DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 635 



coast." No nation has asserted, independently of a treaty, an exclu- 

 sive dominion over the sea surrounding its coast applicable to the 

 passing ships of other nations. Why should a vessel which, under 

 stress of weather or necessities of navigation, casts anchor for 

 a few hours in a bay be subjected to a larger or fuller foreign juris- 

 diction than a passing vessel, provided inshore fisheries are not 

 thereby poached upon, or the revenue evaded, or safe navigation 

 endangered, or crime attempted or committed? Why need a power- 

 ful State take any cognisance of such innocent and casual presence 

 of a little body of foreign seamen? The treaties which have been 

 made applicable thereto refer to neutrality in war and the exclusive 

 right or fishing, thereby proving the general rule. There is, no doubt, 

 a well-founded claim, based on usage, over an exclusive dominion of 

 some narrow zone of the sea for some purposes, but those purposes are 

 carefully restricted, among other things, to navigation, rules of the 

 road, lighthouses, quarantine, pilotage, anchorage, revenue, or local 

 fisheries. By the treaties of 1783 and 1818 there is a zone of the 

 Canadian and Newfoundland coasts open and free to American 

 fishermen. 



The dispute was settled, and a new contract entered into by the 

 reciprocity treaty of 1854, which stipulated : 



ARTICLE 1. It is agreed by the high contracting parties that in addition to the 

 liberty secured to the United States fishermen by the above-mentioned conven- 

 tion of 20th October, 1818, of taking, curing, and drying fish on certain coasts of 

 British North American colonies therein defined, the inhabitants of the United 

 States shall have, in common with the subjects of Her Britannic Majesty, the 

 liberty to take fish of every kind, except shell-fish, on the sea-coasts and shores, 

 and in the bays, harbours, and creeks of Canada, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, 

 Prince Edward Island, and of the several islands thereunto adjacent (and, by 

 another article, Newfoundland), without being restricted to any distance from 

 shore, with permission to land upon the coasts and shores of those colonies and 

 the islands thereof, and also upon the Magdalen Islands, for the purpose of 

 drying their nets and curing their fish; provided that, in so doing, they do not 

 interfere with the rights of private property, or with British fishermen In the 

 peaceable use of any part of the same coast in their occupancy for the same 

 purpose. It is understood that the above-mentioned liberty applies solely to the 

 sea-fishery, and that the salmon and shad fisheries and all fisheries in rivers 

 and the mouths of rivers are hereby reserved exclusively for British fishermen. 



Similar provision was made in article II, with like exception, for 

 the admission of British subjects to take fish on a part or the sea- 

 coasts and shores of the United States. 



379 The United States purchased the fishery provisions of this 

 treaty, and exemption from certain restrictions in the treaty 

 of 1818, by stipulations that certain enumerated articles of the 

 growth and produce of the British colonies of Canada, New Bruns- 

 wick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland should 

 be admitted at our ports free of duty. 



They were the incidents of a larger question, namely, the terms 

 of commercial intercourse between the United States and the British 

 colonies in North America. 



It is not contended anywhere, by anybody, that the stipulations in 

 the treaty of peace of 1783, by which the sovereignty jfnd inde- 

 pendence of the thirteen States were acknowledged, their boundaries 

 fixed, their right established to navigate the high seas and to fish 

 therein, fell by the war of 1812. Nor is it pretended that the war 

 of 1812 grew out of the exercise of fishing rights under the treaty 



