PERTAINING TO NEGOTIATION OF TEE AT Y OF 1818. 323 



southern coast of Newfoundland, as above described; and of the coast 

 of Labrador; subject, after settlement, to agreement with the proprie- 

 tors of the soil. In consequence of the above stipulations, the United 

 States renounced forever the liberty of fishing within three miles of 

 any other part of the British coasts in America, or of curing or dicing 

 on them. But American fishermen were to be permitted to enter bays 

 or harbours on the prohibited coasts for shelter, repairing damages, 

 and obtaining wood and water, subject to restmctioiis necessary to 

 prevent abuses. 



Such was the article finally agreed upon. The most difficult part of 

 our task, was on the question of permanence. Britain would not con- 

 sent to an express clause that a future war was not to abrogate the 

 rights secured to us. We inserted the word forever, and drew up a 

 paper to be of record in the negotiation, purporting that if the con- 

 vention should from any cause be vacated, all anterior rights were to 

 revive. The insertion of any words of perpetuity, was strenuously 

 resisted by the British plenipotentiaries. They said that in case of 

 war, the only effect of their omission would be the necessity of provid- 

 ing in the treaty of peace, for the renewal of the right. We replied 

 that we could agree to no article on the subject, unless the word for- 

 ever was retained ; or if any counter record was made on the protocol 

 impairing its effect. 



It was by our act that the United States renounced the right to the 

 fisheries not guaranteed to them by the convention. That clause did 

 not find a place in the British counter-projet. We deemed it proper 

 under a threefold view ; 1, to exclude the implication of the fisheries 

 secured to us being a new grant; 2, to place the rights secured and 

 renounced, on the same footing of permanence; 3, that it might ex- 

 pressly appear, that our renunciation was limited to three miles from 

 the coasts. This last point we deemed of the more consequence from 

 our fishermen having informed us, that the whole fishing ground on 

 the coast of Nova Scotia, extended to a greater distance than three 

 miles from land; whereas, along the coasts of Labrador it was almost 

 universally close in with the shore. To the saving of the exclusive 

 rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, we did not object. The charter 

 of that company had been granted in 1G70, and the people of the 

 United States had never enjoyed rights in that bay (hat could trench 

 upon those of the company. Finally, it is to be remarked, that the 

 liberty of drying and curing on certain parts <>f the coast of New- 

 foundland, as secured in the article, had not been allotted to the 

 1 Inited State-; even under the old treaty of 1783. 



When the convention was made public, it underwent criticism in 

 Britain a- t<>o favourable, throughout, to the United States. But this 

 article oil the fisheries, was assailed with peculiar force. The leading 

 [in- e of London, opened their batteries against it. The claims of 

 the Dnited States were described a of frightful magnitude: the con- 

 oe inn- by England, as of a character corre ponding, [important 

 maritime interests of the Briti h empire, were said to have been sacri- 

 ficed. Complaints poured in from the colonic-. The Legislative as- 



mbly and council of Nova Scotia, senl forward remonstrances, with 



which were mixed up, not unsparingly, charges of American ambition 



and encroachment. The tide of complaint was swelled by the recoil 

 tion of similar alleged sacrifices under the treaty of Paris of 1814. 



B290H — .-. Doc H70, 'il-.,, voi 2 22 



