88 ARGUMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN. 



Undoubtedly, the pretensions that were yielded to by those treaties 

 have long since disappeared. Nobody believes now that Great 

 Britain has any exclusive jurisdiction over the Gulf of St. Lawrence 

 or the Banks of Newfoundland, but at the time when the United 

 States asserted their independence and when the treaty was formed 

 between the United States and Great Britain, such were the claims 

 of England, and those claims had been acquiesced in by France and 

 by Spain. That explains the reason why it was that the elder Adams 

 said he would rather cut off his right hand than give up the fisheries 

 at the time the treaty was formed, in 1783, and that explains the 



reason why, when his son, John Quincy Adams, was one of the 

 100 Commissioners who negotiated the Treaty of Ghent, at the end 



of the war of 1812, he insisted so strenuously that nothing 

 should be done to give away the rights of the citizens of the United 

 States in these ocean fisheries. Those are the fisheries which existed 

 in that day, and those alone. The mackerel fishery was unknown. 

 It was the cod-fishery and the whale-fishery that called forth the 

 eulogy of Burke over a hundred years ago. It was the cod-fishery 

 and me whale-fishery for which the first and second Adams so stren- 

 uously contended; and, inasmuch as it was found impossible in the 

 treaty at the end of the war of 1812 to come to any adjustment of 

 the fishery question, all mention of it was omitted in the treaty. The 

 treaty was made leaving each party to assert his claims at some 

 future time. And so it stood; Great Britain having given notice 

 that she did not intend to renew the rights and privileges conceded 

 to the United States in the Treaty of 1783, and the United States 

 giving notice that they regarded the privileges of the Treaty of 

 1783 as of a permanent character, and not terminated by the war of 

 1812; but no conclusion was arrived at between the parties. What 

 followed? The best account of the controversy to be found is in a 

 book called ' The Fisheries and the Mississippi,' which contains John 

 Quincy Adams's letters on the subject of the Treaty of Ghent and the 

 convention of 1818. 



"Mr. Adams in that book says that the year after peace was de- 

 clared. British cruizers warned all American fishing-vessels not to 

 approa-ch within sixty miles from the coast of Newfoundland, and 

 that it was in consequence of this that the negotiations were begun 

 which led to the Convention of 1818; and the Convention of 1818, 

 in the opinion of Mr. Adams, conceded to the United States all that 

 they desired. He believed and asserted that Great Britain had 

 claimed, and intended to claim, exclusive jurisdiction over the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence and over the Banks of Newfoundland, and he con- 

 sidered and stated that the Treaty of 1818, in setting at rest for ever 

 those pretensions, obtained for the United States substantially what 

 they desired." 



Great Britain has continuously exercised exclusive jurisdiction 

 over the bays on these shores. It is important to note in this connec- 

 tion that immediately after the making of the treaty, Great Britain 

 passed the statute 59 Geo. Ill, cap. 38, by which it was made an 

 offence for any person, after requisition by the Governor, to refuse to 

 depart from any of the bays, creeks, or harbours on the non-treaty 

 shore. Referring to this statute, the Judicial Committee of the 



