THE ADAMS-BATHURST CORRESPONDENCE. 29 



the enjoyment of the fisheries on the main ocean, the common pos- 

 session of both nations, and the same enjoyment within a small por- 

 tion of the special jurisdiction of Great Britain, are stii:iulated in the 

 article, and recognized as belonging to the people of the United 

 States. He considers the term riglit as importing an advantage to 

 be enjo^'ed in a place of common jurisdiction, and the term Uherty 

 as referring to the same advantage, incidentally leading to the bor- 

 ders of a special jurisdiction. But, evidently, neither of them im- 

 ports any limitation of time. Both were expressions no less familiar 

 to the understandings than dear to the hearts of both the nations 

 parties to the treaty. The undersigned is persuaded it Avill be readil}^ 

 admitted that, wherever the English language is the mother tongue, 

 the term llherhj^ far from including in itself either limitation of time 

 or precariousness of tenure, is essentially as permanent as that of 

 Hght^ and can, with justice, be understood only as a modification of 

 the same thing; and as no limitation of time is implied in the term 

 itself, so there is none expressed in any part of the article to which it 

 belongs. The restriction at the close of the article is itself a confir- 

 mation of the ]:)ermanenc3^ which the undersigned contends belongs 

 to every part of the article. The intention was, that the people of 

 the United States should continue to enjoy all the benefits of the 

 fisheries which they had enjoyed theretofore, and, with the exception 

 of drying and curing fish on the island of Xewfoundland, all that 

 British subjects should enjoy thereafter. Among them, was the 

 liberty of drying and curing fish on the shores, then uninhabited, 

 adjoining certain bays, harbors, and creeks. But, when those shores 

 should become settled, and thereby become private and individual 

 projDerty, it was obvious that the liberty of drying and curing fish 

 upon them must be conciliated with the proprietary rights of the 

 owners of the soil. The same restriction would apply to British 

 fishermen ; and it was precisely because no grant of a new right was 

 intended, but merely the continuance of what had been previously 

 enjoyed, that the restriction must have been assented to on the part 

 of the United States. But, upon the common and equitable rule of 

 construction for treaties, the expression of one restriction imj^lies 

 the exclusion of all others not expressed; and thus the very limita- 

 tion which looks forward to the time when the unsettled deserts 

 should become inhabited, to modify the enjoyment of the same lib- 

 ert}^ conformably to the change of circumstances, corroborates the 

 conclusion that the whole purport of the compact was permanent 

 and not temporary — not experimental, but definitive. 



That the term right was used as applicable to what the United 

 States were to enjoy in virtue of a recognised independence, and the 

 word liberty to what they were to enjoy as concessions strictly de- 

 pendant on the treat}^ itself, the undersigiied not only cannot admit, 

 but considers as a construction altogether unfounded. If the United 

 States would have been entitled, in virtue of a recognised iyidepend- 

 ence^ to enjoy the fisheries to which the word rights is applied, no 

 article upon the subject would have been required in the treat^^ 

 "NMiatever their right might have been. Great Britain would not have 

 felt herself bound, without a specific article to that effect, to acknowl- 

 edge it as included among the appendages to their independence. 

 Had she not acknowledged it, the United States must have been 

 reduced to the alternative of resigning it, or of maintaining it by 



