FRANCO-AMERICAN CONTROVERSY, 1822-1824. 121 



increase the claims which it now had to attention. The case being 

 wholly new until now, in any formal shape, to this Government, 

 and being one which involves also the duties and the rights of a third 

 power, I thought that it would be most proper not to content myself 

 with a verbal explanation of it merely. Having, therefore, gone 

 through with this, under the lights that your instructions and my 

 own past investigations of the subject had afforded, I finished by 

 delivering to the British plenipotentiaries a paper embracing a writ- 

 ten summary of its merits, and one which might serve as a memo- 

 randum to Great Britain of the true nature of our claim. This paper 

 consists of a synopsis of the question which I had formerly made out 

 from Mr. Gallatin's letter to me of August the third, 1822, together 

 with a reference to the correspondence subsequently carried on by the 

 United States and France in relation to it. It is amongst the papers 

 of the negotiation, marked E, and annexed to the protocol of the 

 tenth conference. It commences with references to the different 

 treaties that of Utrecht in 1713, of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, of 

 Paris in 1763, our own with Britain in 1783, that between Britain 

 and France of the same year, and the treaty of Paris of 1814, also 

 between Britain and France all of which go to show that whilst 

 France possessed the right of taking fish on the western coast of the 

 island of Newfoundland, she did not possess it, as she now claims it, 

 exclusively, but that Great Britain, the undoubted sovereign of the 

 island, held it in common with her. It next recites the first article 

 of the convention of the 20th of October, 1818, between the United 

 States and Great Britain, by which the people of the United States 

 are expressly allowed to take fish on the western coast (and on other 

 parts) of this island, in common with the subjects of Great Britain. 

 It then states the fact of the cruisers of France having, in the years 

 1820 and 1821, ordered American fishing vessels away from this 

 coast even whilst they were within the acknowledged jurisdiction of 

 the island, threatening them with confiscation if they refused. 

 Finally, it concludes with pointing to the three-fold duty which de- 

 volved upon Great Britain under the emergency described: first, to 

 make good the title of the United States to take fish on the coast in 

 question, as stipulated by the convention of 1818 ; but, second, if she 

 could not do that, to give the United States an equivalent for the loss 

 of so valuable a right; and, third, to vindicate her own sovereignty 

 over this island, already impaired and further threatened by the con- 

 duct of the French cruisers towards the fishing vessels of the United 

 States within its jurisdiction. The paper subjoined copies of all the 

 official notes that passed between Mr. Gallatin and Viscount Chateau- 

 briand in January, February, and April, 1823, on the respective 

 rights of the two nations to the fishery in controversy. 



The British plenipotentiaries, after having this paper in their pos- 

 session, and consulting, as they informed me, their Government re- 

 specting it, entered upon the matter of it at the next succeeding con- 

 ference. They said that it was not their intention to controvert the title 

 of the United States to participate with Great Britain in certain fish- 

 ing liberties described in the first article of the convention of 1818. 

 They said, too, that the United States might require a declaration 

 of the extent of those liberties as enjoyed by British subjects under 

 any limitations prescribed by treaty with other powers. The United 

 States might also ask from Britain, as sovereign of the island of New- 



