QUESTION SIX. 85 



in the waters of the French treaty coast of Newfoundland, but, as 

 appears from the above extract, insisted upon the omission of the 

 word " exclusive," which France wished to insert in the declaration 

 accompanying the new treaty, in describing the fishing liberty secured 

 to France by that treaty. 



In the negotiations between the United States and Great Britain 

 for the treaty of 1783 the American Commissioners raised the ques- 

 tion as to the manner in which the French rights in these fisheries 

 would be dealt with in the treaty between Great Britain and France, 

 and in reply Mr. Fitzherbert, who was the British representative in 

 the French negotiations and at the same time participated with the 

 British Commissioner in the negotiations with the United States, in- 

 formed the American Commissioners that the French had not expressly 

 demanded the recognition of an exclusive right on the French Coast, 

 and that, to quote from John Adams' report of his reply, " he in- 

 tended to follow the words of the Treaties of Utrecht and Paris with- 

 out stirring the point." In this connection, however, Mr. Fitz- 

 herbert called attention to the agreement between the United States 

 and France in their treaty of 1778, which was then in force, that the 

 United States would never disturb the French fishermen " in the 

 indefinite and exclusive right which belongs to them " on that part 

 of the coast of Newfoundland designated in the Treaty of Utrecht. 6 

 In reply Mr. Adams pointed out that it was expressly provided in 

 the article referred to in the treaty of 1778 that its provisions were 

 " conformable to the true construction of the Treaties of Utrecht and 

 Paris," and took the position that " if the English did not now admit 

 the exclusive construction they could not contend for it against us." a 



The outcome of these negotiations and of the contemporaneous 

 negotiations between Great Britain and France has already been 

 shown, and it will appear from an examination of the terms of the 

 fisheries articles of both treaties of peace of 1783 that in neither of 

 these treaties was an exclusive right on the part of the French in 

 these fisheries mentioned, and that in the United States treaty it was 

 agreed 



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). 



U. S. Case Appendix, p. 222. *U. S. Case Appendix, p. 92. 



U. S. Case Appendix, p. 24. 



