DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 727 



ordinary form for its ratification, with the expression of its opinion 

 that said resolution ought not to be adopted. 



As preliminary to a consideration of the text of the treaty itself 

 in its various aspects, the committee thinks it proper to give a brief 

 resume of the history of the fisheries question and other matters re- 

 lating to the intercourse between the United States and the British 

 dominions of North America having more or less relation thereto. 



Before the revolution the inhabitants of all the British colonies in 

 North America possessed, as a common right, the right of fishing 

 on all the coasts of British North America, and these rights were, 

 in a broad sense, prescriptive and accustomed rights of property. 

 At the end of the revolution and by the treaty of peace of 1783, which 

 adjusted the boundaries between the dominions of the two Powers, it 

 was (article III) 



Agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy un- 

 molested 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 St. 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 Newfoundland 

 as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that island), 

 and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His Britannic Majesty's 

 dominions in America. 



This was a grant or recognition of a property right agreed upon on 

 a consideration, viz, the adjustment of the boundaries and the other 

 engagements into which the United States by that treaty entered. 

 As to the open-sea fishing, it was merely a recognition of a right com- 

 mon to all nations, and as to the fishing within the municipal domin- 

 ion of His Majesty on his coasts, bays, and creeks, it was an agree- 

 ment that these rights theretofore existing in all British subjects 

 should of right belong to those British subjects who, by force of the 

 revolution, had become the citizens of an independent nation; and 

 thus it was, in the partition of the territory, a reservation in favour 

 of the people of the United States of a right which they, as British 

 subjects, had theretofore lawfully enjoyed. 



From 1783 until the war of 1812 between the two countries citizens 

 of the United States continued to enjoy the ancient rights belonging 

 to them as subjects of Great Britain before the revolution and re- 

 served to them as citizens of the United States after it, with the 

 full freedom secured by the article last referred to. During this 

 period of time other subjects of difference and negotiation arose 

 between the two countries, which were disposed of by the treaties 

 of 1794, with its explanatory articles, and of 1802; but the fishery 

 provision of 1783 continued to exist unquestioned and apparently 

 as having been, as it plainly purported to be, a treaty disposing of 

 and adjusting property rights which had become by force of its own 



operation an executed contract. 



436 The treaty of peace concluded on December 24, 1814, at the 

 close of the war of 1812, provided: 



First, for a restoration to each party of all countries, territories, 

 etc., taken by either party during the war, without delay, saving 

 some questions of islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy. 



Secondly, it provided for disposition of prizes and prisoners of 

 war. 



