2178 NORTH ATLANTIC COAST FISHERIES ARBITRATION. 



"It will also be perceived " 



They are speaking of the treaty which they transmitted, just signed 

 on that same day. 



" that we insisted on the clause by which the United States renounce 

 their right to the fisheries relinquished by the convention, that clau-e 

 having been omitted in the first British counter-project. AYe insisted 

 on it with the view 1st. Of preventing any implication that the fish- 

 eries secured to us were a new grant, ana of placing the permanence 

 of the rights secured and of those renounced precisely on the same 

 footing. 2d. Of its being expressly stated that our renunciation 

 extended only to the distance of three miles from the coasts." 



And the Tribunal will perceive that they had been taking the 

 British Government at its word. They had there this letter of Lord 

 Bathurst to Mr. Baker; both sides had it. And the Tribunal has here 

 the evidence that the American Commissioners understood it as I 

 have been presenting it to the Tribunal, of its being expressly stated 

 that our renunciation extended only to the distance of 3 miles from 

 the coast : 



'* This last point was the more important, as, with the exception 

 of the fishery in open boats within certain harbors, it appeared, from 

 the communications above mentioned, that the fishing-ground, on 

 the whole coast of Xova Scotia, is more than three miles from the 

 shores; whilst, on the contrary, it is almost universally close to the 

 shore on the coasts of Labrador." 



There the Tribunal will see they use the word "coasts" and 

 "shores". con vertibly. and they understand the declaration of the 

 Government of Great Britain to Mr. Baker, which draws the line 

 between the first and the second parts of the treaty of 178:]. the line 

 between the rights that continued and the rights that ended, to be 

 drawing the line at 3 marine miles from the coast, using that as 

 equivalent to 3 marine miles from the shore. 



We are now in a position to understand that there was no incon- 

 sistency at all in what Lord Bathurst told Mr. Adams about the 

 Baker letter. The first interpretation of the Baker letter that we 

 have is in Mr. Adams' report of his conversation with Lord Bathurst 

 immediately after the letter was written. It is to be found in the 

 United States Appendix, at p. 265. Mr. Adams is writing to his 

 chief, Mr. Monroe, the Secretary of State, under date of the I'.uh 

 September, 1815. Of course Mr. Adams had made the complaint 

 about the " Jaseur" incident, and he wa> anxious to know what the 

 British Government had done about it. and he went to Lord Bathurst 

 to learn, and was told that Lord Bathurst had sent an instruction to 

 the British representative in Washington, Mr. Baker, and he asked 

 him what it was. I read from about two-thirds down the p. 265:-- 



"I asked him if he could, without inconvenience, state the sub- 

 stance of the answer that had been sent. He said, certainly: it had 



