1110 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



nestly bent upon obtaining for his own State of Massachusetts and 

 his country the rights for which he had so long contended and forci- 

 bly insisted, instructed the Plenipotentiaries of the United States in 

 the language I have just read, using the term " British jurisdiction 

 generally " in the sense he well understood it. 



Mr. Adams' understanding of the British claim to exclusive juris- 

 diction, so plainly stated to him by Lord Bathurst, was in his mind 

 when he drafted these instructions. There had been no controversy 

 as to the extent of British jurisdiction. He was in accord with Great 

 Britain as to the extent of the British dominions. The United 

 States would surrender all rights "within the British jurisdiction 

 generally ; " that is, within 3 marine miles of the shores of British 

 territory, comprehending the waters lying close upon the shores 

 denied American fishing-vessels by Lord Bathurst, upon condition 

 that the permanent right to fish, and to dry and cure fish within the 

 British jurisdiction from Cape Ray to the Ramea Islands, on the 

 Newfoundland shore, and from Mount Joli, indefinitely north on the 

 Labrador coast, should be granted perpetually. 



It was in these instructions that Mr. Adams added, on p. 305 of 

 the United States Case Appendix: 



" The British Government may as well be assured that not a par- 

 ticle of these rights will be finally yielded by the United States with- 

 out a struggle, which will cost Great Britain more than the worth 

 of the prize." 



Is it to be concluded that the President of the United States, who, 

 as Secretary of State in 1806, had refused even to submit to the 

 Senate of the United States for its approval a treaty that denied 

 to the United States any extension of jurisdiction beyond 5 marine 

 miles from shore, although an article preventing armed vessels from 

 seizing or searching vessels within the harbours or chambers formed 

 by headlands had been proposed; who had been advised by the 

 American Commissioners in 1806 that the extent of jurisdiction 

 claimed by Great Britain was 3 marine miles from the shores of 

 its possessions in North America; who had summoned the nation 

 to war against Great Britain in 1812 for hostile acts com- 

 669 mitted within the harbours of the United States, now in- 

 structed his Secretary of State, who on his own part had been 

 willing to sacrifice peace at Ghent to preserve the North Atlantic 

 fisheries, to authorise the Plenipotentiaries of the United States to 

 agree to an article acknowledging the exclusive British jurisdiction 

 to comprehend great outer bays of vast extent and vital importance 

 to the people of the United States, while he was also to commission 

 them to assure the British Government that a fair adjustment fail- 

 ing, not a particle of these rights would be finally yielded by the 



