DOCUMENTS BEARING ON TREATY OP 1183. 171 



necessaire pour pecher et se"cher les poissons." That it is a received 

 law among the fishermen that whoever arrives first shall have his 

 choice of the stations ; that the Due de Nivernois insisted that by the 

 treaty of Utrecht the French had an exclusive right to the fishery 

 from Cape Bonavista to Point Riche; that the King gave to his 

 Grace the Duke of Bedford express instructions to come to an eclair- 

 cissement upon the point wkh the French ministry, and to refuse the 

 exclusive construction of the treaty of Utrecht. I also showed him a 

 letter from Sir Stamier Porteen, Lord Weymouth's secretary, to Lord 

 Weymouth, enclosing an extract of Lord Egremont's letter to the 

 Duke of Bedford, by which it appears that the Due de Nivernois in- 

 sisted " that the French had an exclusive right to the fishery from 

 Cape Bonavista to Point Riche, and that they had, on ceding the 

 Island of Newfoundland to Great Britain by the thirteenth article of 

 the treaty of Utrecht, expressly reserved to themselves such an ex- 

 clusive right, which they had constantly been in possession of till 

 they were entirely driven from North America in the last war." 



For these papers I am obliged to Mr. Izard. Mr. Fitzherbert said 

 it was the same thing now, word for word, but he should endeavour 

 to have the treaty conformable to those of Utretcht and Paris. But 

 he said we had given it up by admitting the word " exclusive " into 

 our treaty. I said perhaps not, for the whole was not conformable 

 to the true construction of the treaties of Utrecht and Paris, and 

 that if the English did not now admit the exclusive construction, 

 they could not contend for it against us. We had only contracted 

 not to disturb them, &c. I said it was the opinion of all the fishermen 

 in America that England could not prevent our catching a fish with- 

 out preventing themselves from getting a dollar. That the first fare 

 was our only advantage; that neither the English nor French could 

 have it. It must be lost if we had it not. He said he did not think 

 much of the fishery as a source of profit, but as a nursery of seamen. 

 I told him the English could not catch a fish the more or make a 

 sailor the more for restraining us ; even the French would rival them 

 in the markets of Spain and Portugal. It was our fish they ought to 

 call their own, because we should spend the profit with them; that 

 the Southern States had staple commodities, but New England had 

 no other remittances than the fishery, no other way to pay for their 

 clothing; that it entered into our distilleries and West India trade, 

 as well as our European trade, in such a manner that it could not be 

 taken out or diminished without tearing and rending; that if it 

 should be left to its natural course we could hire or purchase spots of 

 ground on which to erect stages and building, but if we were strait- 

 ened by treaty, that treaty would be given in instructions to governors 

 and commodores, whose duty it would be to execute it ; that it would 

 be very difficult to restrain pur fishermen: they would be frequently 

 transgressing and making disputes and troubles. 



He said his principal object was to avoid sowing seeds of future 

 wars. I said it was equally my object, and that I was persuaded 

 that if the germ of a war was left anywhere there was the greatest 

 danger of its being left in the article respecting the fishery. The 

 rest of the day was spent in endless discussions about the Tories. Dr. 

 Franklin is very staunch against them more decided a great deal on 

 this point than Mr. Jay or myself. 



