032 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



TREATY OF GHENT. 



Thus stood American rights and liberties of fishing on the high 

 seas, and within the limits of British Dominion in North America, 

 down to the war of 1812, and to the treaty of peace negotiated at 

 Ghent, which closed that war. Till then it was nowhere denied 

 that American fishermen could fish on the high seas and on those 

 coasts wherever British fishermen could fish. But during the nego- 

 tiations at Ghent, in 1814, the British negotiators declared that 

 their Government " did not intend to grant to the United States 

 gratuitously the privileges formerly granted by treaty to them of 

 fishing within the limits of the British sovereignty and of using the 

 shores of the British territories for purposes connected with the 

 British fisheries." In answer to this declaration the American nego- 

 tiators said they were " not authorised to bring into discussion any of 

 the rights or liberties which the United States have heretofore en- 

 joyed in relation thereto." 



England contended that the word "right" in the treaty of 1783 

 was used as applicable to what the United States were to enjoy in 

 virtue of a recognised independence, and the word " liberty " to what 

 they were to enjoy as concessions strictly dependent on the existence 

 of the treaty in full force, which concession fell, as England asserted, 

 on the declaration of war by the United States, and would not be 



revived excepting for an equivalent. 

 377 In the alarming condition of affairs, at home and abroad, in 



the autumn of 1814, our Government did finally authorise our 

 negotiators at Ghent to agree to the status quo ante bellum as 

 the basis of negotiation, provided only that our national inde- 

 pendence was preserved. (See introductory notes by Hon. J. C. 

 Bancroft Davies to " Treaties and Conventions," published by the 

 Department of State in 1873, p. 1021.) The treaty was signed on 

 24th December, 1814. How different might have been its terms 

 had there been procrastination till the news came of General Jack- 

 son's brilliant victory at New Orleans only fifteen days afterwards, 

 or till the escape of Napoleon from Elba only two months later. 



THE TREATY OF 1818. 



Within a short time after the close of the year 1814, England 

 announced her purpose to exclude American fishermen from the 

 " liberty" of fishing within one marine league of her shores in North 

 America,. and of drying and curing fish on the unsettled parts of those 

 territories. 



The announcement led up to the treaty of 1818, whereby the 

 " liberty " conceded in 1783 to belong to American fishermen was con- 

 fined within narrower limits, and the area of American fisheries was 

 greatly reduced as well as the quantity of American caught fish 

 arriving exempt from taxation at our ports. The treaty of 1818, 

 and the misunderstanding under it. led up to the Marcy-Elgin Reci- 

 procity Treaty of 1854, terminated in 1866, which covered by a new 

 stipulation, a part of the stipulations contained in the treaty of 1818. 

 Your Committee do not now express an opinion whether or not the 

 termination of the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, revived the super- 

 seded and dead stipulation of the convention of 1818, contained in its 



