QUESTION SIX. 231 



Newfoundland, but clearly recognized that they were to have the 

 same rights there as under the treaty of 1783. Defining American 

 rights under the treaty of 1818, he used the words " upon the coast 

 of Labrador " as synonymous with the words " coasts, bays, harbours 

 and creeks " of Labrador used in the treaty. He pointed out a dis- 

 tinction between the use of " the southern part of the coast of New- 

 foundland " which he said " stands in some degree upon a different 

 footing " and is " a new privilege conferred for the first time by this 

 convention " (of 1818) and said it " is more limited than that as- 

 signed to them [Americans] on the coast of Labrador." 



But the distinction made by him is not this highly attenuated 

 definition of the word "coast" The difference pointed out is that 

 Americans had the right to cure fish under the treaty of 1783 in the 

 bays and harbors of Labrador then unsettled. 



Sir Robert Bond, in his speech of April 7, 1905, in which this 

 claim of exclusion from the bays of the treaty coast was advanced 

 for the first time, made the same statement concerning the continu- 

 ance of former rights: 



The House will not fail to observe that the ancient right of fish- 

 ing enjoyed by the fishermen of the United States, in common with 

 the subjects of Great Britain, was continued in force by the treaty of 

 1818, in the first place along a certain portion of the coast of New- 

 foundland, viz: On the southern coast extending from Cape Ray to 

 Rameau Islands, and on the western and northern coast from Cape 

 Ray to Quirpon Islands; and, in the second place, along the coasts, 

 bays, harbors and creeks of the Labrador coast, from Mount Joly on 

 the southern coast of Labrador to and through the Straits of Belle 

 Isle, and thence northwardly indefinitely. 



Previous to the War of 1812 Americans had the unquestioned right 

 to take fish of every kind in the bays, harbors, and creeks of the 

 coast of Newfoundland, as of all other of His Majesty's dominions 

 in North America. Lord Bathurst clearly understood that this right 

 was preserved to them by the treaty of 1818 on certain specified 

 portions of that coast. For that reason he drew no distinction 

 between the coasts of Labrador and the coast of Newfoundland. Sir 

 Robert Bond, however, nearly ninety years later discovered a dis- 

 tinction, of which Lord Bathurst, who directed the British negotia- 

 tion, was not aware. 



U. S. Counter Case, Appendix, 414, 420. 



