2 COMMISSION OF CONSERVATION 



On Nov. 25th — five days before the treaty was signed — the British 

 commissioners proposed that "the citizens of the United States shall 

 have the liberty of taking fish of every kind on all the banks of New- 

 foundland and also in the Gulph of St. Lawrence ; and also to dry and 

 cure fish on the shores of the Isle of Sables and on the shores of any of 

 the unsettled bays, harbours and creeks of the Magdalen Islands, in the 

 Gulph of St. Lawrence, so long as such bays, harbours and creeks shall 

 continue and remain unsettled ; on condition that the citizens of the said 

 United States do not exercise the fishery, but at the distance of three 

 leagues from all the coast belonging to Great Britain, as well those of the 

 coMt.inent as those of the islands situated in the Gulph of St. Lawrence. 

 And as to what relates to the fishery on the coast of the Island of Cape 

 Breton out of the said gulph, the citizens of the said United States shall 

 not be permitted to exercise the said fishery, but at the distance of 

 fifteen leagues from the coasts of the Island of Cape Breton." 



This proposal was unacceptable to the United States commissioners, 

 and Adams, who was specially charged with the care of negotiations 

 respecting the fisheries, made a counter-proposal, which was virtually 

 the same as the article incorporated in the treaty. 



After the war of 1812-14, which was terminated by the Treaty of 

 Ghent, the British Government maintained that as these 'liberties' were 

 only privileges to be exercised in British waters and territories, they had 

 been terminated by the war. When the negotiators met at Ghent, the 

 British plenipotentiaries stated that "they felt it incumbent upon them 

 to declare that the British Government did not deny the right of the 

 Americans to fish generally or in the open seas ; but the privileges form- 

 erly granted by treaty to the United States of fishing within the limits of 

 British jurisdiction and of landing and drying fish on the shores of the 

 British territories would not be renewed without an equivalent." 



As a result of these differences, the treaty contained no mention of 

 the fisheries. 



In the following year an American fishing vessel was warned by the 

 commander of H.M.S. Jaseur not to come within sixty miles of the Brit- 

 ish coast. Lord Bathurst disavowed this extreme claim, but stated that 

 the Government of Great Britain "could not permit the vessels of the 

 United States to fish within the creeks and close upon the shores of the 

 British territories." Adams, then minister of the United States in Lon- 

 don, contended that the Treaty of 1783 "was not, in its general pro\ns- 

 ions, one of those which by the common understanding and usage of 

 civilized nations, is or can be considered as annulled by a subsequent-war 

 between the same parties. ' ' 



Lord Bathurst replied: 



"To a position of this novel nature Great Britain cannot accede, 



