon as amy 

 of them were settled, this liberty was to cease, unless continued by 

 agreement with the inhuibitants. 



These were rights and liberties of great magnitude to the United 

 States. Besides affording profitable fields of commerce, they fos- 

 i' red a race of seamen, conducive to the national riches in peace, 

 as to defence and glory in war. After the peace of Ghent, the 

 fishing vessels of the Union proceeded as formerly to fish off the 

 British coasts, and use the unsettled shores for curing and drying, 

 according to the stipulations of the above treaty. They were imme- 

 diately ordered off by the British naval forces. Some were captured. 

 Tin- ground alleged was, that the treaty was no longer in existence. 

 The government of the United States obtained a suspension of these 

 apparently hostile orders and proeeedings, until the two governments 

 could make efforts for adjust inc a que* I ion of bo much moment. 



The British doctrine was, thai the treaty of lis:'., not being re- 



enaeted or mnlirined by the treaty of Ghent, was annulled by the 

 w;,r Of L812. 



The ('nited States wholly dissented from this doctrine. They 

 did nut deny the genera] rule of public law on whirl, Britain relied; 



that a w;m- put- an end to previous treaties; hut they insisted that, 



the rule was not applicable to the treaty of L783. That treaty, 

 was peculiar in its nature and objects. It had no analogy i<> com- 

 mon treaties and was not to be judged by their rules. It was a 



