QUESTION SIX. 91 



In reply Mr. Gallatin pointed out, in his note of March 14, 1823, to 

 Viscount de Chateaubriand, that the stipulations of the treaty of 1778 

 did not fully justify the interpretation placed upon them by the 

 French Government, as has already been shown in this Counter- Case 

 in connection with the negotiations leading up to the treaty of 1783 

 between the United States and Great Britain, 6 and that in any event 

 they were no longer in force, as that treaty had been abrogated in 

 1798. He pointed out further that any engagements under that 

 treaty had been superseded by the subsequent treaty of 1800 between 

 the United States and France, by which it was made clear that the 

 United States was not willing to consider as exclusive the French 

 right to fish on the Newfoundland coast. In discussing the provisions 

 of the treaty of 1800, he said, referring to the 27th Article of it : 



Not only the word " exclusive," is not to be found in the part of 

 the article which relates to Newfoundland ; but it is evident from the 

 tenor of the whole, that it was not intended by either party to recog- 

 nize any such exclusive right in that quarter. There is an express dis- 

 tinction made between the coasts of each country, and those of New- 

 foundland and elsewhere. When speaking of the first, both parties 

 respectively engage not to intermeddle with, not to participate in the 

 fisheries of the other. Instead of this, they only agree not to disturb 

 each other in their rights on the coast of Newfoundland, clearly in- 

 timating that to participate was not to disturb; since, had it been 

 otherwise, the expressions " not to intermeddle," " not to participate," 

 would have been preserved and made applicable to the fisheries on 

 that coast as well as to those on the coasts of each country. It would 

 indeed be preposterous to suppose that the United States by agreeing 

 not to disturb France in the exercise of the rights which she might 

 acquire any where on the coast of Newfoundland, in the Gulf of St. 

 Laurence or elsewhere on the American coast northward of the 

 United States, engaged not to participate in such fisheries, and to 

 consider as exclusive the rights which might be acquired by France; 

 since this would have been tantamount to a renunciation on their part 

 of nearly the whole of the fisheries they then enjoyed and to which 

 they had an indisputable right. 



Mr. Gallatin further pointed out that the stipulations of this treaty 

 also had ceased to be in force, before the treaty of 1818, between the 

 United States and Great Britain, was entered into, the treaty of 1800 

 having expired by its own limitations in 1809 ; and he added : 



Nothing remains of the obligation formerly contracted by both 

 countries on the subject of the fisheries : and the question recurs, which 

 is stated in part of Your Excellency's letter, whether, independent 

 of any such former stipulations, and by virtue of any treaty ante- 

 cedent to the right of the United States to take fish on the western 



a U. S. Counter-Case Appendix, p. 111. 6 Supra, pp. 85, 86. 



c U. S. Counter-Case Appendix, p. 113. 



