QUESTION FIVE. 149 



Atlantic Ocean? It will be recalled and held in mind that, in the 

 negotiations for the unratified treaty of 1806, the United States had 

 endeavored to extend its jurisdiction in respect of a subject-matter 

 more readily conceded, that is, the movements and operations of 

 ships of war, and had been unable to obtain any concession greater 

 than an additional two marine miles from its shores; and that Mr. 

 Madison, then Secretary of State, and at this time President of the 

 United States, had been anxious to secure a provision which would 

 prevent the invasion of "the harbours or the chambers formed by 

 headlands " of the United States by the war-ships of Great Britain, 

 but had failed. 



THE REPORT OF THE AMERICAN COMMISSIONERS IN 1818. 



The American plenipotentiaries in their report, dated October 20, 

 1818, transmitting the treaty, observed as to the fisheries : 



We succeeded in securing, besides the rights of taking and curing 

 fish within the limits designated by our instructions, as a sine qua 

 non, the liberty of fishing on the coasts of the Magdalen Islands, and 

 of the western coast of Newfoundland, and the privilege of entering 

 for shelter, wood, and water, in all the British harbours of North 

 America. Both were suggested as important to our fishermen, in 

 the communications on that subject which were transmitted to us 

 with our instructions. To the exception of the exclusive rights of 

 the Hudson's Bay Company we did not object, as it was virtually 

 implied in the treaty of 1783, and we had never, any more than the 

 British subjects, enjoyed any right there; the charter of that com- 

 pany having been granted in the year 1670. The exception applies 

 only to the coasts and their harbours and does not affect the right 

 of fishing in Hudson's Bay, beyond three miles from the shores, a 

 right which could not exclusively belong to, or be granted by, any 

 nation. * * * 



It will also be perceived that we insisted on the clause by which the 

 United States renounce their right to the fisheries relinquished by 

 the convention, that clause having been omitted in the first British 

 counter-project. We insisted on it with a view (1) of preventing 

 any implication that the fisheries secured to us were a new grant, 

 and of placing the permanence of the rights secured and of those 

 renounced precisely on the same footing. (2) Of its being expressly 

 stated that our renunciation extended only to the distance ot three 

 miles from the coasts. This last point was the more important, as 

 with the exception of the fishery in open boats within certain har- 

 bors, it appeared, from the communications above mentioned, that 

 the fishing-ground, on the whole coast of Nova Scotia, is more than 

 three miles from the shores; whilst, on the contrary, it is almost 

 universally close to the shore on the coasts of Labrador. It is in that 



