1036 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Now, if the Tribunal please, those words have a familiar sound. 

 They are the terms of the proposal put forward by the Commissioner 

 for Great Britain in the negotiations of 1782, appertaining to the 

 fisheries in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and off the coast of Cape 

 Breton ; and the proposal was rejected by the Commissioners in be- 

 half of the United States; and when article 3 of the treaty of 1783 

 was signed, all limitations, contracted to be binding as between France 

 and Great Britain, and as between Spain and Great Britain, disap- 

 peared, and the inhabitants of the United States were to enjoy the 

 unlimited and free right in all those fisheries on practically equal 

 terms with the subjects of Great Britain. 



The Tribunal is already familiar with the fact that in these first 

 negotiations between the United States and Great Britain, and in the 

 treaty agreed upon by the United States and Great Britain, all broad 

 claims to extensive jurisdiction, in respect to the fisheries, over the 

 waters adjacent to the shores of the British possessions in North 

 America, were surrendered by the Government of Great Britain when 

 the independence of the United States was recognised. 



I have, however, taken the time to compare briefly the provisions 

 of article 3 of the treaty between the United States and Great Britain 

 signed in 1782 with the very different provisions of the Treaty of 

 Utrecht between Great Britain and France of 1713, and the Treaty 

 of Paris signed in 1763 between Great Britain, France, and Spain. 



The people of the United States were under the provisions of this 

 treaty, which went into effect in 1783, from that time forward, to 

 enjoy the fisheries with the subjects of Great Britain in all of the 

 waters, including all bodies of water known by whatever name, 

 adjacent to the British possessions in the North Atlantic. 



This article 3 of the treaty of 1783 was in plain terms. What the 

 people of the colonies, who had now become the United States of 

 America, had enjoyed, they were to continue to enjoy with entire 

 freedom. 



The fisheries were demanded, and received, as a part of the fruits 

 of the contest for Independence. 



The fishery article of this treaty of 1783 was no mere concession by 

 Great Britain, nor was it the result of a mere captious demand by 

 the United States. It was a wise provision for a source for food to 

 the people of the new nation, and for obtaining a product for ex- 

 change in the markets of the world; and was regarded by the people 

 of the United States as providing an indispensable nursery for their 

 future seamen. 



The possession of these fisheries, as shown by the documents already 

 made familiar in the arguments before this Tribunal, was the moving 

 cause of the early conflicts between the English and the French in 

 America. 



