QUESTION TWO. 49 



population in the United States wholly dependent for their means 

 of livelihood on the fisheries, and they appealed to the benevolence 

 and humanity of Great Britain to preserve this industry to this 

 community." It is also stated that " Mr. John Quincy Adams in an 

 eloquent passage [in ** The Fisheries and the Mississippi " ] spoke of 

 the 10,000 men and their wives and children, for whom the fisheries 

 provided daily bread " ; and further that " equally important, in the 

 view of the negotiators was the fact that the fisheries were a nursery 

 for the seamen of the country ". " These were reasons ", says the 

 British Case, " and reasons of weight, for giving liberties to fisher- 

 men dwelling in the United States to ply their calling on the treaty 

 shores, but they were no reasons for giving liberties to trade in fish 

 taken by fishermen of other countries ".* 



Unfortunately for the contentions of the British Case, the object 

 which the British negotiators had in view was not to establish a 

 nursery for American seamen, nor to provide daily bread for the 

 fishermen and their wives and children, but to encourage and make 

 profitable the American fisheries as a source of revenue for the 

 benefit of Great Britain. This was a recognized policy of the British 

 statesmanship of those days, and was admitted by Lord Bathurst to 

 be the reason for the willingness of Great Britain to enter into a 

 negotiation for a new treaty, as a result of his controversy with Mr. 

 Adams in 1815. It will be remembered that, as stated in the Case of 

 the United States, " Mr. Adams not only argued that the United 

 States was entitled as a matter of right to the continued enjoyment 

 of the inshore fisheries reserved to the United States under the treaty 

 of 1783, but he also urged considerations of policy and expediency 

 as an inducement for Great Britain to recognize such right." e Mr. 

 Adams said at his interview with Lord Bathurst on September 14, 

 1815: 



These fisheries afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of 

 people who were destitute of any other ; they also afforded the means 

 of remittance to Great Britain in payment for articles of her manu- 

 factures exported to America. It was well understood to be the policy 

 of Great Britain that no unnecessary stimulus should be given to the 

 manufactures in the United States, which would diminish the impor- 

 tation of those from Great Britain. But, by depriving the fishermen 



Published in 1822, four years after the treaty of 1818. 

 'British Case, p. 56. 

 U. S. Case, p. 31. 



