266 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



present excitement in regard to this subject, Mr. Webster has, upon 

 consideration, judged it expedient to abstain for the present from 

 taking this step, as one likely to produce fresh discussion on the sub- 

 ject without leading to any definite result. I entirely agree with him 

 in this opinion; the more so that the excitement in question has 

 already very much diminished, and that a very general impression 

 prevails that the question is now under discussion between the two 

 Governments, with a view to its settlement upon a satisfactory basis. 

 My present visit to Mr. Webster has, I believe, tended to strengthen 

 this impression. 



I have the honour to be, with the greatest respect, M}' Lord, 

 Your Lordship's most obedient humble servant, 



JOHN F CRAMPTON 

 The Right Honorable EARL OF MALMESBURY, 



&c. &c. &c. 



Foreign Office. 



No. 99. 1852, August 3: Debate in the Senate of the United States 

 on North American Fisheries. Speeches of Mr. Cass of Michigan 

 and Mr. Davis of Massachusetts. 



A message having been received from the President, in relation to the fisheries 

 on the coasts of the British possessions, with accompanying documents, and 

 Mr. CASS having moved to refer the same to the Committee on Foreign Rela- 

 tions 



Mr. Cass said: 



MR. PRESIDENT: I have looked with some care into this question 

 of the fisheries since it was first brought before us, and as there seems 

 to me to be some important errors prevalent, I desire to take this 

 opportunity, before the just cause of our country is prejudged, to 



correct them. 



158 The ocean which unites, while it separates the nations of 



the earth, is at once their common highway, and a liquid field, 

 whose abundant supply of food for man is among the most wonderful 

 and beneficent dispensations of nature. No nation can appropriate 

 it to itself. For the purpose of mutual convenience and of proper 

 internal police, it seems to have been understood that the authority 

 of every country may control the shores of the ocean within one 

 marine league, or three miles of its coasts. But within this distance 

 vessels may navigate the seas, though they ought not to violate the 

 municipal laws passed for revenue and for other proper purposes. 



When the United States asserted their independence, and entered 

 into negotiations with England for its recognition, the question of 

 the fisheries was one of the most important, whose adjustment was 

 required by the relations existing between the two countries. Eng- 

 land contended that we were in the condition of any other foreign 

 Power, and that, consequently, we had no rights but such as every 

 nation possessed by virtue of its sovereignty. Our revolutionary 

 patriots contended, and justly and successfully, that the colonists 

 were among the first to farry on the fisheries that they did their 

 full share, and more, too. in defending and acquiring them from the 

 French; and that, as a portion of the common empire, which pos- 

 sessed them, they had a right to enjoy their just proportion, as well 



