QUESTION THREE. 107 



letter of December 31, 1816, from Mr. Bagot to Mr. Monroe, tender- 

 ing a renewal of the fishing right on the coast of Labrador and on 

 the south coast of Newfoundland. Mr. Bagot said in that letter : 



In consenting to assign to their use so large a portion of His 

 Majesty's coasts, His Royal Highness is persuaded that he affords 

 an unquestionable testimony of his earnest endeavor to meet, as far 

 as is possible, the wishes of the American Government, and prac- 

 tically to accomplish, in the amplest manner, the objects which they 

 have in view. The free access to each of these tracts can not fail to 

 offer every variety of convenience which the American fishermen 

 can require in the different branches of their occupation ; and it will 

 be observed that an objection which might possibly have been felt 

 to the acceptance of either of the propositions, when separately 

 taken, is wholly removed by the offer of them conjointly; as, from 

 whatever quarter the wind may blow, the American vessels engaged 

 in the fishery will always have the advantage of a safe port under 

 their lee. a 



The same fact is also evident from the statement of the American 

 plenipotentiaries to the plenipotentiaries of Great Britain, reported 

 in the letter of Messrs. Robinson and Goulburn to Viscount Castle- 

 reagh in September, 1818, as follows : 



They added that while they could not but regard the propositions 

 made to the Government of the United States by Mr. Bagot as alto- 

 gether inadmissible, inasmuch as they restricted the American fishing 

 to a line of coast so limited, as to exclude them from this fair par- 

 ticipation, they had nevertheless been anxious in securing to them- 

 selves an adequate extent of coast, to guard against the incon- 

 veniences which they understood to constitute the leading objection 

 to the unlimited exercise of their fishing. With this view they had 

 contented themselves with requiring a further extent of coast, in 

 those very quarters which Great Britain had pointed out, because it 

 appeared to them that the very small population established in that 

 quarter, and the unfitness of the soil for cultivation rendered it 

 improbable that any conduct of the American fishermen in that 

 quarter could either give rise to disputes with the inhabitants, or to 

 injuries to the revenue. 6 



The same fact is also evident from the protocols of the conferences 

 of the negotiators of the treaty of 1818. At the fifth conference held 

 October 6. 1818, the British negotiators presented the draft of an 

 article relating to the fisheries in which were stipulations against 

 fishing in rivers, setting nets across the mouths of rivers, carrying 

 on trade with British subjects, and, in order to guard against smug- 

 gling, a stipulation against having on board American fishing vessels 



U. S. Case, Appendix, 293. B British Case, Appendix, 86. 



92909 S. Doc. 870. 61-3, vol 8 8 



