THE NORTHEAST COAST FISHERIES 493 



United States' citizens as a natural heritage of their former 

 allegiance to Great Britain (and being in no wise a conces- 

 sion from England) were by nature perpetual, and not liable 

 to revocation by war between England and the United 

 States, and therefore they had not been lost by the War 

 of 1812. Consequently, American fishery rights were not a 

 proper subject for discussion or negotiation at that time. 



The American commissioners went still farther to substan- 

 tiate their contention that the inshore fisheries of Canada 

 and the right to use Canadian shores for curing and drying 

 fish belonged to the United States as an inviolable right. 

 They maintained that as these liberties of fishing were not 

 created but merely defined and recorded by the third article 

 of the Paris treaty, that article, like all treaty clauses per- 

 taining to matters of partition or boundaries or territory, 

 was of that particular class of treaty articles which is perma- 

 nent and not affected by subsequent suspension of friendly 

 relations between the parties. Thus they considered their 

 position doubly strengthened, and beyond question correct. 



The arguments of Mr. Adams and the members of the 

 commission who supported him were clearly unsound. While 

 British colonists, the Americans certainly possessed all the 

 rights of other English subjects in British territorial waters, 

 and shared with them the obligations and duties which such 

 possession imposed. These obligations had called for the 

 protection of the fisheries against French aggressions, and 

 the American colonists answered the call as a duty, and per- 

 formed it well. After the war of independence, England 

 retained Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Labrador, and as 

 an inseparable condition, the jurisdiction over their marginal 

 belts of ocean; the Americans ceased to be British subjects, 

 and were at once relieved of all duties and obligations to 

 defend English territory or protect English waters, and in a 

 like manner they were certainly deprived of the privileges 

 of ownership over such alien territory and waters. Had the 

 contention of Mr. Adams been sound, the United States 

 with equal justice could have pressed a claim for possession 

 of Quebec or Halifax, for by the "common sword and min- 



