126 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., 



The above summary may serve to present the general nature of the 

 question which has arisen between the United States and France 

 respecting fishing rights, and which Great Britain will doubtless 

 desire to see settled in a manner satisfactory to the United States. 

 It is obvious that, if Great Britain cannot make good the title which 

 the United States hold under her to take fish on the western coast of 

 Newfoundland, it will rest with her to indemnify them for the loss. 

 Another question which it is supposed will also be for her considera- 

 tion is, how far she will deem it proper that France should be allowed 

 to drive or order away the fishermen of the United States from a 

 coast that is clearly within the jurisdiction and sovereignty of Great 

 Britain. 



AUGUST, 1822. 



Since the foregoing was drawn up, and which, as will be seen, was 

 in part hypothetical, a correspondence has taken place between the 

 minister of the United States at Paris and the French Government, 

 that will serve to show more distinctly the grounds upon which 

 France claims to evict the United States, from so essential a portion 

 of their fishing rights on the coast of this island. The correspondence 

 consists of four letters from Mr. Gallatin to Viscount Chateaubriand, 

 dated January 22, March 14, April 2, and April 15, 1823, and two 

 from Viscount Chateaubriand to Mr. Gallatin, dated February 28 

 and April 5, 1823. Copies of these letters are annexed. For the arti- 

 cles of the treaties (no longer, however, in force) between the United 

 States and France, to which Viscount Chateaubriand alludes, see 

 volume 1, of the Laws of the United States, edition of 1814, pages 80 

 and 131. 



MARCH, 1824. 



[Annex 2.] 



Protocol of the fourteenth conference of the American and British 

 plenipotentiaries, held at the Board of Trade, April 13, 1824. 



Present: Mr. Rush, Mr. Huskisspn, and Mr. Stratford Canning. 



After the protocol of the preceding conference had been agreed to 

 and signed, the British plempotentaries stated that they had invited 

 Mr. Rush to an interview in order to inform him that, in consequence 

 of the inquiries which they had made as to the right of fishing on 

 the Western Coast of Newfoundland, they conceived that the case, as 

 previously described by him, was hardly of a nature to be entertained 

 among the subjects of the present negotiation. 



The citizens of the United States were clearly entitled, under the 

 convention of October, 1818, to a participation with his Majesty's 

 subjects in certain fishing liberties on the coasts of Newfoundland; 

 the Government of the United States might, therefore, require a 

 declaration of the extent of those liberties as enjoyed by British sub- 

 jects under any limitations prescribed by treaty with other powers, 

 and protection in the exercise of the liberties so limited, in common 

 with British subjects, within the jurisdiction of his Majesty as sov- 

 ereign of the island of Newfoundland; that such declaration and 

 protection, if necessary, might be applied for in the regular diplo- 

 matic course ; but that it was to be observed that the question appeared 

 to have been in some degree varied, first, by the line of argument 



