1868 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



Then further: 



" We stated this principle in general terms to the British plenipo- 

 tentiaries, in the note which we sent to them with our pro jet of the 

 treaty, and we alleged it as the ground upon which no new stipula- 

 tion was deemed by our Government necessary to secure to the people 

 of the United States all the rights and liberties stipulated in their 

 favour by the treaty of 1783." 



That is to say, the liberties which comprised bays within the juris- 

 diction of Great Britain. Now comes the important letter that I 

 want to read of the 25th December, 1814, which Mr. Gallatin writes 

 to Mr. Monroe. This is the first letter about renunciation. It is in 

 the United States Case Appendix, p. 261. The Treaty of Ghent was 

 not successful in so far as the fisheries were concerned; the parties 

 could not come to an agreement. England had asked for a renuncia- 

 tion of the American rights. She had said : " You must abandon the 

 American rights, at all events, over some part of the area." Mr. 

 Gallatin says that is what the Americans would not consent to. The 

 passage to which I desire to call attention begins at p. 260: 



"On the subject of the fisheries within the jurisdiction of Great 

 Britain,"- 



1130 Which meant over bays 



' we have certainly done all that could be done. . . . But 

 we have done all that was practicable in support of the right to those 

 fisheries; first, by the ground we assumed, respecting the construc- 

 tion of the treaty of 1783; secondly, by the offer to recognize the 

 British right to me navigation of the Mississippi ; thirdly, by refus- 

 ing to accept from Great Britain both her implied renunciation of 

 the right of that navigation and the convenient boundary of 49, 

 for the whole extent of our and her territories west of the Lake of the 

 Woods, rather than to make an implied renunciation, on our part. 

 to the right of America to those particular fisheries." 



That shows that the renunciation is being asked for when the 

 Treaty of Ghent is being completed and is objected to. That is the 

 first step. This is the year 1814, the Treaty of Ghent is concluded, 

 nothing is arranged about the fishery, and we come to 1815. There is 

 just one passage, in passing, to which I wish to direct attention. It is 

 in the report of Mr. Russell in the British Counter-Case Appendix, at 

 p. 152, on the whole subject, and I do not know that the Tribunal need 

 trouble to refer to it, because there is only one sentence that I might 

 pick out by way of illustration. He is speaking of the powers of the 

 British Sovereign over his subjects, and he says: 



" The British sovereign was always competent to regulate and re- 

 strain his colonies in their commerce and intercourse with each other, 

 whenever and hpwever he might think proper, and had he forbid his 

 subjects in the province of Massachusetts, to fish and dry and cure 

 fish in the bays, harbours, and creeks of Labrador, which, by the way, 



