AKGUMENT OF ELIHU BOOT. 2037 



upon British subjects on matters concerning the fisheries on that part 

 01 the coast." 



The Marquis of Salisbury writes M. Waddington on the 5th July, 

 1 887, communicating the fact that he has received a formal assurance 

 from the Government of Newfoundland that the prohibition is not to 

 be enforced against French citizens. 



Another question arose between the French and British which 

 brought out some further correspondence, and, on the 23rd Novem- 

 ber, 1888, Lord Salisbury, writing to M. Waddington, in the letter 

 which appears at p. 324, states the view of Great Britain regarding 

 the French rights. He says, in the paragraph at the foot of the 

 page: 



" Her Majesty's Government are unable to assent to the claim ad- 

 vanced by your Excellency that the French Government must be sole 

 judge as to what constitutes such interference within the terms of the 

 British Declaration of 1783. 



" That is a question on which both Governments have an equal right 

 to form any opinion, and as to which Her Majesty's Government have 

 always endeavoured to meet the views of the French Government as 

 far as was possible consistently with the just claims of the Colony." 



That is the British view of the French rights, and that is the de- 

 scription of the rights as they existed, and as they were exercised prior 

 to the making of the treaty of 1818. The limit of Great Britain's 

 contention regarding them was not that she could regulate the French 

 rights that she repudiated but that France was not the sole judge 

 regarding the exercise of her rights, and that both nations had an 

 equal right to form an opinion as to what constituted interference. 

 These letters are long subsequent to the. treaty of 1818, but they fur- 

 nish an authentic statement of what the rights were, and a statement 

 by the head of the British Foreign Office, who had made the most com- 

 plete and exhaustive study of the subject of any of the statesmen of 

 Great Britain. 



It was well understood that the American rights, granted in the 

 same terms, were, in effect, the same rights. Perhaps I should 

 1233 here call attention to the relation of the British declaration of 

 1783 to the rights granted under the treaties of 1713 and 1763. 

 I have already said that the terms of the treaty of 1763 were the 

 same as the terms which contained the grant of the American right 

 " shall have the liberty " and so forth. The treaty with France of 

 1783 granted no new right, made no change in the right. It changed 

 the limits slightly, cutting off at one end and extending at the other. 

 On p. 11 of the British Appendix, in article 5 of the French treaty 

 of the 3rd September, 1783, is the provision: 



" His Majesty the Most Christian King, in order to prevent the 

 quarrels which have hitherto arisen between the two nations of Eng- 



