128 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



soon as the same or either of them shall be settled, it shall not 

 be lawful for the said fishermen to dry or cure fish at such 

 settlements, without a previous agreement for that purpose with 

 the inhabitants, proprietors or possessors of the ground." 1 



The rights thus secured for the American fishermen 

 were generous beyond expectation. It was little in the 

 nature of a concession for Great Britain to grant the 

 ' ' right ' ' of fishing on the different banks to the inhabitants 

 of the United States. The possession of those rights can 

 never be monopolized, any more than the navigation of 

 the ocean can be. But the granting of the liberty to take 

 fish on all the coasts of the British provinces in America 

 equally with British fishermen was more than our states- 

 men had hoped to secure; with this liberty of taking all 

 kinds of fish went the privilege of curing the same in cer- 

 tain parts of the different provinces another concession 

 that the American statesmen had little grounds for de- 

 manding. When it is considered how the French were 

 excluded from the privileges of the shore fisheries of these 

 colonies by the treaty of 1763, it is a matter of considerable 

 wonder that the Americans were granted, by the treaty of 

 1783, privileges as an independent government almost 

 equal to what they had enjoyed as colonies of Great Britain. 

 Great credit should be given to our negotiators, and to 

 Adams in particular, for the granting of such satisfactory 

 terms by the British government. The dictatorial attitude 

 that Adams assumed during part of the negotiations, his 

 evident transgression of his instructions as an accredited 

 commissioner to make terms for a treaty of peace, and his 

 bold stand for "the fisheries or no peace,'* undoubtedly 

 were the means for securing the insertion of the third 

 article *in the treaty of 1783. 



i Snow, p. 65. 



