1568 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



which were not then settled, and that on Newfoundland they had no 

 such right. And, therefore, the exclusion for purposes of drying 

 and fishing must be on the Labrador coast only in places that were 

 settled in 1783; and in Newfoundland only those that were settled 

 in 1818. He gets down to as close a discrimination as that. The 

 third paragraph of his letter reads : 



949 " With respect to the fishery which the citizens of the United 

 States are authorised to carry on upon the coast of Labrador 

 you will take care that it be carried on by them within the specified 

 limits in the same manner as previous to the late war." 



With regard to Newfoundland, in the previous paragraph, the only 

 restriction that he makes is that he is to take care that the Ameri- 

 cans do not 



" carry on trade or ... introduce articles for sale or barter." 

 not authorised by the convention, &c. But this matter of the greatest 

 importance, as is now contended the exclusions of Americans from 

 bays on the west coast had not occurred to his Lordship, and he 

 makes no such suggestion as that. It is reserved for ninety years, 

 for somebody to think of and put forward. 



To go on from there, Lord Bathurst's expectation that the Ameri- 

 cans would resort there was very shortly realised. In 1820 and 1821, 

 contrary to Sir James' feeling with regard to the matter, the Ameri- 

 can fishermen were in those very bays fishing. And it appears from 

 the fact that a French war vessel ordered them out of three bays, Port- 

 au-Port, and St. George's and the Bay of Islands. That matter was 

 immediately taken up with the French Government, and protest was 

 made to it ; and the rights of the Americans there were fully set out 

 and were fully discussed. It was also taken up with the British 

 Government, and the American Minister was instructed to demand 

 of Great Britain either that they protect us in the rights where our 

 vessels had been fishing, or else that they should give us an equivalent 

 somewhere else. The Counter-Case goes with very great minuteness 

 into these negotiations, both with France and with Great Britain. 

 It shows, I think, conclusively, that France receded from any claim 

 to exclude Americans there. The last communication was between 

 Mr. Gallatin, who was still in Paris, and knew all about this treaty, 

 and whose writing on the subject is most instructive, and Chateau- 

 briand, I think at any rate, the French Minister. And it was 

 terminated in this way: The French Minister said that instructions 

 had been transmitted to the Charge d'Affaires at Washington, " whose 

 representations to our Government, &c." 



So this was transmitted to Mr. Adams, then Secretary of State, 

 and the last that we learn of the matter is from Mr. Adams' diary, 

 when he asks the French Charge whether he has received those in- 

 structions or not; and the French Charge tells him that he has 



