322 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., PRIOR TO TREATY OF 1818 



the former, if construed to imply limitation of time, or precariousness 

 of tenure, would defeat the whole meaning of the article as gathered 

 from the context. The restriction itself at the close of the article, 

 stamped permanence upon it. The intention was, that the people of 

 the United States should continue to enjoy all the benefit they had 

 formerly enjoyed from the fisheries, with the exception of drying and 

 curing on the shores of Newfoundland; but when other shores on 

 which they were to have this liberty, became settled, then its exercise 

 was to be conciliated with the proprietary rights of the owners of the 

 freehold. This was precisely the restriction to which British fisher- 

 men would be liable. Whence it followed, that the argument against 

 permanence on account of the word LIBERTY being used, if appli- 

 cable to the inhabitants of the United States, would also be applicable 

 to the subjects of Britain. The argument therefore by proving too 

 much, proved nothing. The principles of municipal law in England, 

 which were the same in the United States, corroborated the interpreta- 

 tion for which the latter contended. By these, the property of a 

 fishery was not necessarily in the owner of the soil. The right to the 

 soil might be exclusive; the fishery, free or in common. Thus, whilst 

 in this partition of the national possessions in America, the jurisdic- 

 tion over the shores where the fisheries were situated was reserved to 

 Great Britain, the fisheries themselves and accommodations essential 

 to their prosecution and enjoyment, were, by the mutual compact, 

 agreed to be in common. How different the course adopted in the 

 treaty of Utrecht on a similar point. By the twelfth article of that 

 treaty, Nova Scotia was ceded to Britain; yet the subjects of France 

 were expressly excluded from fishing within thirty leagues of the 

 coast. This prohibition was renewed in the fifth article of the treaty 

 of Paris of 1763. By the eighteenth article of the same treaty, the 

 subjects of Spain were excluded from all fishing rights in the neigh- 

 borhood of Newfoundland. The treaty of 1783 was, therefore, it was 

 again insisted, altogether unlike common treaties. It contemplated 

 a permanent division of coequal rights, not a transient grant of mere 

 privileges. The acknowledgement of independence, the establishment 

 of boundaries, and the guarantee of the fisheries, each rested upon the 

 same immutable basis. 



Neither side yielded its convictions to the reasoning of the other. 

 This being exhausted, there was no resource left with nations dis- 

 posed to peace, but a compromise. Great Britain grew willing to 

 give up something. The United States consented to take less than 

 the whole. After various proposals by the former, which the latter 

 rejected as inadequate, we at length, as their plenipotentiaries, acceded 

 to the following: viz. 



That the United States should have, FOREVER, in common with 

 British subjects, the liberty to fish on the southern coast of New- 

 foundland, from Cape Ray to the Ram^eau Islands; and from that 

 cape to the Quirpon Islands on the western, and northern coasts; and 

 on the shores of the Magdalen Islands; and on the coasts, bays, har- 

 bours and creeks from Mount Joli, on the southern coast of Labrador, 

 through the Straits of Belleisle, and thence indefinitely along the 

 coast, northwardly; but without prejudice to any exclusive rights of 

 the Hudson Bay Company; Also the liberty, FOREVER, to dry and 

 cure fish in any of the unsettled bays, liarbours and creeks of the 



