118 APPENDIX TO BEITISH CASE. 



and fish upon the coasts of this island, without interrupting them, 

 even in times of ordinary war ; that the resort of American fishermen 

 to the barren, uninhabited, and for the great part, uninhabitable rocks 

 on the coasts of Nova Scotia, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and Lab- 

 rador, to use them occasionally for the only purposes of utility of 

 which they are susceptible, if it must, in its nature, subject British 

 fishermen on the same coasts to the partial inconvenience of a fair 

 competition, yet produces, in its result, advantages to other British 

 interests equally entitled to the regard and fostering care of their 

 Sovereign. By attributing to motives derived from such sources as 

 these the recognition of these liberties by His Majesty's Government 

 in the treaty of 1783, it would be traced to an origin" certainly more 

 conformable to the fact, and surely more honourable to Great Britain, 

 than by ascribing it to the improvident grant of an unrequited privi- 

 lege, or to a concession extorted from the humiliating compliance of 

 necessity. 



In repeating, with earnestness, all these suggestions, it is with the 

 hope that from some, or all of them, His Majesty's Government will 

 conclude the justice and expediency of leaving the North American 

 fisheries in the state in which they have heretofore constantly existed, 

 and the fishermen of the United States unmolested in the enjoyment 

 of their liberties. 



No. 19. 1815, October SO: Letter from Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adams. 



FOREIGN OFFICE, October 30, 1815. 



The undersigned, one of His Majesty's Principal Secretaries of 

 State, had the honour of receiving the letter of the Minister of the 

 United States, dated the 25th ultimo, containing the grounds upon 

 which the United States conceive themselves, at the present time, 

 entitled to prosecute their fisheries within the limits of the British 

 sovereignty, and to use British territories for purposes connected 

 with the fisheries. 



A pretension of this kind was certainly intimated on a former 

 occasion, but in a manner so obscure that His Majesty's Government 

 were not enabled even to conjecture the grounds upon which it could 

 be supported. 



His Majesty's Government have not failed to give to the argument 

 contained in the letter of the 25th ultimo a candid and deliberate con- 

 sideration; and, although they are compelled to resist the claim of 

 the United States, when thus brought forward as a question of right, 

 they feel every disposition to afford to the citizens of those States all 

 the liberties and privileges connected with the fisheries which can 

 consist with the just rights and interests of Great Britain, and secure 

 His Majesty's subjects from those undue molestations in their fish- 

 eries which they have formerly experienced from citizens of the 

 United States. The Minister of the United States appears, by his 

 letter, to be well aware that Great Britain has always considered the 

 liberty formerly enjoyed by the LTnited States of fishing within Brit- 

 ish limits, and using British territory, as derived from the third 

 article of the treaty of 1783, and from that alone; and that the claim 



