1726 AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 



The British note of the 22d of December contained the following 

 declaration (extract from British note of 22d December, p. 50) : 



[So far as regards the substitution proposed by the undersigned, for the last clause of the 

 th Article, as it was offered solely with the hope of attaining the object of- the amendment 

 tendered by the American plenipotentiaries at the conference of the 1st instant, no difficulty 

 will be made in withdrawing it. The undersigned, referring to the declaration made by them 

 at the conference of the 5th of August, that the privileges of fishing within the limits of 

 the British sovereignty, and of using the British territories for purposes connected with 

 the fisheries, were what Great Britain did not intend to grant without equivalent, are not 

 desirous of introducing any article upon the subject.] 



And the Americans thns replied (extract from the American note, 

 2->th December, 1814, pp. 54, 55) : 



At the first conference on the 8th of August, the British plenipotentiaries had notified to 

 ns, that the British Government did not intend, henceforth, to allow to the people of the 

 United States, without an equivalent, the liberty to fish, dry and cure fish, within the ex- 

 clusive British jurisdiction, stipulated in their favor, by the latter part of the third article of 

 the Treaty of peace of J783. And, in their note of the 19th of August, the British plenipo- 

 tentiaries bad demanded a new stipulation to secure to British subjects the right of navigat- 

 ing the Mississippi; a demand which, unless warranted by another article of that same 

 Treaty of 1783, we could not perceive that Great Britain had any colorable pretense for 

 making. Our instructions had forbidden us to suffer our right to the fisheries to be brought 

 into discussion, and had not authorized us to make any distinction in the several provisions 

 of the third article of the Treaty of 1783, or between that article and any other of the same 

 treaty. We had no equivalent to offer for a new recognition of our right to any part of the 

 fisheries, and we had no power to grant any equivalent which might be asked for it by 

 the British Government. We contended that the whole Treaty of 1783 must be con- 

 sidered as one entire and permanent compact, not liable, like ordinary treaties, to be abro- 

 gated by a subsequent war between the parties to it; as an instrument recognizing the 

 rights and liberties enjoyed by the people of the United States as an independent nation, 

 and containing the terms and conditions on which the two parts of one empire had mutually 

 agreed thenceforth to constitute two distinct and separate nations. In consenting, by that 

 treaty, that a part of the North American continent should remain subject to the British 

 jurisdiction, the people of the United States had reserved to themselves the liberty, which 

 they had ever before enjoyed, of fishing upon that part of the coasts, and of drying and cur- 

 iug fish upon the shores ; and this reservation had been agreed to by the other contracting 

 party. We saw not why this liberty, then no new grant, but a mere recognition of a prior 

 rifcht, always enjoyed, should be forfeited by a war, any more than any other of the rights 

 of our national independence, or why we should need a new stipulation for its enjoyment 

 more than we needed a new article to declare that the King of Great Britain treated with us 

 as free, sovereign, and independent States. We stated this principle in general terms, to the 

 British plenipotentiaries, in the note which we sent to them with our project of the treaty ; 

 and we alleged it as the ground upon which no new stipulation was deemed by our government 

 necessary to secure to the people of the United States all the rights and liberties stipulated 

 in their lavor by the Treaty of 1783. No reply to that part of our note was given by the 

 ush plenipotentiaries ; but, in returning our project of a treaty, they added a clause to 

 ie of the articles, stipulating a right for British subjects to navigate the Mississippi. With- 

 ut adverting to the ground of prior and immemorial usage, if the principle were just that 

 83, from its peculiar character, remained in force in all its parts, notwith- 

 tanding the war, no new stipulation was necessary to secure to the subjects of Great Britain 

 t to navigate the Mississippi, as far as that right was secured by the Treaty of 1783 ; 

 the other hand, no stipulation was necessary to secure to the people of the United 

 liberty to fish, and to dry and cure fish, within the exclusive jurisdiction of Great 

 the> asked the navigation of the Mississippi as a new claim, they could not 

 Id grant it without an equivalent ; if they asked it because it had been 

 they must recognixe the claim of the people of the United States to the 

 nc] to dry and cure fish in question. To place both points beyond all future 

 i majority of us determined to offer to admit an article confirming both rights ; 

 d at the same time to be silent in the treaty upon both, and to leave out alto- 

 ticle defining the boundary from the Lake of the Woods westward. They 

 Jthi* last proposal, but not until they had proposed an article stipulating for a 

 fti m .gotiRt.on for an equivalent to be given by Great Britain for the navigation of the 

 "iippi, nd by the _1 nited States for the liberty as to the fisheries within the British 

 article was unnecessary, with respect to its professed object, since both 

 wl J "T V 1 - i,u m i T r ' Without il - to ^g^ate Pn these subjects if they pleased, 

 it although iu adoption would have secured the boundary of the 49th degree 

 iewrt of the Lake of the Woods, because it would have been a formal abandonment, 

 nr part, of our cla.m to the liberty as to the fisheries recognized by the Tieaty of 1783. 





