AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1553 



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Mr. THOMSON. I was abont to say so. I trust that it was employed 

 in that sense. Here is a construction which the American nation can 

 put forward as the true construction of this treaty for the purpose of 

 obtaining the right to land on the Magdalen Islands, and the moment 

 the shoe pinches on the other side, they want to have the strict letter of 

 the law, and nothing else they then do not wish to go a single step 

 beyond that, though the moment when it becomes necessary to extend 

 their rights, they want to obtain a liberal construction of its terms. I 

 do not think myself that the United States can always claim to come 

 before any tribunal and say that they have, where it suits their purpose 

 to do so, been very liberal in their construction of treaties. In regard 

 to this very treaty itself, your Excellency and your Honors are aware, 

 that it certainly was an extraordinary construction on the part of the 

 United States Government when a duty was by them placed on the tin 

 packages in which free fish entered into the United States. I wish to 

 show what necessarily would be the result if the United States conten- 

 tion in this matter were right; but before doing so, it may be proper for 

 me to notice an argument which Mr. Foster drew from the Convention 

 of 1815, to which he called your attention, and part of which he read. 

 He says that inasmuch as the Convention referred to previous privi- 

 leges, which the United States had abandoned as against Great Britain, 

 and as those privileges must have been granted by the Treaty of 1794, 

 that therefore the war of 1812 did Dot abrogate those privileges, and 

 that this was a distinct admission on the part of Great Britain that the 

 treaty mentioned was not abrogated, and that the privilege conferred 

 by that treaty had been in no way interfered with. I altogether deny 

 the conclusion he thus draws ; but it is not now necessary for the purpose 

 of my argument to answer that statement, further than to say that the 

 mention of those privileges had reference to ordinary commercial rela- 

 tions existing between the traders of the two nations. These traders are 

 a well-known class of persons. They are merchants and ship-owners, 

 who send their ships to sea. These vessels have registers, clearances, 

 manifests, &c., for the purpose of showing the nationality of their ves- 

 sels, and these papers also show the voyage which the vessels have 

 undertaken to prosecute what they have on board and everything 

 about them. If they are on a trading voyage, this states their object. 

 Kut fishing-vessels have no such papers except registers. They come 

 without clearances, and if I understand the question at all, they are a 

 separate and distinct class of vessels, and as a separate and distinct 

 class they have always been treated by both nations. The 1st section 

 of the Convention of 1818 had reference to ordinary traders, and to them 

 solely. Let it be admitted, for the sake of argument, that Mr. Foster is 

 right in his construction of the effect of the language used in the Con- 

 vention of 1815 to which he refers though this I, in fact, utterly deny, 

 but still admitting that the words to which he has directed attention 

 in fact declared that the war of 1812 had no practical effect whatever 

 upon the Treaty of 1794 supposing that this was so, what do we find? 

 We find that in 1818 a distinct and separate treaty is framed, referring 

 to this very class respecting whose rights your Excellency and your 

 Honors are now sitting in judgment the fishermen engaged in the 

 prosecution of the fisheries of the United States. The Convention of 

 1818 was made altogether with reference to them; was it not! What 

 does the 1st section of that Convention of 1818 say I It is this : 



ART. 2. Whereas differences have arisen respecting the liberty claimed by the United 

 States, for the inhabitants thereof, to take, dry, and cure fish, on certain coasts, bays, 

 harbors, and creeks, of His Britannic Majesty's dominions in America, it is agreed be- 

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