114 APPENDIX TO BKITISH CASE. 



mained the regret that the execution had been so different from them 

 in spirit, so opposite to them in effect. 



But, in disavowing the particular act of the officer who had pre- 

 sumed to forbid American fishing vessels from approaching within 

 sixty miles of the American coast, and in assuring me that it had 

 been the intention of this Government, and the instructions given by 

 your Lordship, not even to deprive the American fishermen of any of 

 their accustomed liberties during the present year, your Lordship 

 did also express it as the intention of the British Government to 

 exclude the fishing vessels of the United States, hereafter, from the 

 liberty of fishing within one marine league of the shores of all the 

 British territories in North America, and from that of drying and 

 curing their fish on the unsettled parts of those territories, and, with 

 the consent of the inhabitants, on those parts which have become 

 settled since the peace of 1783. 



I then expressed to your Lordship my earnest hope that this de- 

 termination had not been irrevocably taken, and stated the instruc- 

 tions which I had received to present to the consideration of His 

 Majesty's Government the grounds upon which the United States 

 conceive those liberties to stand, and upon which they deem that 

 such exclusion cannot be effected without an infraction of the rights 

 of the American people. 



In adverting to the origin of these liberties, it will be admitted, I 

 presume, without question, that, from the time of the settlements in 

 North America, which now constitute the United States, until their 

 separation from Great Britain, and their establishment as distinct 

 sovereignties, these liberties of fishing, and of drying and curing fish, 

 had been enjoyed by them in common with the other subjects of the 

 British Empire. In point of principle, they were pre-eminently en- 

 titled to the enjoyment; and, in point of fact, they had enjoyed more 

 of them than any other portion of the Empire; their settlement of 

 the neighbouring country having naturally led to the discovery and 

 improvement of these fisheries, and their proximity to the places 

 where they are prosecuted ; and the necessities of their condition hav- 

 ing led them to the discovery of the most advantageous fishing 

 grounds, and given them facilities in the pursuit of their occupation 

 in those regions which the remoter parts of the Empire could not 

 possess. It might be added, that they had contributed their full share, 

 and more than their share, in securing the conquest from France of 

 the provinces on the coasts on which these fisheries were situated. 



It was, doubtless, upon considerations such as these that, in the 

 treaty of peace between His Majesty and the United States in 1T83, 

 an express stipulation was inserted, recognising the rights and liber- 

 ties which had always been enjoyed by the people of the United 

 States in these fisheries, and declaring that they should continue to 

 enjoy the right of fishing on the Grand Bank, and other places of 

 common jurisdiction, and have the liberty of fishing and of drying 

 and curing their fish within the exclusive British jurisdiction on the 

 North American coasts, to which they had been accustomed while 

 themselves formed a part of the British nation. This stipulation was 

 a part of that treaty by which His Majesty acknowledged the United 

 States as free, sovereign, and independent States, and that he treated 

 with them as such. 



