98 THE AKGUMENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



in the said article" Article I of the treaty of 1818. Its position 

 is, and always has been, that the treaty of 1818 neither conferred 

 nor denied commercial privileges; and hence that during the period 

 when Great Britain denied all nations the privilege of commercial 

 intercourse with her colonies, neither American fishing vessels nor 

 American vessels of any other character resorting to British-North 

 American waters were entitled to touch and trade at colonial ports. 

 When the policy of non-intercourse had been discontinued, and trad- 

 ing vessels of the United States were permitted intercourse with the 

 colonies, there was nothing in the treaty of 1818 which debarred fish- 

 ing vessels from commercial privileges. The United States, there- 

 fore, by granting its fishing vessels the right to touch and trade, 

 could confer on them, in addition to the treaty right to fish, the 

 commercial privileges which Great Britain, at a period subsequent 

 to 1818, allowed to all American vessels. The distinction is obvious 

 between a contention that commercial privileges were affirmatively 

 granted fishing vessels by the treaty of 1818 and a contention that 

 there is nothing in that treaty intended to except fishing vessels from 

 commercial privileges whenever Great Britain's policy should allow 

 other nations commercial intercourse with her colonies. The United 

 States has never asserted the first, but has always consistently asserted 

 the second contention. 



The liberties referred to in the fisheries article, the exercise of 

 which is the subject of Question Three, are but two, namely, (1) the 

 liberty to take fish on certain coasts, and (2) the liberty to dry and 

 cure fish on certain coasts.* 



These liberties carry everything necessarily incidental to the right 

 to fish, and to dry and cure fish; and what is incidental may some 

 time require ascertainment, but it is not pertinent to any Question be- 

 fore this Tribunal. It is clear that these liberties do not include gen- 

 eral commercial privileges. Commercial privileges for its fishing 

 vessels on the treaty coasts, so far as the United States has ever 

 claimed them, grow out of acts of the two Governments outside of 

 the treaty of 1818, and have no relation to it; and, whenever Great 

 Britain has attempted to find some principle of exclusion of fishing 

 vessels in the treaty of 1818, the United States has invariably denied 

 that any such principle could be found in that treaty. 



U. S. Counter Case, 55. 



