484 AMERICAN DIPLOMATIC QUESTIONS 



was one of the conditions of peace with England, and their 

 courage in ignoring French interference, though done in 

 open defiance of instructions from Congress, secured the 

 excellent foundation upon which have rested all the fishery 

 rights and privileges the United States has since enjoyed in 

 Canadian waters. To John Adams especial credit is due. 

 His steadfastness of purpose inspired his colleagues to share 

 with him the risk of disobeying legislative commands in so 

 important a matter, and of assuming the responsibility 

 incurred in slighting the French court at a critical moment 

 when foreign sympathy could ill be spared. 



The discussions of the commissioners concerning the fish- 

 eries were long and tedious, and the opposition of the Eng- 

 lish to any satisfactory form of concession in relation to- 

 them was only gradually and with great difficulty overcome. 

 Had the fishery interest been the only one involved, the 

 matter might have been settled after a comparatively easy 

 diplomatic struggle, but to retain the fisheries deprived 

 the American negotiators of capital to draw upon in pay- 

 ment for the other equally valuable concessions which they 

 demanded. 



On one occasion, when the phraseology of the fishery 

 clause was under discussion, an English commissioner objected 

 to the word " right " of fishing instead of liberty, as a term 

 obnoxious to his countrymen, to which Mr. Adams replied : 

 " Gentlemen, is there or can there be a clearer right ? In 

 former treaties that of Utrecht and that of Paris France 

 and England have claimed the right to use the word. When 

 God Almighty made the banks of Newfoundland, at three 

 hundred leagues distant from the people of America, and at 

 six hundred leagues distant from those of France and Eng- 

 land, did He not give as good a right to the former as to- 

 the latter ? If Heaven, at the creation, gave a right, it is. 

 ours at least as much as it is yours. If occupation, use,, 

 and possession give a right, we have it as clearly as you. If 

 war and blood and treasure give a right, ours is as good as- 

 yours. We have been continually fighting in Canada, Cape 

 Breton, and Nova Scotia for the defence of this fishery, and. 



