148 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



with respect to a limited participation in the fisheries, and the direct 

 trade with the British colonies; and we stated our anxiety to receive 

 them, in order that no time might be lost in entering upon this part 

 of our discussions, and as a necessary preliminary to our offering 

 any projet in the subject of impressment. 



The American commissioners stated in reply, that they had now 

 received those instructions from the United States, the absence of 

 which had alone induced them to defer entering into those questions, 

 proceeded to offer the projet of articles, which will be found inserted 

 in the protocol of this day's conference and of which we have the 

 honour to enclose copies. They took the opportunity of stating in 

 some detail, the nature of the propositions themselves, and the rea- 

 sons by which their Government had been influenced in submitting 

 them for consideration. With respect to the fisheries they observed, 

 that in consideration of the different opinions known to be enter- 

 tained by the Governments of the two countries, as to the right of 

 the United States to a participation in the fisheries within the Brit- 

 ish jurisdiction, and to the use for those purposes of British terri- 

 tory, they had been induced to forego a statement of their views of 

 this right in the article which they had proposed; but they desired 

 to be understood, as in no degree abandoning the ground upon which 

 the right to the fishery had been claimed by the Government of the 

 United States, and only waiving discussion of it, upon the principle 

 that, that right was not to be limited in any way, which should ex- 

 clude the United States from a fair participation in the advantages 

 of the fishery : They added that while they could not but regard the 

 propositions made to the Government of the United States by Mr. 

 Bagot as altogether inadmissible, inasmuch as they restricted the 

 American fishing to a line of coast so limited, as to exclude them from 

 this fair participation, they had nevertheless been anxious in securing 

 to themselves, an adequate extent of coast, to guard against the in- 

 conveniences which they understood to constitute the leading ob- 

 jection, to the unlimited exercise of their fishing. With this view 

 they had contented themselves with requiring a further extent of 

 coast, in those very quarters which Great Britain had pointed out, 

 because it appeared to them that the very small population estab- 

 lished in that quarter, and the unfitness of the soil for cultivation 

 rendered it improbable that any conduct of the American fishermen 

 in that quarter could either give rise to disputes with the inhabitants, 

 or to injuries to the revenue. 



They further observed that as the treaty of 1783, did not give the 

 United States any right to dry or cure fish on the shores of New- 

 foundland and as they were uncertain whether the offer made by 

 Mr. Bagot, was meant to include such a concession, they had deemed 

 it absolutely necessary in abandoning this privilege as far as regarded 

 other parts of His Majesty's territories, to stipulate distinctly for 

 its enjoyment in Newfoundland, and also to require the continuance 

 of a similar concession on the Magdalen Islands; some situation in 

 the Gulf of St. Lawrence in which fish might be cured and dried 

 being essential to the carrying on the fishery at all on the coast of 



Labrador. 

 87 They concluded their observations on the subject of the 



fishery, by adverting to that part of the proposed article, in 

 which the right to fish within the limits prescribed, is conveyed per- 



