283 



Our Ptntosmen have been accused, on the otlier side of the Atlnntic, 

 of a hniited knowledge of international law, but never of sacrificing 

 our interests : in truth, the standing charge against them is, that they 

 overreach, and drive too hard bargains. But, on the supposition that 

 the right of fishing has been abandoned in the bays of British America, 

 those who negotiated, and those who confirmed, the convention of ISIS, 

 allowed themselves to be most scandalously duped, and never subse- 

 quently discovered the fraud. 



Contemporaneous exposition is always authoritative to some extent ; 

 and in this case, I consider it is as decisive as are the essays of Hamilton, 

 Madison, and Jay, in interjMcting the constitution. 



The crown lawyers, who had no part in concluding tlio treat}" before 

 us, cannot be allowed to interpret it for our government, when we have 

 the declarations of the minister who opened the conferences, and the 

 ministers who signed the treaty itself. From this position we are not 

 to be driven. What, then, is the testimony of Messrs. Gallatin and 

 Rush ? On the very day on which they affixed their signatures to the 

 convention, (October 20, ISIS,) they wrote to the Secretary of State, 

 (who was no oth(u- than John Quincy Adams) that " We succeeded in 

 securing, besides the rights of taking and curing fish within the hmits de- 

 signated by our instructions, as a sine qua non, the liberty of fishing on the 

 coasts of the Magdalen islands, and of the western coast of Newfound- 

 land, and the privilege of entering for shelter, Avood, and water, in all the 

 British harbors of North America. Both were suggested as important 

 to our fisheries, in the communications on that subject, which were 

 transmitted to us with our instructions. To the exception of the ex- 

 clusive rights of the Hudson's Bay Company, we did not object, as it 

 was virtually implied in the treaty of 17S3, and we had never, any 

 more than the British subjects, enjoyed any right there; the charter of 

 that company having been granted in the year 1670. The exception 

 apphes only to the coasts and harbors, and does not affect the right of 

 fishing in Hudson's bay beyond three miles from the shores — a right 

 which couJd not exclusively belong to, or he granted by, any nation. 



"It will also be perceived that we insist on tlie clause by which the 

 United States renounce their right to the fisheries, relin(]uished by the 

 convention, that clause having been omitted in the first British counter 

 jjrojet. We insisted on it with the view — 1st. Of preventing an impli- 

 cation that the fisheries secured to us were a new grant, and of placing 

 the permanence of the rights secured, and of those renounced, precisely 

 on the same footing. 2d. Of its being e.i press! i/ stated, that our renunciu- 

 tion extended only to the distance of time niile.s from the coast. This last 

 point was the more important, as, with the exception of the fisheries in open 

 boats within certain harbors, it apiuared from the communications above men- 

 tioned that the fishing ground on the wh<de coast (f Nova Scotia is more 

 than thne milfs from the shore; whilst, on the contrary, it is ahuost uni- 

 versally close to tlic shore on the coasts of Labrador. It is in thut 

 point of vieiv that the privilege of entering the ports for shelter is useful, and 

 it -is hoped that, with that provisinn, a, considerable jjortion of the actual 

 fisheries on that coaH (of Nova Scotia) will, notwithstanding the renuncia- 

 tion, be preserved." 



But if, as the crown lawyers contend, we caunijt fish in a single bay 



