1106 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



p. 278 of the Appendix to the Case of the United States, and asked 

 for instructions from his Government. 



The Secretary of State authorised Mr. Adams, under date the 

 30th October, as appears in the United States Case Appendix, p. 287, 

 to negotiate a convention providing for the objects contemplated, 

 and Mr. Monroe, then Secretary of State, stated in this instruction, 

 that it appeared from Lord Bathurst's note that the British Govern- 

 ment denied the right of the inhabitants of the United States to take, 

 cure, and dry fish within their jurisdiction. The Secretary of State 

 added that any arrangement should be made so as not to weaken the 

 right of the United States, and suggested either the reservation of 

 mutual rights or that the agreement be made in the form of a remedy 

 for abuses. 



Mr. Monroe had himself participated in the negotiation of the 

 unratified treaty of 1806, and he was also familiar with Lord Bath- 

 urst's statement of the British jurisdiction, as he had a copy of the 

 note of Mr. Adams stating it, and possessed the entire correspond- 

 ence between Lord Bathurst and Mr. Adams. 



Negotiations in London were temporarily suspended, and Mr. 

 Bagot, who had come to the United States as the first Minister from 

 Great Britain after the war of 1812, undertook to adjust the dispute 

 in Washington, conducting the negotiations with Mr. Rush, acting 

 Secretary of State. 



I am not intending to take up the time of the Tribunal with the 

 details of that phase of the negotiations. The Tribunal has read the 

 notes exchanged, and will recall that it appears from the notes that 

 what was really sought, was an agreement upon some portion of the 

 territory of Great Britain where rights of drying and curing fish 

 could be enjoyed by the American fishermen. The right itself being 

 insisted upon by the United States and denied by Great Britain. 



I have referred to the instruction of Lord Castlereagh to Mr. 

 Bagot, in which he laid down for the first time the extent of the 

 surrender expected from the United States, not that it was to be a 

 renunciation in the sense subsequently insisted upon in 1818 by the 

 Commissioners on behalf of the United States, but that the inhab- 

 itants of the United States were to abandon all pretensions to fish 

 or dry within the maritime limits on any of the coasts of the British 

 possessions in North America other than those coasts to be agreed 

 upon and designated by the treaty to be entered into. This instruc- 

 tion from Lord Castlereagh is found in the Appendix to the Counter- 

 Case of Great Britain, on pp. 175 and 176. 



I have also called to the attention of the Tribunal the fact that 

 Mr. Bagot adopted the words of Lord Castlereagh when communi- 

 cating the offer of certain coasts to the Government of the United 

 States, and it is unnecessary to go further into that. The note from 



