QUESTION FIVE. 39 



The interpretation of the United States would require it to be read 

 as follows: 



" Three marine miles of any of the coasts ; three marine miles of 

 any of the coasts of the bays ; three marine miles of any of the coasts 

 of the creeks; or three marine miles of any of the coasts of the 

 harbors." 



INTENTION OF THE NEGOTIATORS. 



The Case of the United States lays stress upon what it terms the 

 intention of the negotiators of the treaty to allow fishing by Ameri- 

 can fishermen in any waters not within 3 miles of the British coasts. 

 It is submitted in the first place on behalf of His Majesty's Govern- 

 ment that, even if there were any circumstances from which such an 

 intention could be inferred, they cannot be used to affect the construc- 

 tion of the treaty into which the two Governments ultimately en- 

 tered. That treaty must be taken to represent what the parties to it 

 intended, and it must be construed in accordance with the plain 

 meaning of the words like any other written document. But it is 

 further submitted that the attempt to show that there was any such 

 intention on the part of the negotiators has wholly failed. 



The suggestion finds no support in the records of the time, and is, 

 as His Majesty's Government believe, wholly unwarranted (British 

 Case, App., p. 71). There were two distinct fisheries: the first, the 

 fishery in the high seas, which was agreed by both sides to be open 

 to the fishermen of all nations; the second, the fishery in the waters 

 on the British coasts and in the bays on those coasts which had 

 46 been granted in 1783, but had been terminated, as Great Brit- 

 ain asserted and as the United States denied, in 1812. The 

 dispute in 1818 related only to the fishery in these waters. It was 

 ended by the grant to the Americans of a fishery on certain portions 

 of the British coast only. Off the other portions of the British coasts 

 Americans had no special rights of any kind. 



STATEMENT OF MR. RUSH. 



His Majesty's Government are unable to accept the recollections 

 of Mr. Eush, written thirty-five years later, at a time when contro- 

 versy had arisen on the point, unsupported as they are by any record 

 made at the time. Mr. Rush's argument is founded on the assump- 

 tion that it was unlikely the American negotiators would have sur- 

 rendered any claim over waters to which, before the war of 1812, their 

 fishermen had a right to go. This assumption is of course mistaken. 

 The United States negotiators were expressly authorised by their in- 

 structions to give up the liberty of fishing " within the British juris- 

 diction generally " upon condition that it should be secured as a 

 perinanejit right on certain specified parts of the British coasts 



