418 MISCELLANEOUS 



Turning to another phase of the question: 



In dealing with this bill it may not be disadvantageous to give a 

 brief resume of the history of the fisheries question as it relates to 

 the intercourse between the fishermen of the United States of America 

 and those of this colony. 



Before the American Revolution the inhabitants of all the British 

 colonies in North America possessed as a common right the right of 

 fishing on all the coasts of what was then British North America, and 

 these rights were, in the broadest sense, prescriptive and accustomed 

 rights of property. At the end of the Revolution, and by the treaty 

 of peace signed in 1783, the boundaries between the possessions of the 

 two powers that is to say, the United States and Great Britain 

 were adjusted by Article III of that treaty, which read as follows : 



"Agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to 

 enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand 

 Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea where the in- 

 habitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish, and 

 also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty to 

 take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as 

 British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on that 

 island), and also on the coasts, bays, and creeks of all other of His 

 Britannic Majesty's dominions in America." 



This was a grant or recognition of a right agreed upon for a con- 

 sideration, vizj the adjustment of the boundaries and other engage- 

 ments into which the United States by that treaty entered. 



For our purposes it is unnecessary to deal with the other articles of 

 that treaty. 



From 1783 until the war between Great Britain and the United 

 States in 1812 citizens of the United States continued to enjoy the 

 ancient rights belonging to them as subjects of Great Britain before 

 the Revolution, and reserved to them as citizens of the United States, 

 to the extent outlined in the article of the treaty of 1783, to which I 

 have referred. Between those dates other subjects of difference and 

 negotiation, apart from the fisheries, arose between the two nations, 

 which were disposed of by the treaties of 1794 and 1802, but the 

 fishery provisions of 1783 continued down to the period of the out- 

 break of war in 1812. 



At the close of that war a treaty of peace was concluded on the 24th 

 of December, 1814, which provided 



(1) For the restoration to each party of all countries, territories, 

 etc., taken bv either party during the war, without delay, save some 

 questions of islands in the Bay of Passamaquoddy ; 



(2} For disposition of prizes and prisoners of war; and 



(3) For questions of boundary and dominion regarding certain 

 islands and for the settlement of the northeastern boundary, and also 

 for the northwestern boundary, but it made no reference whatever to 

 any question touching the fisheries referred to in the treaty of 1783. 



On the 3d of July, 1815, Great Britain entered into a commercial 

 treaty with the United States, which provided for reciprocal liberty 

 of commerce between all the territories of Great Britain in Europe 

 and the territories of the United States, but made no stipulation as 

 regards commercial intercourse between British dominions in North 

 America and the United States. 



