14 CASE OF THE UNITED STATES.* 



THE CONTEOVERSY AS TO THE EFFECT OF THE WAR OF 1812 UPON" 

 THE FISHERIES ARTICLE OF THE TREATY OF 1783. 



Negotiations for the Treaty of Ghent. 



No question with respect to the fisheries article of the treaty of 

 1783 between the United States and Great Britain or the use of 

 these fisheries under it arose until the close of the War of 1812 when 

 Great Britain took the position in the negotiations leading up to the 

 treaty of peace signed at Ghent on December 24, 1814, that the pro- 

 visions of the second clause of that article, relating to the inshore or 

 coast fisheries, were abrogated by that war and that the future use of 

 such fisheries by the United States would depend upon new treaty 

 stipulations. The United States refused to assent to this proposition 

 and contended that there was no justification for discriminating 

 against this particular portion of the treaty; and that, like any 

 other provision of the treaty which was intended to secure to the 

 United States the continued enjoyment of pre-existing rights upon 

 the partition of the British North American Empire at the close of 

 the Revolution, this particular provision survived the War of 1812, 

 and consequently that no declaration or provision in the new treaty 

 was required to continue it in force. 



At the opening conference in these negotiations on August 8, 1814, 

 the British Plenipotentiaries who were Lord Gambier, Henry Goul- 

 bum and William Adams, after enumerating the subjects proposed 

 by them for discussion and after asking whether the American 

 Plenipotentiaries were instructed to enter into negotiations on these 

 subjects, stated that — 



before they desired any answer they felt it right to communicate the 

 intentions of their Government as to the North American Fisheries, 

 viz: that the British Government did not intend to grant to the 

 United States gratuitously the privileges formerly granted by treaty 

 to them of fishing within the limits of the British Sovereignty and 

 of using the shores of the British territories for purposes connected 

 with the fisheries.'^ 



In response to this inquiry, the United States Plenipotentiaries 

 who were John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jona- 

 than Hussell and Albert Gallatin, informed the British Plenipo- 



a Appendix, p. 242. 



