1322 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Mr. John Quincy Adams, British Counter-Case Appendix, p. 165, 

 said that in 1776 : 



" this fishery belonged exclusively to the British nation, subject to a 

 certain limited participation in it reserved by treaty stipulations to 

 France." 



In 1779 the Congress of the United States admitted that Great 

 Britain was entitled to exercise jurisdiction for three leagues along 

 its coast. I refer to the British Counter-Case Appendix, pp. 18, 19, 

 21, 23, and 29. 



In 1782, during the negotiations between Great Britain and the 

 United States, Great Britain was still asserting its right to 3 leagues 

 in the Gulf and 15 leagues from Cape Breton. 



By the treaty of 1783 between Great Britain and France, France 

 was still kept off to the distances that I have mentioned. 



And, in 1783, in the treaty between Great Britain and the United 

 States, it was thought necessary, b}^ the United States, to get a spe- 

 cific declaration from Great Britain- -an acknowledgment of the 

 rights of the United States to fish, not only on the banks and on the 

 open seas, but in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 



I refer also upon that point to the United States Argument, at p. 

 121, because there it is indicated that these broad claims of Great 

 Britain were in full force down to 1783 ; and then, I fancy, the writer 

 meant that they terminated only as far as the United States were 

 concerned. The Argument says: 



" Therefore, in these first negotiations and the subsequent treaty 

 between the people of the United States and Great Britain, all broad 

 claims to extensive jurisdiction in respect of the fisheries over the 

 waters adjoining the coast of His Majesty's dominions in North 

 America were abandoned by the Government of Great Britain with 

 the recognition of the independence of the United States." 



I refer also to the British Counter-Case Appendix, p. 183, the 

 reference being to Mr. Dwight Foster's speech in the Halifax pro- 

 ceedings a little below the middle of the page : 



" Those are the two treaties of 1763 the Treaty of Paris with 

 France and the treaty with Spain. Obviously, at that time, Great 

 Britain claimed for herself exclusive sovereignty over the whole Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and over a large part of the adjacent seas. By the 

 Treaty of Versailles, in 1783, substantially the same provisions of 

 exclusion were made with reference to the French fishermen. Now, 

 in that broad claim of jurisdiction over the adjacent seas, in the 

 right asserted and maintained to have British subjects fish there 

 exclusively, the fishermen of New England, as British subjects, 

 shared. Undoubtedly, the pretensions that were yielded to by those 

 treaties have long since disappeared. Nobody believes now that 

 Great Britain has any exclusive jurisdiction over the Gulf of St. 

 Lawrence or the Banks of Newfoundland, but at the time when the 

 United States asserted their independence and when the treaty was 



