1026 NOBTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



other questions between them which affect the relations of the United 



Stales towards those posessions. 

 617 "As the consideration of these matters would, however, 



involve investigations of a somewhat complicated nature, and 

 as it is very desirable that they should be thoroughly examined, I am 

 directed by Lord Granville to propose to the Government of the 

 United States the appointment of a Joint High Commission, which 

 shall be composed of members to be named by each Government; 

 shall hold its sessions at Washington, and shall treat of and discuss 

 the mode of settling the different questions which have arisen out of 

 the fisheries, as well as those which affect the relations of the United 

 States toward Her Majesty's possessions in North America." 



I take up next the letter from Lord Castlereagh to the Commis- 

 sioners at Ghent, under date the 28th July, 1814, which appears only 

 in the evidence brought before the Tribunal by the United States 

 since the Tribunal has convened, and is printed in a document which 

 I shall refer to as the pamphlet. 



Heading from the pamphlet at p. 4 : 



" But the point, upon which you must be quite explicit, from the 

 outset of the negociation, is the construction of the Treaty of 1783, 

 with relation to the Fisheries. You will observe that the third 

 Article of that Treaty consists of two distinct branches: the first, 

 which relates to the open sea Fishery, we consider a permanent obli- 

 gation, being a recognition of the general right which all nations have 

 to frequent and take fish in the high seas." 



And continuing a sentence or two further down : 



" Nor do they feel themselves called upon to concede to the Ameri- 

 cans any accommodation within the British Sovereignty, except upon 

 the principle of a reasonable equivalent in frontier, or otherwise; it 

 being quite clear that, by the law of nations, the subjects of a foreign 

 State have no right to fish within the maritime jurisdiction, much 

 less to land on the coasts belonging to His Britannic Majesty, without 

 an express permission to that effect." 



The extent of British sovereignty clearly delimited the rights of 

 Great Britain. 



Lord Bathurst, in the Foreign Office of Great Britain, in the 

 absence of Lord Castlereagh, instructed the Commissioners at Ghent 

 in a note which appears on p. 9 of the same pamphlet. This was an 

 instruction regarding the fisheries. I read from the bottom of p. 

 and the top of p. 10 : 



" Secondly, the fisheries. You are to state that Great Britain 

 admits the right of the United States to fish on the high seas without 

 the maritime jurisdiction of the territorial possessions of Great 

 Britain in North America; that the extent of the maritime jurisdic- 

 tion of the two contracting parties must be reciprocal; that Great 

 Britain is ready to enter into an arrangement on that point; and that, 

 until any arrangement shall be made to the contrary, the usual mari- 

 time jurisdiction of one league shall be common to both contracting 



"Appendix (A), p. 1355. 



