292 APPENDIX TO BRITISH COUNTEB CASE. 



that the citizens of the United States may have the enjoyment, as 

 early as may be, of the proposed concessions. 



The object of the Americans being, that in addition to the right of 

 fishing declared by the first branch of Article IV of the Treaty of 

 1783, permanently to belong to them, they should enjoy the privilege 

 of having an adequate accommodation both in point of harbours and 

 drying ground on the unsettled coasts within the British Sovereignty. 

 It has been the endeavour of His Majesty's Government to assign this 

 accommodation with sufficient liberality, without abandoning that 

 control within the entire of their own harbours and coasts, which the 

 essential interests and the principles of their Colonial system require. 



I cannot better enable you to enter upon this negotiation than by 

 sending you a private memorandum received from Lord Melville, in 

 which Sir R. Keats's opinion is clearly stated. You will, in con- 

 formity to this suggestion, propose the Arrangement No. 1, in the first 

 instance, to the American Government ; or you may, as an alternative, 

 offer them the coast as described in the second proposition. Should 

 the American Government urge objections to accept of either of these 

 propositions separately, you are authorized, in the last resort, to yield 

 both to them upon their distinctly agreeing to confine themselves to 

 the unsettled parts of the coasts so assigned, abandoning all preten- 

 sions to fish or dry within our maritime limits on any other of the 

 coasts of British North America. 



The proposed assignment of coast you will observe is locally the 

 most convenient from its being adjacent to the American States, that 

 could have been selected. It is also to be observed, if the concession 

 which both propositions involve should be made, that the American 

 fishing vessels, from whatever quarter the wind may blow, will have a 

 safe port under their lee. 



Further than this His Majesty's Government cannot authorize you 

 to go, and when the Government of the United States consider as 

 well the footing upon which the navigation of the Mississippi has 

 been left by the Treaty of Ghent, as also the prohibition which they 

 have now imposed to our trading with the Indians within their 

 boundary line, they surely cannot expect a larger surrender of accom- 

 modation within the British jurisdiction unless they conceive, which 

 is wholly untenable, that the British Sovereignty is of such a qualified 

 description as to be destitute of all the ordinary rights incident to 

 that of every independent state, viz., to regulate its internal police in 

 matters of trade, revenue and government if necessary to the total 

 exclusion of aliens. 



So soon as you may have come to a settlement with the American 

 Government, you will notify the same to His Majesty's officers com- 

 manding in his North American provinces; with directions for the 

 regulation of their conduct, in conformity to the stipulations agreed 

 upon. 



You are in like manner authorized, pending your discussions with 

 the American Government, to issue such instructions as you may deem 

 expedient to the said officers to prevent any occurrence happening 

 which might either embarrass the negotiation or disturb the harmony 

 happily subsisting between the two States. And I am to acquaint 

 you that Earl Bathurst has received the Prince Regent's commands 

 to instruct the said officers to obey such orders as they may receive 

 from time to time from you for this purpose. 



I am, &c. CASTLEKEAGH. 



