226 THE TREATY OF WASHINGTON. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE FISHERIES. 



HISTORY OF THE QUESTION. 



The Treaty of Independence was, I repeat, a vir- 

 tual partition of the British Empire iu America be- 

 tween the Metropolis and the Thirteen United Col- 

 onies. It was not a treaty founded on militarij pos- 

 session : for the Colonies had no such possession save 

 along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, and Great 

 BritaiVi occupied several posts north and west of 

 the Ohio and on the Great Lakes. The theory of the 

 treaty was to recognize the Colonies as sovereign ac- 

 cording to their political limits as fixed by charter 

 and by the public law^ of England. 



In conformity with this theory, the treaty stipu- 

 lates that the United States shall continue in the en- 

 joyment of the coast fisheries, as follows : 



" Article III. It is agreed that the people of the United States 

 shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of ev- 

 ery kind on the Grand Bank, and on all the other banks of New- 

 foundland ; also in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and at all other 

 places in the sea where the inhabitants of both countries used 

 at any time heretofore to fish; and also that the inhabitants of 

 the United States shall have liberty to take fish of every kind 

 on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen 

 shall use [but not to dry or cure the same on that island] ; and 



