DESPATCHES, KEPOETS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 753 



stated, was met by a counter-claim for damages to British vessels 

 in the Behring Sea. It is then added that 



To the discretion and control of the executive are entrusted the initiation 

 and conduct of the negotiation of treaties, and without the guaranty of mutual 

 and implicit confidence between the agents, negotiations for the voluntary 

 adjustment of vexed questions in controversy between nations could not hope- 

 fully be entered upon. 



It thus appears to be claimed by the executive that the Senate, 

 without whose advice and consent no treaty can be concluded, has 

 no right to be informed, confidentially, of the course of negotiations 

 and discussions and the various propositions and arguments pro and 

 con arising in the negotiation of a treaty. The committee feels it 

 to be their duty to protest against any such assumption. It believes 

 that such a claim is contrary to the essential nature of the constitu- 

 tional relations between the President and the Senate on such sub- 

 jects, and that it is the reverse of the continuous practice in such 

 matters from the commencement of the Government to this time. 



The principal points of the treaty, etc., that have been considered 

 by the committee in the foregoing statement and discussion may be 

 summarised substantially as follows: 



SUMMARY. 



I. The United States recognise as British territory and renounce 

 forever all claim of independent right in all the great bays along 

 the British North American coasts, named in the treaty, and admit 

 that all such bays form a part of and are within British territorial 

 sovereignty and jurisdiction. 



II. Of the few of such great bays that are left to be visited by 

 American fishermen, the larger part are understood to be valueless, 

 and some of them are subject to French fishery rights older than our 

 own, if they are British bays. 



III. If bay fishing is not profitable now it may be in the future. 



IV. Whether profitable or not, the United States ought not to give 

 up, upon any consideration whatever, the right of its vessels of every 

 character to visit and carry on business in any part of the public seas. 



V. The treaty surrenders the claim and right of the United States, 

 which has been acted upon and exercised for now more than a century, 

 of its vessels engaged in fishing or other occupations to visit and 

 carry on their business in these great bays, and the principle of which 

 claim and right has once been solemnly decided against Great Britain 

 by a tribunal organised under a treaty with that Government. 



VI. The new area of delimitation described in the treaty greatly 

 increases the danger of our fishermen unintentionally invading pro- 

 hibited waters, and thereby exposing them to seizures and penalties. 



VII. The treaty, by its fifth article, renounces any right of the 

 United States in any bay, etc., however large, that "can not be 

 reached from the sea without passing within the 3 marine miles 

 mentioned in article 1 of the convention of October 20, 1818," thus 

 excluding vessels of the United States from all waters, however 

 extensive, and the distance between whose headlands is however 

 great, the sailing channel to which may happen to be within 3 miles 

 of the shore. 



92909 S. Doc. 870, 61-3, vol 4 58 



