128 CORRESPONDENCE, ETC., 



of the years 1820 and 1821, whilst pursuing in a regular manner their 

 right to fish within these limits, and being also within the strictest 

 territorial jurisdiction of the island, these fishermen found themselves 

 ordered away by the commanders of the armed vessels of France, on 

 pain of seizure and confiscation of their fishing vessels. 



This measure was afterwards ascertained to rest upon a claim set 

 up by France to an exclusive fishery upon that part of the coast of the 

 island a claim conceived by the Government of the United States to 

 be without just foundation, and in violation of the rights of the citi- 

 zens of the United States, as settled by the foregoing article of the 

 convention of 1818. 



The Government of the United States forbore, at first, to make any 

 representation of the above occurrence, so injurious to the interests 

 a.s well as rights of their citizens, to the Government of his Brijtannic 

 Majesty, cherishing the hope that the difficulty which appeared to 

 have arisen would be removed on a fit representation to the court of 

 France. A correspondence accordingly took place upon the subject 

 between the American plenipotentiary at Paris and the Minister of 

 Foreign Affairs of his most Christian Majesty, which, however, has 

 not terminated in a manner satisfactory to the Government of the 

 United States, it appearing from it that France distinctly asserts an 

 exclusive right of fishery within the limits in question. Copies of this 

 correspondence, consisting of four letters from Mr. Gallatin, dated 

 the 22d of January, the 14th of March, the 2d of April, and the 15th 

 of April, 1823, and of two letters from Viscount Chateaubriand, dated 

 February the 28th and April the 5th, of the same year, the under- 

 signed has the honor to inclose for the more full information of Mr. 

 Canning. It will be seen that the United States claim for their 

 citizens the right to take fish only, not to cure and dry the same, 

 within the limits from which France would interdict them, and that 

 their claim is in common with the subjects and fishermen of his 

 Britannic Majesty. The undersigned has not been furnished with 

 any affidavits or other formal proofs to substantiate the fact of the 

 fishing vessels of the United States having been ordered away by 

 French vessels-of-war, as above mentioned, since it will be seen, by the 

 notes of the French Minister of State, that no question is raised upon 

 that point, but that the fact itself is justified under a claim of right, 

 thereby rendering superfluous all extrinsic evidence of its existence. 

 The grounds of justification assumed by France are believed, by the 

 Government of the United States, to be satisfactorily refuted by their 

 plenipotentiary in the correspondence inclosed ; and although France 

 rests her claim as against the United States upon the footing of 

 treaties once subsisting between the two powers, it will not fail to be 

 perceived that she also asserts, in the most unqualified manner, her 

 anterior, unlimited, and exclusive right to the fishery in question 

 under the treaties of Utrecht and of Paris; consequently, as pre- 

 existent to her former treaties with the United States, and paramount 

 to all title in any other power. In the note of Viscount Chateau- 

 briand, of the 5th of April, it is stated that the Charge d' Affaires of 

 France at Washington had been instructed to enter upon explanations 

 with the Government of the United States concerning this interest, 

 and was then about to be written to again on the same head ; yet it 

 becomes the duty of the undersigned to say that no adjustment of the 



