278 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTER CASE. 



That this was the understanding of the article, by the British gov- 

 ernment as well as by the American negotiators, is apparent to 

 demonstration, by the debates in Parliament upon the preliminary 

 articles. It was made in both Houses one of the great objections 

 to the treaty. In the House of Commons, lord North, the man who 

 as minister in 1775, had brought in and carried through the act for 

 depriving us of the fishery, but who had now become a leader of the 

 opposition, said : 



By the third article, we have, in our spirit of reciprocity, given the Americans 

 an unlimited right to take fish of every kind on the Great Bank, and on all the 

 other Banks of Newfoundland. But this was not sufficient. We have also 

 given them the right of fishing in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other 

 places in the sea where they have heretofore enjoyed, through us, the privilege 

 of fishing. They have likewise the power of even partaking of the fishery 

 which we still retain. We have not been content with resigning what we pos- 

 sessed, but even share what we have left. The United States have liberty to 

 fish on that part of the coast of Newfoundland which British fishermen shall 

 use. All the reserve is, that they are not to dry or cure the same on the island. 

 By this grant they are at liberty to take our property, for which we have so 

 long kept possession of the island. This is certainly a striking instance of 

 that liberal equity which we find is the basis of the provisional treaty! But 

 where shall I find an instance of that reciprocity which is also set forth in the 

 preamble? We have given the Americans the unlimited privilege of fishing on 

 all the coast, bays, and creeks, of our American dominions. But where have 

 they, under this principle of reciprocity, given us the privilege of fishing on 

 any of their coasts, bays, or creeks? I could wish such an article could be 

 found, were it only to give a colour to this boasted reciprocity. The advantage 

 we should derive from such an article, cannot be a consideration ; for every 

 real and positive advantage to Great Britain seems to have been entirely 

 foreign to the intent and meaning of this peace, in every particular; otherwise 

 I should have though it would have been the care of administration not to 

 have given without the least equivalent, that permission which they could never 

 demand as British subjects. I am at a loss to consider how we could grant, 

 or they could claim it, as a right, when they assumed an independency which 

 has separated them from our sovereignty. 



In this speech, the whole article is considered as an improvident 

 concession of British property; nor is there suggested the slightest 

 distinction in the nature of the grant between the right of fishing on 

 the banks, and the liberty of the fishery on the coasts. 



Still more explicit are the words of lord Loughborough, in the 

 House of Peers : " The fishery," says he, " on the shores retained by 

 Britain, is in the next article, not ceded, but recognised as a right 

 inherent in the Americans, which though no longer British subjects, 

 they are to continue to enjoy unmolested, no right on the other 

 hand being reserved to British subjects to approach their shores, for 

 the purpose of fishing, in this reciprocal treaty." 



In the replies of the ministerial members to these objections, 

 167 there is not a word attempting to contradict them, or hinting 

 at a distinction in the tenure of the title beween the right and 

 the liberty. 



Such was the nature of the rights and liberties of the people of the 

 United States in the fisheries, and such the peculiar character of the 

 treaty of 1783, by which they had been recognised. The principle 

 asserted by the Ajnerican plenipotentiaries at Ghent ; disavowed and 

 combated by Mr. Russell, in his letter of llth February, 1815, and 

 now treated by him as the dream of a visionary, was that these rights 

 and liberties, thus recognised could not be forfeited by a war, and 

 that no new stipulation was necessary to secure them. The whole 



