QUESTION ONE. 47 



tenure and on conditions exactly similar to those on which it was 

 insisted the United States had held and enjoyed the prior fishing 

 right, namely, that they should have for their people on the limited 

 coasts agreed on, a perpetual and indefeasible right in the fisheries 

 equal in every respect to that retained by Great Britain. The Amer- 

 ican plenipotentiaries undoubtedly accepted the language of the 

 treaty in that sense and the British plenipotentiaries undoubtedly 

 understood that the Americans accepted it in that sense. 



It is not to be supposed that the American negotiators would 

 have accepted the words in common without question if it had been 

 thought to introduce a condition not belonging to the former right. 

 Their instructions, their peremptory declarations to the British nego- 

 tiators accepted by the latter, and never receded from by the Ameri- 

 can negotiators, and their reports of the result of their labors to the 

 Secretary of State, all negative the possibility of such supine action 

 on their part. Nor is it to be assumed that the words were con- 

 sidered of special importance by the British negotiators for that or 

 for any other purpose, since they had omitted to employ them in their 

 first project. Their desirability suggested itself to the British ne- 

 gotiators, no doubt, when preparing the draft finally agreed on, as a 

 safeguard against any implication of an exclusive right in the 

 United States, and also to prevent the crowding out by American 

 fishermen of the British fishermen, of which Lord Bathurst had 

 complained and which was in effect the practice of an exclusive 

 fishery, and they were accepted by the American negotiators as proper 

 for that purpose, and also as desirable from their standpoint, for the 

 further purpose of fixing beyond question the equal measure and 

 quality of right in the fisheries for which they were contending. 



The evidence establishes that Great Britain from the commencement 

 of the negotiations, had not contemplated a denial, as to the limited 

 coasts she was willing to concede, of the full and unrestricted fishing 

 right carried by the treaty of 1783. Mr. Bagot's letters to Mr. 

 Monroe tendering a renewal of the American fishing rights, not only 

 mentioned no diminution of the former right, except with respect to 

 extent of coasts, but showed the most earnest desire to meet to the 

 fullest extent the views of the United States Government, of which 

 views he was fully informed. 6 



tf U. S. Counter Case, 9; U. S. Case, Appendix, 277-278. 

 6 U. S. Case, 36-42; Appendix, 290-291; 292-293. 



