16 AEGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



18 shore " most vigorously as against the French. United States 

 vessels having assumed a right to fish upon them, French 



cruisers intervened, and thereupon a protracted diplomatic corre- 

 spondence ensued. Failing to convince the French Government, the 

 United States turned to Great Britain, requesting it to assert its 

 sovereignty over the locus in quo. The following extracts will show 

 the position assumed by the United States. Ri a letter from Mr. 

 Rush (United States Minister at London) to Mr. Gallatin (United 

 States Minister at Paris) of the 10th October, 1822, Mr. Rush quoted 

 from a report of a Committee : 



" The committee are decidedly of opinion, that by the words of the 

 treaty," (of 1783, between the United Kingdom and France) " your 

 Majesty continues to be sole Sovereign of the Island of Newfound- 

 land." (British Case, App., p. 102.) 



And Mr. Rush added: 



" This is our argument. It is that upon which foreign nations will 

 stand, and we in particular, under our convention with England of 

 1818." 



The same position was assumed by the United States towards 

 France. In a long letter to Viscount Chateaubriand (14th March, 

 1823), Mr. Gallatin argued against the exclusive character of the 

 French claim, and added : 



"Whatever may be the extent of the rights of France on that 

 coast, whether exclusive or not, they are only those of taking and 

 drying fish. The sovereignty of the Island of Newfoundland, of 

 which she had till then possession, was expressly ceded by the 

 treaty of Utrecht to Great Britain, subject to no other reservation 

 whatever but that of fishing as above mentioned, on part of the coast. 

 The jurisdiction and all the other rights of sovereignty remained 

 with and belonged to Great Britain and not to France. She has not 

 therefore that of doing herself on that coast, what may be termed 

 summary justice, by seizing or driving away vessels of another na- 

 tion, even if these should in her opinion infringe her rights. Such 

 acts of authority which may be lawful when performed within the 

 acknowledged jurisdiction, become acts of aggression when commit- 

 ted either on the high seas or anywhere else without the jurisdiction 

 of the Power that permits them." (British Case, App., p. 105.) 



In a letter from Mr. John Quincy Adams, as United States Secre- 

 tary of State, to Mr. Rush (United States Minister at London), Mr. 

 Adams said: 



" Two distinct questions arose from these incidents : one, upon the 

 pretension of France to the exclusive right of fishing on that 



19 part of the coast of Newfoundland; and the other, upon the 

 right of French armed vessels to order away vessels of the 



United States from places within the exclusive jurisdiction of Great 

 Britain." (British Case, App., p. 107.) 



