FRANCO-AMERICAN CONTROVERSY, 1822-1824. 127 



pursued in the correspondence between Mr. Gallatin and Viscount 

 Chateaubriand, the latter having rested his claim to the right of 

 excluding the United States from the fisheries on those parts of the 

 coast of Newfoundland to which the above mentioned correspondence 

 applied, upon engagements contracted by the American Government 

 towards that of France long before October, 1818, according to his 

 construction of which engagements the United States had virtually 

 rendered their exercise of the liberty of fishing between Cape Ray 

 and the Quirpon islands, conceded by Great Britain, dependent on 

 the compliance of his most Christian Majesty; and, secondly, by the 

 consent of the American Government to open discussions on this 

 subject, at Washington, with the French charge d'affaires. 



The American plenipotentiary, protesting wholly against the 

 grounds assumed by France as impairing in any degree the fishing 

 rights of the United States, held under the convention of October 20, 

 1818, and not admitting that any correspondence which had taken 

 place between the Governments of the United States and France upon 

 this subject could affect any of those rights, remarked that his main 

 object being to bring the question which had arisen between the 

 United States and France fully under the notice of the Government of 

 his Britannic Majesty, with a view to the objects stated in his paper, 

 marked E, (annexed to the protocol of the tenth conference,) he 

 should adopt the course of addressing an official representation upon 

 the whole subject to his Majesty's principal Secretary of State for 

 Foreign Affairs. 



RICHARD RUSH. 



W. HTTSKISSON. 



STRATFORD CANNING. 



[Annex 3.] 



Note to Mr. Secretary Canning on the Newfoundland Fishery. 



LONDON, May 3, 1824. 



The undersigned, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipoten- 

 tiary from the United States, has received the instructions of his 

 Government to lay before Mr. Canning, his Majesty's principal Sec- 

 retary of State for Foreign Affairs, the following case : 



By the first article of the convention between the United States and 

 Great Britain, concluded at London on the 20th of October, 1818, it is, 

 amongst other things, provided that the "inhabitants of the said 

 States shall have forever, in common with the subjects of his Britannic 

 Majesty, the liberty to take fish of every kind on that part of the 

 southern coast of Newfoundland which extends from Cape Ray to the 

 Rameau islands, on the western and northern coast of Newfoundland, 

 from the said Cape Ray to the Quirpon islands, on the shores of the 

 Magdalen islands, and also on the coasts, bays, harbors, and creeks 

 from Mount Joly, on the southern coast of Labrador, to and through 

 the straits of Belleisle, and thence northwardly, indefinitely, along the 

 coast." 



After the ratification of the above convention, the fishermen of the 

 United States proceeded, according to its stipulations, to take fish on 

 the western and northern coast of Newfoundland, between the limits 

 of Cape Ray and the Quirpon islands, as aforesaid ; but, in the course 



