650 APPENDIX TO BRITISH CASE. 



The Committee on Foreign Relations was at the last session of the 

 Senate instructed to make inquiry into the matter of the rights and 

 interests of the American fisheries and fishermen by Resolution in 

 the following words: 



Resolved, That the Committee on Foreign Relations be, and it hereby is, 

 instructed to inquire into the rights of American fishing-vessels and merchant 

 vessels within the North American possessions of the Queen of Great Britain, 

 and whether any rights of such vessels have been violated, and if so, to what 

 extent; that said committee report upon the subject, and report whether any 

 and what steps are necessary to be taken by Congress to insure the protection 

 and vindication of the rights of citizens of the United States in the premises ; 

 that said Committee have power to send for persons and papers, to employ a 

 stenographer, and to sit during the recess of the Senate, either as a full com- 

 mittee or by any sub-committee thereof, and that any such sub-committee shall 

 for the purposes of such investigation be a committee of the Senate to all intents 

 and purposes. 



Resolved, That the necessary expenses of said committee in said investiga- 

 tion be paid out of the appropriation for the miscellaneous items of the con- 

 tingent fund of the Senate, upon vouchers to be approved by the chairman 

 thereof. 



Pursuant to this authority the committee has proceeded to make the 

 inquiries directed by the Senate, so far, as it was practicable to do 

 during the vacation, and has taken a considerable amount of testi- 

 mony which the Committee believes to be of much value and impor- 

 tance to a proper understanding of the difficulties that have arisen 

 between citizens of the United States and the authority of Her Maj- 

 esty's dominions in North America, and which also, as the committee 

 thinks, bears upon other questions of public policy that can be readily 

 understood by those reading this testimony. 



The questions touching the right of our citizens engaged either in 

 the operations of fishing or commerce in the North American waters 

 contiguous to Her Majesty's dominions depend, of course, not only 

 upon public law, but upon the conventional arrangements that have 

 hitherto been entered into between the United States and Her 

 Britannic Majesty's Government. 



Without going into a general review of the discussions that have 

 in former years taken place concerning these matters, it is, as the 

 committee thinks, sufficient to now treat these questions as they are 

 affected by the principles of public law, and by the presently existing 

 treaty between the United States and Great Britain bearing upon 

 the subject. 



This treaty was concluded in the year 1818. To understand its 

 just and true application it is perhaps proper to refer, by way of 

 inducement, to the state of things theretofore existing. 



The treaty of peace concluded at the end of the revolutionary war, 

 which acknowledged the independence of the United States, pro- 

 vided in its Illrd article that the people of the United States " shall 

 continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on 

 the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland ; also 

 in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea 

 where the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore 

 to fish. And also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have 

 liberty to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of New- 

 foundland as British fishermen shall use, but not to dry or cure the 

 same on that island, and also on the coast, bays, and creeks of all 

 other of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the 



