DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 191 



vention with His Majesty of October, 1818, the Government of 

 France denying that right, and the armed vessels of France being de- 

 scribed as having interfered by force to prevent the exercise of it 

 by American fishermen. 



In considering the subject matter of Mr. Rush's statement & the 

 annexed correspondence between M. Gallatin and Viscount Chateau- 

 briand, two leading points present themselves for enquiry; namely, 

 the extent, as far as relates to the question raised by France, of the 

 American claim upon Great Britain, and, secondly, the nature of the 

 French pretension to an exclusive right of fishing on the western 

 coast of Newfoundland. 



The former of these questions may be answered by a reference to 

 the terms of the convention already named. The first article of that 

 instrument stipulates that " the inhabitants of the United States 

 " shall have for ever, in common with the subjects of His Britannic 

 " Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind on .... the 

 " western and northern coasts of Newfoundland from Cape Ray to 

 " the Quirpon Islands." 



It is obvious from these expressions that whatever right to take 

 fish is enjoyed by British subjects on the western coast of Newfound- 

 land, the same is to be equally enjoyed by the citizens of the United 

 States, in so far as depends on the consent and authority of the Brit- 

 ish Government. It follows that within the jurisdiction of His 

 Majesty, as Sovereign of Newfoundland, the same local protection, 

 which secures to British subjects the peaceable exercise of their fish- 

 ing rights on the coast, ought also to be extended to the citizens of 

 the United States, though it does not appear that any engagement 

 amounting to a guaranty of that right, in the proper sense of the 

 term, has ever been contracted towards them by the Crown of Great 

 Britain. 



The second point of enquiry, if viewed only in connection with the 

 correspondence presented by Mr. Rush, appears to admit of a plain 

 and conclusive answer. The pretension advanced by Viscount Cha- 

 teaubriand, whatever be the grounds on which it virtually rests, is 

 not brought openly to bear against the rights of the British, but 

 solely against those of the United States. It is true that the French 

 Minister has endeavoured to establish that pretension on grounds inde- 

 pendent of the actual validity of treaties at any time subsisting be- 

 tween the United States and France; but this argument will be 

 found to stop short of Great Britain, amounting only in substance to 

 an exclusion of the United States from any participation in the dis- 

 puted privilege, in consequence of their having recognised, to their 

 own prejudice, the claim of France, in the full extent attached to that 

 claim by the French Government, and having thereby incapacitated 

 themselves from reaping any benefit, as to the western coast of New- 

 foundland, except by consent of France, from their subsequent agree- 

 ment with Great Britain. The argument of M. de Chateaubriand 

 is, in fact, an argument ad verecundiam. The sum of it is this: 

 admitting that the treaties by which the American Government bound 

 itself to recognise and respect the right alleged by France, are no 

 longer in force, the just and powerful reasons which formerly pre- 

 vailed to obtain from the American Govt. a recognition of the right, 

 and on which the treaty-stipulations were grounded, ought, never- 



