QUESTION FIVE. 123 



tories, so on the other hand it was by no means her intention to inter- 

 rupt them in fishing anywhere in the open sea, or without the terri- 

 torial jurisdiction, a marine league from the shore, and, therefore, 

 that the warning given at the place stated, in the case referred to, 

 was altogether unauthorized. 



Mr. Adams had stated during this interview, that it was his inten- 

 tion to address a note to Lord Bathurst on the subject, and accord- 

 ingly wrote: 



Your lordship did also express it as the intention of the British 

 Government to exclude the fishing vessels of the United States here- 

 after from the liberty of fishing within one marine league of the 

 shores of all the British territories in North, America? 



Lord Bathurst also stated in a note to Mr. Adams in October, 1816 : 



It was not of fair competition that His Majesty's Government had 

 reason to complain, but of the preoccupation of British harbors and 

 creeks in North America by the fishing vessels of the United States." 



Mr. Bagot, minister for Great Britain at Washington, in a note to 

 Mr. Monroe, Secretary of State, in November, 1816, wrote : 



It is not necessary for me to advert to the discussion which has 

 taken place between Earl Bathurst and Mr. Adams. In the corre- 

 spondence which has passed between them you will have already 

 seen in the notes of the former a full exposition of the grounds upon 

 which the liberty of drying and fishing within the British limits as 

 granted to the citizens of the United States by the treaty of 1783 

 was considered to have ceased with the war, and not to have been 

 revived by the late treaty of peace.* 



And again, after designating portions of the coast to which access 

 would be allowed: 



It being distinctly agreed that the fishermen should confine them- 

 selves to the unsettled parts of the coast, and that all pretensions to 

 fish or dry within the maritime limits or on any other of the coasts 

 of British North America should be abandoned. 6 



Lord Castlereagh, His Majesty's principal secretary of state for 

 foreign affairs, replied, May 17, 1817, to a note from Mr. Adams : 



As soon as the proposition which Mr. Bagot was authorized in 

 July last to make to the Government of the United States for arrang- 

 ing the manner in which American citizens might be permitted to 

 carry on the fisheries within the British limits had been by them 

 declined/ 



Here is the measure of the British claim. Great Britain could 

 not permit the vessels of the United States to fish within the creeks 



British Case, Appendix, 65. * U. S. Case, Appendix, 290. 



6 U. S. Case, Appendix, 269. c U. S. Case, Appendix, 290, 291. 



U. S. Case, Appendix, 278. / U. S. Case, Appendix, 295. 



-S. Doc. 870. 01-3, vol 8 9 



