ARGUMENT OF CHARLES B. WARREN. 1111 



United States without a struggle which would cost Great Britain 

 more than the worth of the prize? 



And is it to be concluded that this surrender of historic rights 

 and liberties of the United States, that had cost the colonists dearly 

 in blood and treasure, was now to be made without any demand 

 for a similar recognition of the extension of jurisdiction on the 

 shores of the United States ? 



Or is it to be determined that both Governments understood the 

 exclusive British jurisdiction, in respect of the fisheries as against the 

 United States, to include within its limits, only the waters within 3 

 marine miles of the British shores in North America comprehending 

 the creeks and other waters " close upon the shores," as stated by 

 Lord Bathurst in a note referred to in the instructions to the Com- 

 missioners for both Governments ? 



Or is it to be determined that when the Secretary of State of the 

 United States, who himself had received from Lord Bathurst the 

 statement of the extent of the exclusive British jurisdiction, used the 

 phrase " British jurisdiction generally " in formal instructions to 

 the Plenipotentiaries of the United States he had no doubt as to 

 the accepted meaning of the term ? 



I pass now to the protocols of the negotiations for the treaty of 

 1818, and first to that of the third conference held on the 17th 

 September, 1818, to be found on p. 310 of the Appendix to the United 

 States Case. The American Plenipotentiaries put forward the first 

 draft of this article 1 of the treaty of 1818. It begins on the bot- 

 tom of p. 310 : 



" Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed by 

 the United States for the inhabitants thereof to take, dry and cure 

 fish on certain coasts, bays, harbours and creeks of His Britannic 

 Majesty's Dominions in America : It is agreed between the high con- 

 tracting parties that the inhabitants of the said United States shall 

 continue to enjoy unmolested forever, the liberty to take fish, of every 

 kind, on that part of the southern coast of Newfoundland which ex- 

 tends from Cape Ray to the Ramea islands, and the western and 

 northern coast of Newfoundland, from the said Cape Ray to the 

 Quirpon Island on the Magdalen Islands; and also on the coasts, 

 bays, harbors, and creeks from Mount Joli, on the southern coast of 

 Labrador, to and through the Straits of Belle Isle, and thence north- 

 wardly, indefinitely, along the coast; and that the American fisher- 

 men shall also have liberty forever to dry and cure fish in any of the 

 unsettled bays, harbours and creeks of the southern part of the coast 

 of Newfoundland hereabove described, of the Magdalen Islands, and 

 of Labrador, as hereabove described; but so soon as the same, or 

 either of them, shall be settled, it shall not be lawful for the said fish- 

 ermen to dry or cure fish at such settlement, without previous agree- 

 ment for that purpose with the inhabitants, proprietors, or possessors 

 of the ground; and the United States hereby renounce any liberty 



