THE ARGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT. 



The exploitation of the fisheries about the Island of Newfoundland 

 and in the neighboring seas was among the first results of the dis- 

 coveries made in the North Atlantic Ocean by European voyagers at 

 the beginning of the sixteenth century. While the fishermen of other 

 nations during the early years frequented these waters, the assertion 

 of sovereignty over the adjoining continent and islands and their 

 partial occupation by Great Britain and France resulted in the prac- 

 tical monopoly of the fisheries by these two states. In the rivalry 

 for the mastery of North America, which resulted from this occupa- 

 tion of the coasts, the control of the fisheries played an important 

 part ; and in the wars between Great Britain and France, waged in 

 Europe over the successions to the Austrian and Spanish thrones, 

 the conflict in America took the form of a struggle to possess the 

 fisheries even more than one for territorial acquisition. For a century 

 a state of war prevailed between the two great colonizing powers, 

 with occasional periods of peace, Great Britain growing constantly 

 stronger and encroaching more and more upon the colonial possessions 

 of France, until the fall of Quebec brought to an end the contest and 

 the triumph of the British arms was complete. 



Thus the coasts and islands, adjacent to the great fishery, were, at 

 the outbreak of the American War for Independence in 1775, posses- 

 sions of Great Britain. Since the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, the 

 Island of Newfoundland had been British territory, although France 

 had reserved for the benefit of French subjects the right to fish along 

 certain portions of the eastern and northern coasts and to use the 

 strand for the purpose of drying and curing their fish. By the 

 treaty of 1763, following the overthrow of the French power in 

 America, the sovereignty of the neighboring continental coasts and 

 islands had passed from France to Great Britain. 



In accordance with its policy of monopolizing the colonial trade 

 for the interests of residents of Great Britain, the British Government 



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