AEGUMENT OF CHARLES B. WARREN. 1033 



situated in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. And as to what relates to the 

 fishery on the coast of the Island of Cape Breton out of the said 

 gulf, the citizens of the said United States shall not be permitted to 

 exercise the said fishery, but at the distance of fifteen leagues from 

 the coasts of the Island of Cape of Breton," 



was emphatically and decisively rejected by the American Commis- 

 sioners, who even refused to consider any such limitations of the 

 rights of the independent Colonies on the high seas. 



The suggested article was thereupon abandoned by the British 

 Commissioner who, in reporting to his Government, after the nego- 

 tiations had been concluded, stated, as appears on p. 234 of the Ap- 

 pendix to the Case of the United States in a letter from Mr. Oswald, 

 the British Commissioner, to Mr. Townshend: 



" If we had not given way in the article of the fishery, we should 

 have had no treaty at all. Mr. Adams having declared that he would 

 never put his hand to any treaty, if the restraints regarding the three 

 leagues and fifteen leagues were not dispensed with, as well as that 

 denying his countrymen the privilege of drying fish on the unsettled 

 parts of Nova Scotia." 



And John Adams, in his Journal of the Peace Negotiations, found 

 printed in part on p. 223 of the Appendix to the Case of the United 

 States, confirms this statement of Richard Oswald; for Mr. Adams 

 makes this observation in his diary, under date the 29th November, 

 1782, which was during the negotiations themselves: 



" I rose up and said, gentlemen, is there or can there be a clearer 

 right ? In former treaties, that of Utrecht, and that of Paris, France 

 and England have claimed the right, and used the word. When God 

 Almighty made the Banks of Newfoundland at three hundred leagues 

 distance from the people of America, and at six hundred leagues dis- 

 tance from those of France and England, did He not give as good a 

 right to the former as to the latter? If Heaven, in the creation, 

 gave a right, it is ours at least as much as yours. If occupation, use, 

 and possession give a right, we have it as clearly as you. If war and 

 blood and treasure give a right, ours is as good as yours." 



And in the same entry, at the bottom of p. 224, Mr. Adams stated : 



" I said I never could put my hand to any articles without satisfac- 

 tion about the fishery; that Congress had, three or four years ago, 

 when they did me the honor to give me a commission to make a treaty 

 of commerce with Great Britain, given me a positive instruction not 

 to make any such treaty without an article in the treaty of peace 

 acknowledging our right to the fishery ; that I was happy Mr. Laur- 

 ens was now present, who, I believed, was in Congress at the time 

 and must remember it." 



622 Mr. Laurens was also one of the Commissioners on behalf 

 of the United States in the negotiations of 1782. (Continu- 

 ing the reading: ) 



" Mr. Laurens upon this said, with great firmness, that he was in 

 the same case and could never give his voice for any articles without 



