1034 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



this. Mr. Jay spoke up, and said it could not be a peace; it would 

 only be an insidious truce without it." 



Article 3 of the treaty of 1783 appears at p. 24 of the Appendix to 

 the Case of the United States, as finally agreed upon : 



" It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue 

 to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand 

 Bunk, and on all the other banks of Newfoundland; also in the 

 (iiilph of Saint Lawrence, and at all other places in the sea where 

 the inhabitants of both countries used at any time heretofore to fish. 

 And also that the inhabitants of the United States shall have liberty 

 to take fish of every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland 

 as British fishermen shall use (but not to dry or cure the same on 

 that island) and also on the coasts, bays and creeks of all other of 

 His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America; and that the Ameri- 

 can fishermen shall have liberty to dry and cure fish in any of the 

 unsettled bays, harbours and creeks of Nova Scotia, Magdalen Is- 

 lands, and Labrador, so long as the same shall remain unsettled ; but 

 so soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not be 

 lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such settlements, 

 without a previous agreement for that purpose with the inhabitants, 

 proprietors or possessors of the ground." 



I will only make this observation on this article: that the article, 

 when signed, did away with all proposed limitations upon the rights 

 of the fishing-vessels or fishermen of the United States, and that, 

 under the terms of that article 3 of the treaty of 1783, the inhabit- 

 ants of the United States had the right to enjoy, co-extensively 

 with the subjects of Great Britain, all the rights to the fisheries in 

 the North Atlantic Ocean, and had the right to invade waters of 

 whatever extent, and go to the very shores of the British possessions, 

 and to do everything that a subject of Great Britain could do by 

 virtue of his being a subject of Great Britain, except that inhabi- 

 tants of the United States did not have the right to dry and cure fish 

 upon the island of Newfoundland and in the province of Quebec. 



Now, if the Tribunal please, why bring into this discussion matters 

 preceding and antedating the actual negotiations of the treaty of 

 1783? In that treaty the rights of the inhabitants of the United 

 States were determined and fixed ; and by that treaty, and under the 

 terms of that treaty, they were exercised thereafter, and there is no 

 question of construction of that treaty here involved. 



If there were any doubt about the wording of article 3 of the 

 treaty of 1783 it might be appropriate to bring into the discussion 

 the instructions of the Continental Congress, which instructions, as 

 shown by Senator Turner, changed from time to time in accordance 

 with the fortunes of war. 



It might be appropriate, I say, to bring forward those proceedings 

 for the purpose of obtaining light upon the construction of the 

 words of this article 3 were there any doubt about their meaning. 



