DESPATCHES, REPORTS, CORRESPONDENCE, ETC. 299 



of their common right to the fisheries aforesaid, and that a reciprocal 

 engagement be made on the part of the United States." Fourth: 

 " That the faith of Congress be pledged to the several States, that, 

 without their unanimous consent, no treaty of commerce shall be 

 formed with Great Britain previous to such stipulation." Fifth: 

 " That if the explanatory article should not be ratified by his Most 

 Christian Majesty, nor the stipulation aforesaid be adopted by Great 

 Britain, the minister conducting the business shall give notice thereof 

 to Congress, and not sign any treaty of peace until their pleasure 

 be known." 



The opposition to these resolutions was determined and violent in 

 the extreme. Those who enlisted against them insisted that it was 

 unreasonable and absurd to ask or expect that a war commenced for 

 freedom, should be continued for the humble privilege of catching 

 fish. Mr. Gerry, who had grown up among the fishermen of Massa- 

 chusetts, replied : " It is not so much fishing," said he, " as enterprise, 

 industry, employment. It is not fish merely which gentlemen sneer 

 at ; it is gold, the produce of that avocation. It is the employment of 

 those who would otherwise be idle, the food of those who would other- 

 wise be hungry, the wealth of those who would otherwise be poor, 

 that depend on your putting these resolutions into the instructions 

 of your minister." 



The majority of Congress sustained Mr. Gerry's proposition, in 

 fifteen divisions on calls of the ayes and noes, and rejected numerous 

 amendments offered to modify them; but consented, finally, to the 

 adoption of the single declaration, that " although it is of the utmost 

 important to the peace and commerce of the United States that 

 Canada and Nova Scotia should be ceded, and more particularly that 

 their equal common right to the fisheries should be guaranteed to 

 them, yet, a desire of terminating the war has induced us not to make 

 the acquisition of these objects an ultimatum on the present occasion." 



This declaration appears to have been the result of concession and 

 compromise; since Mr. Adams was instructed, in September, 1779, 

 first, " that the common right of fishing should in no case be given 

 up ; " second, " that it is essential to the welfare of all these United 

 States that the inhabitants thereof, at the expiration of the war, 

 should continue to enjoy the free and undisturbed exercise of their 

 common right to fish on the Banks of Newfoundland, and all the 

 other fishing-banks and seas of North America, preserving inviolate 

 the treaties between France and the said States ; " third, " that our 

 faith be pledged to the several States that without their unanimous 

 consent no treaty of commerce shall be entered into, nor any trade 

 or commerce whatever carried on with Great Britain, without the 

 explicit stipulation hereinafter mentioned. You are, therefore, not 

 to consent to any treaty of commerce with Great Britain without an 

 explicit stipulation on her part not to molest or disturb the inhabi- 

 tants of the United States of America in taking fish on the Banks of 

 Newfoundland, and other fisheries in the American seas, anywhere, 

 except within the distance of three leagues of the shores of the ter- 

 ritories remaining to Great Britain at the close of the war, if a nearer 

 distance cannot be obtained by negotiation. And in the negotiation 

 you are to exert your most strenuous endeavours to obtain a nearer 

 distance in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and particularly along the 

 shores of Nova Scotia ; as to which latter, we are desirous that even 



