240 



in the convention of 181 B, and remains the Anicncan suie ol tiif> 

 argument to this day. When, in the summer of 1815, British arm- 

 ed cruisers warned all American fishing vesfeels on the coast of No- 

 va-Scotia to a distance of sixty miles tVom the shores, they very 

 significantly proved what the British government had meant by their 

 side of the argument, and in entering upon the negotiation, imme- 

 diately afterwards and in consequence of that event, the Secretary 

 may be allowed to speak with confidence when he says, that had it 

 not been for the principle assumed by the commissioners at Ghent, 

 he could not have taken the first step in it — he could not have al- 

 leged a cause of complaint — sixty miles was largely within the ex- 

 tent of exclusive British jurisdiction, as to those fisheries, if our li- 

 berties in them had been abrogated by the war ; and the American 

 minister in England would have had no more right to complain of 

 this warning, or of any exclusion by British cruisers of American 

 fishing vessels from any part of the Newfoundland fisheries, than of 

 the seizure of an American vessel in the port of Liverpool for a 

 manifest violation of the British revenue laws. 



It was upon the rights and liberties, in these fisheries, as recog- 

 nised in the treaty of 1783, as unimpaired by the war of 1812, and 

 as unabrogated, although no stipulation to confirm them had been 

 inserted in the treaty of Ghent, that the American minister in Lon- 

 don did complain of this warning and interdiction of the American 

 fishermen. He recurred immediately to the principle asserted by 

 the American commissioners at Ghent, at the proposal ot Mr, Clav- 

 and consigned in their note of 10th November, 1814. On that he 

 rested the continued claimof the United States to all the rights and 

 liberties in the fisheries, recognised in the treaty of 1733, and en- 

 tered upon a full discussion of the question with the British go- 

 vernment. The result of that discussion, which was continued in 

 the negotiation of the convention of 1818, appears in the first arti- 

 cle of that convention. The editorial article in the Argus, says that 

 this convention restricts our fishing liberties, and says 7iot a -word 

 about the navigation of the Mississippi. The convention restricts 

 the liberties in some small degree; but it enlarges them probably 

 in a degree not less useful. It has secured the whole coast fishery 

 of every part of the British dominions, except within three marine 

 miles of the shores, with the liberty of using all the harbours, 

 for shelter, for repairing damages, and for obtaining wood and wa- 

 ter. It has secured the full participation in the Labrador fishery ; 

 the most important part of the whole, and that of which it was at 

 Ghent peculiarly the intention of the British government at all 

 events to deprive us. This fishery cannot be prosecuted without 

 Ihe use of the neighbouring shores, for drying and curing the fish : 

 it is chiefly carried on in boats, close into the shores, and the loss 

 of it, even if the rest had been left unaffected by the same princi- 

 ple, would have been a loss of more than half of the whole interest. 

 The convention has also secured to us the right of drying and 

 curing fish on apart of the island of Newfoundland, which bad not 



