DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 129 



of the people of the United States to fish on the banks of Newfound- 

 land, in the " Gulf of St. Lawrence," and at all other places in the 

 sea where " the inhabitants of both countries used, at any time there- 

 tofore, to fish." She recognised it, by a special stipulation, as a 

 right which they had theretofore enjoyed as a part of the British 

 nation, and which, as an independent nation, they were to continue 

 to enjoy unmolested; and it is well known that, so far from consid- 

 ering it as recognised by virtue of her acknowledgment of indepen- 

 dence, her objections to- admitting it at all formed one of the most 

 prominent difficulties in the negotiation of the peace of 1783. It was 

 not asserted by the undersigned, as Lord Bathurst's note appears to 

 suppose, that either the right or the liberty of the people of the 

 United States in these fisheries was indefeasible. It was maintained 

 that, after the recognition of them by Great Britain, in the treaty of 

 1783, neither the right nor the liberty could be forfeited by the United 

 States, but by their own consent: that no act or declaration of Great 

 Britain alone could divest the United States of them; and that no 

 exclusion of them from the enjoyment of either could be valid, unless 

 expressly stipulated by themselves, as was done by France in the 

 treaty of Utrecht, and by France and Spain in the peace of 1763. 



The undersigned is apprehensive, from the earnestness with which 

 Lord Bathurst's note argues to refute inferences which he disclaims, 

 from the principles asserted in his letter to his Lordship, that he has 

 not expressed his meaning in terms sufficiently clear. He affirmed 

 that, previous to the independence of the United States, their people, 

 as British subjects, had enjoyed all the rights and liberties in the 

 fisheries, which form the subject of the present discussion; and that, 

 Avhen the separation of the two parts of the nation was consummated, 

 by a mutual compact, the treaty of peace defined the rights and 

 liberties which, by the stipulation of both parties, the United States, 

 in their neAv character, were to enjoy. By the acknowledgment of 

 the independence of the United States, Great Britain bound herself 

 to treat them, thenceforward, as a nation possessed of all the preroga- 

 tives and attributes of sovereign power. The people of the United 

 States were, thenceforward, neither bound in allegiance to the sovereign 

 of Great Britain, nor entitled to his protection, in the enjoyment 

 of any of their rights, as his subjects. Their rights and their duties, 

 as members of a State, were defined and regulated by their own con- 

 stitutions and forms of government. But there were certain rights 

 and liberties which had been enjoyed by both parts of the nation, 

 while subjects of the same Sovereign, which it was mutually agreed 

 they should continue to enjoy 'unmolested,' and, among them, were 

 the rights and liberties in these fisheries. The fisheries on the Banks 

 of Newfoundland, as well in the open seas as in the neighbouring 

 bays, gulfs, and along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Labrador, were, 

 by the dispensations and the laws of nature, in substance, only dif- 

 ferent parts of one fishery. Those of the open sea w r ere enjoyed not 

 as a common and universal right of all nations; since the exclusion 

 from them of France and Spain, in whole or in part, had been ex- 

 pressly stipulated by those nations and no other nation had, in fact, 

 participated in them. It was. with some exceptions, an exclusive 

 possession of the British nation : and in the treaty of separation it 

 was agreed that the rights and liberties in them should continue to 

 be enjoj r ed by that part of the nation which constituted the United 

 92009 S. Doc. 870, 61-3. vol 4 19 



