ARGUMENT OF JOHN S. EWABT. 1433 



enjoy the right of fishing on the Grand Bank, and other places of 

 common jurisdiction, and have the liberty of fishing and of drying 

 and curing their fish within the exclusive^ British jurisdiction on the 

 North American coasts, to which they had been accustomed while 

 themselves formed a part of the British nation." 



At p. 74 of the same volume I wish to read another extract. This 

 is in the later letter from Mr. Adams to Lord Castlereagh, and will 

 be found about two-thirds down the page : 



" The intention was, that the people of the United States should 

 continue to enjoy all the benefits of the fisheries which they had en- 

 joyed theretofore, and, with the exception of drying and curing fish 

 on the Island of Newfoundland, all that British subjects should 

 enjoy thereafter. Among them, was the liberty of drying and curing 

 fish on the shores, then uninhabited, adjoining certain bays, harbours, 

 and creeks. But, when those shores should become settled, and thereby 

 become private and individual property, it was obvious that the lib- 

 erty of drying and curing fish upon them must be conciliated with 

 the proprietary rights of the owners of the soil. The same restric- 

 tion would apply to British fishermen; and it was precisely because 

 no grant of a new right was intended, but merely the continuance of 

 what had been previously enjoyed, that the restriction must have been 

 assented to on the part of the United States." 



In the same volume, at p. 85, I wish to read from a letter of in- 

 struction from Mr. Adams to Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, the negoti- 

 ators of the treaty of 1818. I read from the second paragraph from 

 the top of page 85 : 



" The argument which has been so long and so ably maintained by 

 Mr. Reeves, that the rights of antenati Americans, as British subjects, 

 even within the kingdom of Great Britain, have never been divested 

 from them, because there has been no Act of Parliament to 

 866 declare it, applies in its fullest force to this case; and, con- 

 nected with the article in the treaty of 1783, by which this 

 particular right was recognised, confirmed, and placed out of the 

 reach of an Act of Parliament, corroborates the argument in our 

 favour." 



I next refer to the British Counter-Case Appendix, p. 156. At this 

 page is part of the controversy between Mr. John Quincy Adams and 

 Mr. Russell in 1822. I commence reading at the fifth line from the 

 top: 



" The title by which the United States held those fishing rights and 

 liberties were the same. It was the possessory use of the right, or, 

 in Mr. Russell's more learned phrase, of the ' jus merce facultatisj at 

 any time theretofore as British subjects, and the acknowledgment by 

 Great Britain of its continuance in the people of the United States 

 after the treaty of separation." 



At p. 160 of the same volume, about one-third from the top, I 

 read : 



" The difference between our principle and that of the British was, 

 that they, considering the rights acknowledged as belonging to us 

 by the treaty, as mere grants, held them as annulled by war alone; 



