AWARD OF THE FISHERY COMMISSION. 1737 



fishing in their waters and the admission of Canadian fish and fish-oil 

 duty-free in the markets of the United States, is equivalent to what 

 Great Britain obtains by the treaty. 



The questions now to be inquired into are : 1st. Is the British claim 

 proved, and to what extent ? /2d. Have the United States rebutted the 

 evidence adduced on behalf of Her Majesty, and have they proved a 

 set-off to any and what extent ? 



Wherever Americans have expressed a disinterested opinion about 

 the gulf and other Canadian fisheries, they have never underrated their 

 value, as they have in this case, where they are called upon to pay for 

 using them. 



At a time when no diplomatist had conceived the idea of laying the 

 claim of the United States to these fisheries, on the heroic accomplish- 

 ments of our army and navy from the old British colony of Massachu- 

 setts, as we have heard from the eloquent and distinguished United 

 States counsel, before this Commission at a time when, emerging 

 from war, fit occasions offered themselves for reminding Great Britain 

 of what she owed to the bravery of Massachusetts boys, who had 

 planted her flag in the place of the French colors over this Dominion 

 in these times the right of fishing in those waters had accrued to the 

 American people from no other origin than a concession by treaty, and 

 no other basis than the uti possidetis. When another commission is 

 appointed by England and France to settle the differences which exist 

 between them in reference to the Newfoundland fisheries, I doubt 

 much if the political oratory of our American friends could not, with a 

 little change of tableaux and scenery, be turned to some account such 

 as the French reminding the English people of the miseries endured by 

 Jacques Cartier during the winter he spent at Sable Island on his way 

 to Newfoundland, Louisburg, and Quebec to bring European civilization 

 among the aboriginal tribes. 



Although it is hard to vouch for anything in such matters of fancy, 

 I doubt much whether France will recall the heroic deeds of her Cai tiers 

 and Champlains to make herself a title to these fisheries. She will not 

 make such light work of her treaties as our friends have done. 



In the line of historical titles adopted by our learned friends, the 

 Scandinavians would wipe out even the claim of Columbus, for three or 

 four centuries before the discoveries of the great Genoese navigator, 

 some of their fishermen had visited profitably the Banks of Newfound- 

 land. My learned friends should be as much alarmed at the conse- 

 quences of their fiction, as Mr. Seward was when, dealing with the head- 

 land question in the Senate, page 9 of the British brief, he pointed out 

 that the construction put upon the word bay, by those who confined them 

 to bodies of water six miles wide at their mouth, would surrender all the 

 great bays of the United States. 



While listening with pleasure to the narration of the great achieve- 

 ments of the Massachusetts boys, we could not understand why they 

 shed their blood for those poor and unproductive fisheries. We looked 

 a little at history, we searched for a confirmation of the pretensions of 

 our friends, and we lound a very different account, in the writings of 

 their great statesmen, both as to the basis of their claim and as to the 

 value of the fisheries. 



John Quiucy Adams, who represented with others, as has already 

 been mentioned, the United States, at the Treaty of Ghent, in J 

 collected information. He applied to Mr. James TJoyd, and this gentle- 

 man, writing from Boston, on the 8th of March, 1S15, communicated to 



